It Was 50 Years Ago Today

Marsha Albert 15 year old Marsha Albert watched Walter Cronkite’s nightly TV newscast on Dec. 10, 1963, in her home in Silver Springs, Maryland, and wrote a letter that night that changed music history.

Earlier that day Walter Cronkite decided to air a segment in his nightly show that he had been sitting on for three weeks.  He’d only been the anchor of the CBS nightly news for a year (after a distinguished journalism start in WWII and radio) and he was helping to shape the still new TV phenomenon of evening broadcast news.  Later he was called “the most trusted man in America” for the way he wrote and delivered news all through the 60’s and 70’s.

But that night he simply decided to air a story he had intended to run on Nov. 22.  Not breaking news, obviously, but a piece about a British band, the Beatles, who were gaining in popularity in their native land.  The four minute piece showed some concert footage from Bournemouth, screaming young women fans and a few sound bites from the lads.  It was actually aired on the CBS morning news Nov. 22.

But events in Dallas that day cancelled all regular news programming, and the piece sat on the shelf.  Like the slow return to normal newscasts following 9/11, Cronkite didn’t think it seemly to show a grieving nation these foreign happy boys singing a very new kind of music, and girls a little out of control in ecstasy.

Until Dec. 10.  In a fascinating essay Martin Lewis, who knew Cronkite and helped organize the 2004 40^th anniversary of the so-called British Invasion of the US by the Beatles, recounts how Cronkite decided that day that “the nation recovering from tragedy might be warmed by a light-hearted story.”

Marsha Albert saw the piece (do 15 year olds still watch the evening news?) and liked the music.  So much that she sat down and wrote a letter to her local radio DJ and asked, “Why can’t we have music like that in America?”  (Do 15 year olds still write letters?)

Carroll James and Marsha AlbertDJ Carroll James of station WWDC had seen the show too and agreed.  He didn’t know that Brian Epstein had finally convinced Capitol Records to release a Beatles album in the US in late January and had persuaded Ed Sullivan to book the unknown Beatles on his popular Sunday night variety show Feb. 9, 1964.  James just wanted to please a listener and boost his ratings.  So he contacted the local office of BOAC airlines, who got a flight attendant (then called a stewardess) to get a copy of “I Want To Hold Your Hand” in London and bring to DC two days later.

James invited Marsha Albert to the station to introduce the very first playing of the song in the US, Dec. 17. You can hear her intro here. The response was immediate; listeners in DC and then NY and Chicago demanded more and more play time for this new band.  Capitol Records heard of the groundswell and decided to release the record a month before they had planned.  They got the record in stores within a week and put the marketing campaign into overdrive.  Kids over Christmas vacation had time and money to buy the record and listen to it.  In the first two weeks after release Capitol Records sold over one million copies of “I Want To Hold Your Hand.”

The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan ShowThe Beatles with Ed SullivanWe usually think that the Beatles’ US success began with their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.  But actually, by the time the Beatles plane landed at the newly renamed JFK airport (Dec. 24^th 1963 its name was changed, a month after Kennedy’s assassination) on Feb. 7, with millions of records already sold in the US,  they were already a media sensation of unimaginable proportions.  The Ed Sullivan Show appearance, originally booked as just one of many new musicians they had weekly, was now a hugely anticipated event. An unknown band would not have gotten 73 million Americans to tune in.  But on Feb. 9, that’s how many folks watched, 40% of the nation’s population.  (In today’s terms that would have been 123 million viewers in the US alone.)  The crime rate dropped dramatically because everyone (robbers and victims) was home watching.  Talk to any American over 55 and they remember that night.

I know I do.  It was, in Ed Sullivan’s inimitable phrase, “a really big shew.” I was 13, another screaming hormone-driven fan, my bedroom covered with Beatles pictures.  My favorite was George.

50 years later, we’ve been inundated, and treated, for the past few weeks with Beatles tributes, all over press, radio and film.  Great old stories, old songs, old clips.   And new stories, to me at least, like the one about Marsha Albert.

So thanks John, Paul, George and Ringo for coming to the US and waking us up and turning us on.  Thanks, Walter, for airing that show.  And thanks, Marsha, for wanting more of that kind of music and writing your letter.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Copyright © 2014 Deborah Streeter