Mills, McCartney and Powell

April 19, 2001 - Washington D.C. 
 

Making himself laugh

 

The Red Coats are Coming

It appears only Paul and Ringo are wearing Beatle boots

 

Life With The Beatles (Part 3) - Bewitched, Bothered, Besieged (1964)

 

Life with the Beatles

Bewitched, Bothered, Besieged

By George Harrison

Liverpool Echo

February 27, 1964

    With the sound of that wonderful Washington Coliseum audience's fantastic reception still making their ears tingle, Ringo put it this way, "I wanted it to go on and on. I could feel the screams going right through me."

    

     The Beatles rushed back to the hotel and changed into more formal clothes for the so called charity ball at the British Embassy. It wasn't really a ball in the accepted sense. Two or three times each year the ambassador's wife, Lady Ormsby-Gore (She is now Lady Harlieh, as her husband, Sir David Ormsby- Gore has since succeeded to the family title.) has arranged dance parties for the Embassy staff and their friends, British and American.

     As usual on this occasion, she charged only $5 (about £1 15s) a ticket, which included buffet and drinks.  And she devoted the proceeds to one of her favorite good causes, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The 200 tickets she had optimistically printed were snapped up immediately as they became available. A veteran member of the staff told me, as he looked at the packed dance floor. "We've never had such a crowd in all the years I've been here, not even for Sir Winston."

     As the night wore on, things became more merry than one would normally associate with a staid Embassy party, and many of the younger guests let their hair down. The Beatles found themselves constantly being cornered by dinner jacketed men and their evening gown wives demanding, rather than requesting autographs. John Lennon in an aside to me commented, "This lot must have big families. I've signed hundreds of autographs, but everyone says, 'oh, it's not for me. Of course,  I couldn't care less, old boy, but my children asked me to get you to sign. You know?'"

     Hemmed in at every turn by jostling men and women to such an extent that sometimes they could scarcely raise glasses to their lips, John, Paul, Ringo, and George took it all in good part, although once or twice, I detected signs of anger in John when he thought they were being pushed around too much. On each occasion, it was Ringo who stepped in quickly to act as peacemaker. Then he too became somewhat annoyed as one of the laughing guests milling around him suddenly produced a small pair of nail scissors and clipped off a bit of his hair at the back of his neck. 

    Since we have been back to England, I have noted that the foreign secretary in a house of commons replied to questions, has denied that this incident occurred. You have my word for it, Mr. Butler, it most certainly did! Several of us saw it. If you need any confirmation, just ask Ringo. 

    The Embassy party followed the excitement of the Coliseum left the boys tired out, and they slipped on next morning until drug out of their beds to make a quick trip around Washington's historic places for photographs to be taken. They had decided to return by train to New York, although the snow had ceased and the aircrafts were able to use Washington airport in the normal way. But as I knew, that February 12 was Abraham Lincoln's birthday celebrated by all New York schools closing. I thought I'd do better to fly on ahead of them to see what was happening in the city, where the boys were to perform two concerts in the evening at the famous Carnegie Hall.

     I arrived in New York about noon and made for our venerable Plaza Hotel. It was in  a state of siege. The biggest mob of teenage girls we had so far encountered surrounded it. A sergeant told me, "The kids started arriving just after sun up, and they've been pouring in ever since. It's a school holiday, of course, and that explains it."

     Reinforced police barricades confided most of the fans to the square opposite the Plaza's main entrance. Every window overlooking the Plaza entrance was filled with onlookers for this was New York's strangest free spectacle for years, and nobody wanted to miss it. 

    Then the news was announced on the radio that The Beatles were returning by train due to Pennsylvania Station at 4pm. This was the starting signal for a rush by hundreds of girls aboard busses for Penn Station. They were soon joined by more than 1000 others who had flocked back to the station from LaGuardia Airport, where they had been awaiting the boys expected arrival by plane. Railway officials flashed an emergency call for help to the city police, and 100 men, including mounted officers, were transferred at once to the rail terminal to deal with the situation which threatened to get completely out of hand when the Beatles train drew in.

     Every gate was closed bearing access to the platform. Bewildered passengers off incoming trains were shepherded by police to other exits, and all the time, the girls kept up an air splitting, high pitched shriek, which numbed your senses. The four targets for all this commotion were in a special coach at the rear of the Washington train, waiting the word that it would be safe for them to get out. 

    Paul told me later, "We could hear the yelling before the train even stopped. What a row!" At last, officials decided they could probably smuggle the lads out by way of another platform. The coach was  shunted off but the girls were not easily fooled. They spotted the ruse and dashed around to the new exit. Hefty policemen went down under the mad rush by something like 2,000 screaming kids intent on getting near their idols. John, Paul, George, and Ringo started running and  following the railway officials in a dash for a mail bag service entrance.

     With the mob chasing full pelt after them, they got through the gate, which was slammed behind them and locked,stopping the girls in their tracks. Hastily, the boys piled into two taxis that made a rendezvous en route to the hotel with their own hired limousine in which they finished the journey to the Plaza. Their arrival fired off the excited waiting youngsters into a surge through the barricades to reach the car. The sweating, heaving police just managed to hold on long enough for the Beatles to get a few seconds of grace and escape into the hotel before the crowd reached the entrance doors, which were promptly bolted. Inside the Plaza, security guards hired by the management, patrolled every quarter, winkling out kids who had sneaked through the blockade somehow or another. 

    And so we moved across the to historic Carnegie Hall, opening its doors for the first time in 75 years to the beat from Mercyside. The Beatles were smuggled out of the Plaza via the kitchen and an underground employee entrance leading to a quiet street unwatched by fans. The taxi whipped them to the stage door, taking by surprise the 2,000 girls and boys without tickets who were waiting at both ends of the street ready to pounce, expecting them to arrive in their black limousine. The girls gave the battered taxi no more than a glance and the boys were out of it and inside the stage door before they were spotted.

     The towering height of Carnegie Hall's vast, 5,000 seat auditorium, seen from the stage with the balconies rising way up until folks sitting there look like midgets, is a pretty overpowering sight. I know for I was sitting on the stage behind the Beatles who kept turning around to shout quaint comments in my direction throughout the show. A couple of 100 customers who had paid top price of around two guineas for the privilege were also occupying the stage seats. You can also add half a dozen of those inevitable police and security men. They were presumably on the spot, in case we got up to mischief.

     Somehow, out in the packed, huge hall, the Beat-chicks really had a ball. They yelled, they yah- hooed, they squealed. They hardly ever seemed to sit down, and they hung along the plush balconies, hand painted signs reading, "We Love You" and "Beatles stay forever". 

    An elderly Carnegie Hall official said to me, "Do your audiences in England behave like this when the Beatles appear?" I assured him that they did, and he shook his head, sighing, "Extraordinary, truly extraordinary! Never seen anything like it."

     Afterward, the promoter of the show, Theater Three productions, announced that they would offer the Beatles a return engagement in a Carnegie Hall next September. In the audience and enjoying all the excitement were such interesting people as Mrs. Nelson Rockefeller, wife of New York's millionaire governor, with her two children, film actress Lauren Bacall, and Sybil Burton, ex wife of actor Richard Burton.  She admitted  to being a Beatle fan from way back.

     After the show, Mrs. Rockefeller enthused, "It was one of the most extraordinary things I've ever seen. I loved it. They were marvelous." But women newspaper comments Inez Robb, who has a very big following for her syndicated articles, wasn't so happy. She wrote, "This nation, hard pressed on all sides, cannot long endure the squealing syndrome that seizes U.S. adolescents and the presence of the Beatles. Beatlemania, rather than the Beatles, must be destroyed, root and branch if we are to survive. The glassy eyed adenoidal girls always on the verge of knee jerk hysteria, who compromised the Beatles camp followers and television audience could not possibly be interested in this British chamber quartet. They were only interested in an excuse for lapsing into the squealing syndrome with its accompanying spastic movements. I refuse to have anything to do with a 'Stamp out the Beatles' movement. What is imperative is a project to stamp out American adolescence", she fumed.

Life With the Beatles (Part 2) : Their Finest American Hour (1964)

 

Life With the Beatles

The Finest American Hour

By George Harrison

Liverpool Echo

February 26, 1964

    For days before the Beatles landed in New York, newspapers and radio commentators, particularly the disc jockeys, had been telling the city's breathlessly excited teenage population that the boys would be staying at the dignified, exclusive Plaza Hotel overlooking Central Park. So, hours before the touchdown of our jet plane at the John F Kennedy International Airport, youngsters, mostly schoolgirls, began arriving to stand behind the police barriers erected opposite the hotel's main entrance on swanky Fifth Avenue. 

    By the time the news of the tumultuous scenes which greeted the Beatles at the airport had been flashed by radio transmitters to the Central Police Department in Manhattan, the crowd of kids besieging the plaza was well over 1,000 strong. Suddenly, New York woke up to the fact that the earlier warnings given by disc jockeys and newspapers of a possible teenage invasion bringing chaos to the city were not merely idle forecasts to be ignored. 

    The police force of 50 already on duty by the Plaza was obviously not going to be sufficient to contain those enthusiastic girls once their idols showed up. Hastily mounted police were drafted to the scene, followed by more than 100 men called off their ordinary beats. A solid ring of New York's finest men in blue surrounded the Plaza, and it was as well as they did, for when eventually the Beatles battled their way through the milling masses of wildly screaming girls at the airport, and in a four-car cavalcade with police escorts, went racing along the 15-mile motorway to Manhattan, the excitement among the waiting crowds was already at a fever pitch. 

    Then the cars carrying the four mop-top head lads from Liverpool swung into the police encircled enclosure of the Plaza's front door, and the lid flew off all the pent-up emotion. The crowd pushed over the barriers and broke the chain of locked arm cops in one gigantic surge, which carried them right across the road to the cars. The Mounted Police horses were almost useless in such a crush; they could scarcely move. As each car pulled up, the boys inside had their doors already open and somehow, aided by hefty no-nonsense police, John, Paul, George, and Ringo managed to scramble out and up the hotel steps without the deliriously thrilled mob reaching them. But it was a near thing, and although they had a good laugh about it a few minutes later, as they stood in a front window and waved to the yelling youngsters packed in the square below them, they looked a bit shaken. 

    George Harrison was the palest of them all, but in his case, it wasn't just the aftermath of their narrow escape from what might have been some severe man, or rather, girl handling from the excited fans. On the plane, George had complained of a sore throat. No sooner were we settled in the hotel than he developed a high temperature, and there was an immediate SOS for the doctor.

    He arrived and promptly sent the feverish George to bed, diagnosing him with a very bad case of tonsillitis. The doctor told me, "I am giving him injections and keeping him in bed. It is most unlikely that he will be able to sing on Sunday night's television show, but I'm administering to him to him what I call my 'powerhouse treatment' of drugs. It has worked before in these cases, and it might work again."

     For safety's sake, the doctor refused permission for George to leave his bed and go with John, Paul, and Ringo to be photographed in snow-covered Central Park the next day. Neither did George accompany the other three when they went to the television studio that afternoon to rehearse for their Ed Sullivan Show. But astonishingly, by midday on Sunday, the boy was not only up and about again, but he was telling me, "I feel fine and I shall certainly be in the full dress rehearsal this afternoon and in the show tonight." The powerhouse treatment, whatever it was, had succeeded.

     Its history now how the show went on as arranged and scored for Sullivan, the biggest triumph in the 16 years of television. The program headed by the Beatles was watched by more than 80,000,000, people throughout the entire United States. This is the highest figure ever reached by the Sullivan Show and easily surpassed that for Elvis Presley's appearance at his peak. 

    Men wise in the wilds of show business in New York told me afterwards that when Sullivan signed up the Beatles for three of his shows, he thought he was doing them a favor, but it's turned out they've done the favor to him. Yet the Beatles were dissatisfied with their own performance, despite the deluge of praise which came flooding over them from everywhere. "My microphone was only at half strength," complained  John Lennon to me. 

     What with the half-power mic and the "powerhouse" George also having to sing at half cock,, swallowing hard to ease his throat every few bars, they didn't sound as good as I knew they could be, but it was obvious that their audience of teenagers in the studio did not notice anything was wrong. They gave the boys the full treatment of near hysteria. They screamed, bounced in their seats, tore their hair, wept in ecstasy, and behaved pretty much like British teenagers do.

     Meanwhile, in the nation's capital, Washington, arrangements had been completed for the Beatles to make a one-performance appearance at the 8000-seater Coliseum, an ice hockey arena on the city's outskirts. "On Tuesday night, you can expect a darn sight hotter welcome here than the boys ever got in New York," said my English informant on the telephone. "The kids are going out in  their 1000s to the  the airport to meet the plane." That conversation took place on the morning of Monday, February 10, three days after the Beatles had descended on New York. A few hours later, I met Brian Epstein in the Plaza Hotel lobby. He looked worried, and I asked the reason.

     "I've just heard that a snow blizzard is sweeping across the country and that Washington is likely to get the worst of it," he said. "I've been on the phone to the concert organizers, and they say the blizzard is expected to strike there tomorrow morning. I've canceled our plane trip, and we should try to get through by train."

     I had been booked to go on the same plane with them, so I switched my booking too. Thank goodness we did. You never saw anything like the gale driven snow storm through which that train of ours had to plow through. The next morning, no planes took off from New York that day. 

    Three hours after leaving New York, the train pulled into Washington Union Station. John Lennon said to me as we slowed down, "There won't be anybody here, that's a certainty." And I agreed. Along the platform and way out toward the rear of the train, newsreel and press cameramen were strung out in a long line, unsure where their targets were situated. I scraped the snow off the train steps leading down the platform and got out ahead of the boys, stamping my way through the treacherous slush towards the exit gates. 

    Then I saw for the first time the kids. Police had closed and locked every iron grill gate across the station to keep them out, but there they were, thousands of them, with their hands extending through the bars like countless claws, presenting a fantastic display of imprisoned, impossible desire to reach out and touch. I asked the policeman, "Which is the way ou?", and as soon as the nearest youngster heard me speak, they shouted, "He's English! They're here!"  And the yell spread right across the station like a gigantic, ever-growing echo. It was unbelievable, maybe stupid, but oh so splendid.

     I heard later that more than 1000 girls and boys had defied the blizzard in the early morning to fight a way through to the airport where they were originally expected to arrive. When they learned of the changed plan, they headed back for Union Station just in time to join the others in a dependence chant of "London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down. London Bridge is falling down because we've got the Beatles!"

     That night in the vast Coliseum, our lads gave their finest performance of their lives and loved every minute of it. The stage was rather like a boxing ring set in the middle of the arena, but without any ropes. The audience sat all around. 8000 adorning youngsters, plus a lot of older folks too. The snow had stopped, but lay eight inches deep everywhere. Yet there wasn't an empty seat in the place. "They must be starkers," commented Ringo. "Fancy coming out here in this lot", kicking at a six foot snow drift as he walked into the hall. 

    Yet this was their finest American hour. They captured Washington for the British nearly 200 years after we had lost it. The police and duty were marvelous. On this occasion, they handled everything with magnificent tact, even though many of them were hit in the face and eyes by those confounded jelly babies, which American audience everywhere kept throwing at the Beatles because of some misguided publicity yarn about how much they like this particular kind of sweet (they don't).

     At the finish of a show that was truly memorable, a police sergeant standing alongside my seat leaned over and said, "Call off the Beatles. Washington surrenders, sir. " It was just about right too. Union Jacks were being waved all over the packed arena. The Beat-chicks were going through their jives of joy, squealing and crying. "We love you. Yeah, yeah, yeah."

     It took two hours to clear the auditorium after the show, and I had a two mile walk through the snow to my hotel, so I could change clothes to go to the British Embassy dance. There wasn't  a taxi to be had anywhere, so I had to hoof it.

Party Time in D.C.

 July 6, 1990 

Vote for the Planet award

 

July 4, 1990 - Washington D.C. 

Introducing the Beatles

 

Introducing The Beatles

By Michael Zitz

The Free Lance-Star

February 20, 1999

    Jack Alix was just a 21-year-old novice disc jockey at W E E L- A M in Fairfax, but he knew he was onto something big the first time he saw a picture of the new band from England. "At first, their music wasn't anything special", he said," but they had a look." A look that he knew would ignite the imaginations of rebellious American teenagers. 

    It was December 1963, and Alix began pushing the Beatles hard on his show. The Beatles were so new to America that Capitol Records hadn't released their first US album yet, and the station had only a reel-to-reel tape.

     Thirty-five years ago, this month, the Beatles arrived in America, first appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show on national television, followed by a live concert in Washington.

     But well before the Beatles crossed the Atlantic, "it became evident to us that this was completely different for a rock and roll group," Alix said today, "and the days of crew cuts and conservatism, we knew the long hair, the attitude and the infectious music might be the wave of the future."

     For three months, Alix, who now works at WGRQ in Spotsylvania County, spent much of his time and energy dreaming up ideas to promote the Beatles on his 9 to 11 p.m. show on WEEL.  He developed a "Beatle burger" contest in which teens would submit their ideas for a new sandwich based on the new group. A local burger chain agreed to sell the new burger.  The winning entry had shredded lettuce for hair, olives as eyes, and pimentos for lips. It was served for weeks leading up to the Beatles' first live American concert at the Washington Coliseum. 

    Alix also aired live remotes in which teens were interviewed about the Beatles, mostly girls, raving about the look and sound of the new band. 

    The Beatles made their American debut on the Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964, then took a train from New York to Washington's Union Station, arriving in a driving snowstorm for a February 11 concert in the nation's capital. 

    Because he had been so enthusiastic about the Beatles, Alix was asked to introduce them, along with Carrol James of WWDC- AM in Washington and Johnny Dark of WCAO- A M in Baltimore.

     That night, the sold-out Washington Coliseum was a maze of police officers, harried parents and chaperones trying to control 1000s of frantic teenage girls and boys. "There was an air of excitement I don't think has ever been recaptured," Alix said.  "It was cold, snowing, and some schools had been closed because of the storm, and yet it was sold out and the crowd was frenzied," he recalled.

    "Nothing like this had happened to pop music in this country for years." Alix said he was aware at the time that similar excitement had surrounded the early days of Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley. Sex appeal wasn't the only factor. "There was also rebellion, and long hair was an expression of that rebellion. It sounds silly today, because people think that the Beatles' hair was short by current standards, but the element of rebellion helped the Beatles catch fire before their music caught up with their sex appeal. The music was good, but I wouldn't say we thought it was sensationally different at that early stage."

     Alix said it was "just good pop music. Later, when it went on to the Sgt. Pepper thing, the hair got longer and the music got better," Alix said, "but in the beginning, it was the old thing that where the parents say, 'oh, that music is horrible', and that makes the kids like it even better.

     Alix was backstage with The Beatles before the February 11, 1964 show. Then introduced them to the crowd. He did the same thing when the Beatles played a 1966 show at DC stadium (later renamed RFK Stadium).

    "When we did the first one, everyone was down to earth and having a good time," Alix said, "but the only one who was outgoing and friendly was Paul McCartney. The others were pretty shy, not distant, but pretty quiet. Paul is the one I remember distinctly from that first concert."

     Alix introduced an opening band, Jay and the Americans, then went backstage to wait with The Beatles. Finally, he brought the Beatles out to cheering, squealing and swooning. It was the first time Alix had been in front of a big audience. 

    He had gotten his start while still a student at John Carroll High School, where he was in the same homeroom as John Thompson, later the Georgetown University basketball coach.  "After school, I would go to Channel 5, which had a TV show based on American Bandstand that was called the Milt Grant Show."  It was a live dance party show, and Alix was a regular dancer. Stars like Chubby Checker and Connie Francis appeared live on the show. "I just got the bug", Alex said. And after graduating from high school, he became a disc jockey. He also began promoting concerts, working with the Beach Boys. Janis Joplin, Eric Clapton, the Doors, and the Jefferson Airplane, among others. Then, in the early 70s, Milt Grant bought channel 20 and decided to start a live dance party show on that station. Grant hired Alix, as the as the host, and he worked with co host. including Stevie Wonder and the Monkees. 

    Now, Alix 56 is the general sales manager of WGRQ, an oldies area station. Even though he's been on TV many times before that first Beatles concert, he found himself filled with anxiety by that moment in February 1964.

     "A film of the concert shows me welcoming Paul McCartney, who was the first to climb up on stage,". Alix says.  "My whole body seemed frozen, and there was a bit of a lull before I could get any of the words to introduce anyone."

Washington Embassy

 

George and Murray in the snow

 

Ready to drum again

 

July 4, 1984 - Washington D.C. 

My favorite concert

 February 11, 1964 -

I love everything about this concert.  The energy, Ringo's drum issues, Mal coming out to turn the drums, the jellybeans, the screams, the fact it starts with Roll Over Beethoven.   LOVE this concert.  I mean -- what is there NOT to love about it?   

Any reader out there see this concert in person?   Or how about seeing it during the Closed Circuit showing at the movies?  

George poses with another disc jockey

 

Watergate audience

June 29, 1973 - How many people were in court that day to watch the Watergate hearings, and how many were there to watch John and Yoko?   Also, how life has changed!  Can you imagine someone lighting a cigarette inside a courthouse?  
  

John and Yoko in Washington D.C.

June 27, 1973
 

Washington D. C.

 

Arriving in D.C.

 

Heading to Washington

 

April 28, 1972 - Washington D.C. 

Beatles arriving at the reception

 February 11, 1964 -  Washington, D.C.  

Still protesting in '73

 June 27, 1973 - Washington, D.C.