February 9 in Context

A must-have for Beatlemaniacs is The Complete Historic Ed Sullivan Shows featuring the Beatles and other Artists. Everyone's seen the Beatles break into "All My Loving" after Sullivan's intro is drowned out by screams. But to appreciate how genuinely revolutionary the Beatles were, you need to see them in the show business context of their time. This DVD includes everything--even commercials for Lipton tea and Excedrin--but most important, it illustrates what show business was like in 1964, and how different the Beatles were. Here, for example, from the first show on February 9, is comedian and impressionist Frank Gorshin:



With his cheesy tuxedo and slicked-back hair, Gorshin's right out of the Borscht Belt (though he was only seven years older than Ringo and John).

Here's Georgia Brown and the cast of Oliver!--including the future Monkee Davy Jones--singing "I'll Do Anything":



Brown was also only seven years older than the oldest Beatles, but a world away in show business terms: she belonged to the tuxedoed, sequined, flowing headdress tradition of the music hall gently parodied by the Beatles at the beginning of this clip from A Hard Day's Night:



Forty-six years ago today, something genuinely new and breathtakingly modern emerged. The modern world exploded with the suddenness of a genie escaping from a bottle, never to be put back.