Ringo Starr reveals his thoughts on the Beatles’ “Now and Then”
Ringo Starr talks to USA TODAY’s Melissa Ruggieri about his “brothers” in the Beatles and the band’s final song, “Now and Then.”
The Beatles were viral before it was viral.
After playing on the “Ed Sullivan Show” in front of an incredible 45% of American households in February 1964, the band embarked on a chaotic tour of North America in August. The highlight of the tour was a legendary show on August 23 at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, 60 years ago today.
“It’s hard to understand what it was like before the internet, but there was something called word of mouth,” says Beatles historian Martin Lewis, who will mark the anniversary with a discussion at the Philosophical Research Society on Friday. “The Beatles became successful because friends told friends. They said, ‘Have you heard that? It’s incredible.'”
USA TODAY recently spoke with Lewis for the podcast “The Excerpt” (available Aug. 25) about how the Beatles went from virtual unknowns in the U.S. in 1963 to worldwide icons in 1964. Here are some highlights from his conversation with Dana Taylor (edited for length and clarity).
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Question: What was happening in the American music scene when the Beatles performed at the Hollywood Bowl in 1964?
Martin Lewis: The audience was still in the 1950s. They were still in that gray Eisenhower decade, but the Beatles were in 3D Technicolor… just boisterous and optimistic and brimming with their own energy, with the joy of music. And America desperately needed that authenticity and that expression of youthful vitality.
When they took the stage at the Hollywood Bowl, the reaction from the fans was incredible. You couldn’t really hear the music because the fans were screaming so loudly. Of course, later on, the Beatles got louder than the screams.
What role did The Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein, play in the show selling out within four hours and the Beatles’ overall rapid success?
On Christmas Day 1963, practically no one in America had heard of the Beatles. And yet 45 days later, when the “Ed Sullivan Show” was broadcast, 73 million people tuned in. How did that happen? The main reason was that Brian Epstein got them a contract to appear on the “Ed Sullivan Show” at a time when they didn’t even have a recording contract in America.
He tried to convince Capitol Records to sign the Beatles by saying, “Hey, I’ve got them on ‘Ed Sullivan.'” The record was released the day after Christmas, which was crucial because the kids were home, so instead of hearing the record on the radio maybe two or three times a day, they were hearing it ten times a day.
When the Ed Sullivan Show aired on February 9, 1964, they were already number 1. They took what was already exploding and simply blew it into the stratosphere.
If you think about the wonderful enthusiasm for Taylor Swift – a great artist – it was 100 million times that. No disrespect to Taylor Swift and her incredible fans, but the energy of the Beatles and their success without the internet was amazing.
That hysteria died down decades ago, but the Beatles’ music is still alive. Do you think the Beatles would surprise the Fab Four of 1964?
It would have surprised the Beatles if they had known that their music would endure so long. But if we take a broader perspective, this should not surprise us.
We don’t say, “Oh, that Shakespeare, he’s 400 years old, we don’t want any of his plays.” Or we don’t say about the Marx Brothers, “Oh, that’s so ’30s, that’s not funny.” It’s either good or it’s not good. And what the Beatles did was timeless because it appealed to the noblest part of the human spirit, the part that longs to make yourself and the world a better place.
The laws of celebrity physics are: you come out, you’re successful for a few years, and then you lose control. Every new generation discovers the Beatles and says, “Wow, this stuff is amazing.”
The songwriting team of John Lennon and Paul McCartney led to an evolution of the rock’n’roll sound. What did each of them contribute to the Beatles’ distinctive sound?
Most artists got better at the same things. They played guitar better, they sang better. Their lyrics were a little more interesting. The Beatles weren’t just about getting a little better. They wanted to push the boundaries of what you could do. Their approach to songwriting, the themes, the lyrics, the sophistication of all the elements was just unimaginable beforehand.
There was no way Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly, as great as they were, could ever achieve what the Beatles did. They could only work with the building blocks they had at their disposal.
Which Beatles TV shows are a must-watch today? What will you be listening to or watching to celebrate this 60th anniversary moment?
The song that says it all is the song “All You Need Is Love,” which they recorded and performed live in 1967. Four hundred million people live on the world’s first satellite connection.
It is a message to all of us to turn to our better angels. They pass the torch to us, and we in turn pass it to the next generation. That is the message for all time. All you need is love. Of course, we need a little more than that. But love is a start.
