John Grindrod: How the Beatles played, on Sullivan, on Latham and on Elm

First Posted: 5/5/2014

Thus far this year, much has been written about the first moments on American soil of the most influential musical force of my generation on this, the 50th, anniversary of the landing of Pan Am Flight 101 in New York in 1964, less than three months after an American president was shot dead in Dallas.

The chaos began immediately on Friday, Feb. 7, as 3,000 mostly frantic young fans were waiting at the airport for the group dubbed the Fab Four, but, for me, the rest of the family and the rest of the nation, we had to wait until that Sunday’s Ed Sullivan Show to get our first look at the group that would steal much of the musical thunder away from the last big thing, named Elvis.

And, if the Beatles phenomenon were a geometric shape, for me, it would be a triangle, comprised of how the Fab Four played in Sullivan’s studio at 1697 Broadway, how they played in the Grindrod home on Latham and how they played in my St. Charles Elementary on Elm.

As for the experience in the studio, for the 703 in the audience (out of 50,000 who requested tickets), I’m pretty sure it was sheer bedlam. However, it was something few would ever forget. For those who may have forgotten, the Beatles opened with “All My Loving” and followed that with Paul McCartney’s solo “Till There Was You.” Three more songs followed — “She Loves You,” “I Saw Her Standing There,” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”

Now, many of those 703 in attendance are still with us, especially given the fact that many weren’t much older than I was as I lay on the floor that Sunday night. Alice Kestin, a little more than a year older than I was, at 14, was in the audience and told Parade Magazine’s Bruce Spizer and Bill Hewitt that she and her best friend were so close to the stage that she felt a sense of intimacy, as if she were in kind of a bubble.

Well, from my vantage point, if it were indeed a bubble, it was a very loud bubble, at least that’s what I heard. Despite the annoyance of the girls’ screaming, I enjoyed the new sound as did my sister, Joan. As for my mother, I really don’t remember a specific reaction. My guess is, as a Canadian by birth and a naturalized citizen, she was more than willing to give these new young Brits a chance. After all, their Queen was still her Queen.

Now, my father was a different story. Dad had a bit more of a preconceived notion of how people, especially young people, were to look and act, or, in the Beatles’ case, sing. It wasn’t that he was against music or musicians per se. After all, there were enough Frank Sinatra albums that I heard growing up, emanating from our hi-fi ever to say he was.

But, it was these particular musicians with whom he almost immediately took opposition. Of course, he didn’t like the hair. Now, such a hair style would be tame, but in the early 1960s, the hair was much longer than his son would ever be allowed to wear. Gee, had he known that I was destined to do my best “Archie” comic book-Mr. Weatherbee impression, day in and day out for much of my adult years, I wonder if he’d have cut me a little slack and said, “Jack, while you’ve got it, let’s let you grow it.” Ehh, that’s probably doubtful.

I also recall, he didn’t like the falsetto “Oooo’s” or the “Yeah, yeah, yeahs” that peppered the lyrics.

As I recall, the only thing he did like was that the four lads all sported suits and ties that night. As for the ripple effect his reaction to the Beatles would have on Joan and me, it was immediate. An edict was articulated almost before the final chords were struck of “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” And, that edict was that, while he couldn’t control if we would ever hold a Beatles record in our hands at say a party or in a record store, one thing was certain. We wouldn’t be holding one in his house or putting it on his turntable.

As for how the Beatles played on Elm Street in St. Charles, well, the reaction was overwhelmingly positive among my classmates. The girls loved them, and while we boys feigned indifference when they were around, no doubt, our reaction to all that screaming and fainting we saw the girls on TV do, we secretly loved them too.

In those days long before there was an Internet to surf for song lyrics, we learned the lyrics to each song by repetition from our AM radio bands, and we tested each other constantly on those lyrics.

So, here we are, a half century later, with half of the Lads from Liverpool now deceased, and the music of my youth continues to be a major player in the entertainment industry. From what biographers have conjectured, it just may be that boundless sense of optimism that their music exudes that has allowed the music to endure.

Back in the beginning, when McCartney or George Harrison would ask the band’s alpha dog, John Lennon, where they were all going, John would respond, “To the toppermost of the poppermost.” And, now, a half century later, that appears still to be true, even if my father’s toppermost of the poppermost would never include them.