Here is the link to Steve's radio essay on the Beatles stimulated by attending the performance of Rain, a Beatles recreation band, at Elliott Hall. The essay aired on WBAA on March 23.
Disclaimer: In this essay Steve recalls that I missed the Beatles first appearance on Ed Sullivan because of a babysitting job. I don't remember that, but my recollections of the Beatles on Ed Sullivan may be of later performances (there were several). In a subsequent conversation with Steve he recalls me calling the house and having him up the receiver so I could hear. He also thought he recalled that the babysitting was on Soldiers Home Road, which would have been the Bains, who were among my regular clientele. This has the ring of truth to it and it makes a better story than me simply gaping at our black-and-white tv along with the rest of America in slack-jawed amazement. (The only questionable element is that Ed Sullivan aired on Sunday night at 8 p.m.; Sunday was a "school night," so it would be a little unusual for me to be out plying my trade. But stranger things have happened.) What I do recollect about that fist appearance of the Beatles was that the next day at school many of the boys had converted to combing their hair straight down onto their foreheads. Sadly, I was not astute enough to anticipate this move and showed up at junior high untransformed--coiffed with a part on the right and varnished with Brylcreem. Or, did I miss the boat because I hadn't actually seen them perform but only heard tinny snippets through the the telephone receiver and had been entirely ignorant the dramatic impact of the swirling bangs had on teenaged girls?
Below is the Beatles first performance on Ed Sullivan, courtesy of YouTube (where you can see several others). It looks pretty familiar, but it also looks a lot like all the other Ed Sullivan appearances. I also note that it was on February 9, 1964, three days after my fourteenth birthday.
