The Beatles Come to America [Hardcover]

When the Beatles touched down in New York on February 7, 1964 for their first visit to America, they brought with them a sound that hadn't been heard before. By the time they returned to England two weeks later, major changes in music, fashion, the record industry, and the image of an entire generation had been set into motion. Coming less than three months after the assassination of President Kennedy, the Beatles' visit helped rouse the country out of mourning. A breathless and condescending media concentrated on the band's hairstyles and their adoring fans, but their enduring importance lay in their music, their wit, and style, a disconnect that signaled the beginning of the generation gap. In this intriguing cultural history, Martin Goldsmith examines how and why the Beatles struck such a lasting chord.
Martin Goldsmith (Kensington, MD), the author of The Inextinguishable Symphony (0-471-35097-4), is a program director for XM Satellite Radio in Washington, D.C. From 1989 to 1999, he hosted Performance Today, NPR's daily classical music program.

Two dates our generation remembers all our lives: November 22, 1963, and February 9, 1964. One brought sudden and inexplicable death, sorrow, and tears. The other brought overwhelming joy and the reassurance of life-affirming art. That Sunday night when we first met the Beatles on Ed Sullivan's show was the beginning of something deeply wonderful for us and piercingly threatening for some elements of the older generation, an event both timely and timeless. For the Beatles themselves, it was just the latest plateau achieved in their ever-ascending mythical journey. Forty years later, it remains the greatest musical story ever told.
--Martin Goldsmith

.. .written in an easy and pleasant style...a useful addition to the collection of the avid Beatles fan. ( Beatles- Unlimited magazine, May/June 2004)

.. . fascinating ... quotations from those fusty Americans... ( New Statesman, lCv