British Invasion - The Invasion

The Invasion

Please Please Me became the first record released by The Beatles in United States, on the Vee Jay label on 7 February 1963. WLS became the first United States radio station to air a record by The Beatles when it played "Please Please Me" in February 1963. The WLS Silver Dollar Survey copied the group name verbatim from the early pressings as The Beattles. In June 1963 "From Me To You", as covered by Del Shannon, became the first song penned by any of The Beatles to reach the Hot 100.

The Huntley-Brinkley Report aired a two-minute segment on The Beatles on 18 November 1963, and the CBS Morning News with Mike Wallace aired a story on the group on 22 November 1963, but the planned repeat of the CBS report that evening was shelved because of the assassination of USA President Kennedy. On December 10, 1963, the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite finally re-ran that CBS report, about the Beatlemania phenomenon in the United Kingdom.

After seeing the report, 15-year-old Marsha Albert of Silver Spring, Maryland, wrote a letter the following day to disc jockey Carroll James at radio station WWDC asking "why can't we have music like that here in America?". On December 17 James had Miss Albert introduce "I Want to Hold Your Hand" live on the air. WWDC's phones lit up and Washington, D.C. area record stores were flooded with requests for a record they did not have in stock. On December 26 Capitol Records released the record three weeks ahead of schedule.

The release of the record during a time when teenagers were on vacation, helped spread Beatlemania in America. For the January 25, 1964 edition of Cash Box magazine (on sale January 18) "I Want to Hold Your Hand" reached number one on the chart; it did the same on Billboard's February 1 chart. On February 7, the CBS Evening News ran a story about the Beatles' United States arrival that afternoon in which the correspondent said "The British Invasion this time goes by the code name Beatlemania". Two days later (Sunday, February 9) they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. Nielsen Ratings estimated that 45 percent of Americans watching television that night viewed their appearance.

According to Michael Ross, "it is somewhat ironic that the biggest moment in the history of popular music was first experienced in America as a television event." The Ed Sullivan Show had for some time been a "comfortable hearth-and-slippers experience." Not many of the 73 million viewers watching in February 1964 would fully understand what impact the band they were watching would have. On April 4, the Beatles held the top 5 positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and to date no other act has accomplished this feat. The group's massive chart success continued until they broke up in 1970.

One week after The Beatles entered the Hot 100 for the first time, Dusty Springfield, having launched a solo career after her participation in The Springfields, became the next British act to reach the Hot 100, with "I Only Want to Be With You", which fell just short of the top 10. She soon followed up with several other hits, becoming what Allmusic described as "the finest white soul singer of her era." During the next two years or so, Peter and Gordon, The Animals, Manfred Mann, Petula Clark, Freddie and the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, Herman's Hermits, The Rolling Stones, The Troggs, and Donovan would have one or more number one singles in the US.

Other Invasion acts included The Dave Clark Five, The Searchers, Billy J. Kramer, The Bachelors, Chad & Jeremy, Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Honeycombs, Them (and later its lead singer, Van Morrison), Tom Jones, The Yardbirds, and numerous others. On May 8, 1965, the British Commonwealth came closer than it ever had or would to a clean sweep of a weekly Hot 100's Top 10, lacking only a hit at number two instead of "Count Me In" by the American group Gary Lewis & The Playboys.

That same year, half of the twenty-six Billboard Hot 100 chart toppers (counting The Beatles' "I Feel Fine" carrying over from 1964) belonged to British acts. The British trend would continue on into 1966 and beyond. British Invasion acts also dominated the music charts at home in the United Kingdom, although some British acts (notably Chad & Jeremy) were actually much more successful in the US than in their native UK.

British Invasion artists played in styles now categorized either as blues-based rock music or as guitar-driven rock/pop. A second wave of the invasion occurred featuring acts such as The Who, The Zombies, and The Hollies, which were influenced by the invasion's pop side and American rock music. The musical style of British Invasion artists, such as the Beatles, was influenced by earlier American rock and roll, a genre which had lost some popularity and appeal by the time of the Invasion. White British performers essentially revived a musical genre rooted in black American culture.

The Rolling Stones were perceived by the American public as a much more 'edgy' and even dangerous band. They stated themselves that they were much more influenced by black-oriented rhythm and blues. This image marked them as separate from beat artists such as the Beatles, who had become a more acceptable, parent-friendly pop group. The Rolling Stones (and also The Animals) appealed more to an 'outsider' demographic and popularized, for young people at least, the rhythm and blues genre which had been largely ignored or rejected when performed by black American artists in the 1950s. The Rolling Stones would become the biggest band other than The Beatles to come out of the British Invasion.

"Freakbeat" is a term given to British Invasion acts, particularly British Blues and Garage Rock acts, that remained obscure to US listeners. Though popular charting bands in the UK, the Pretty Things, Soft Machine and Status Quo are all acts that are associated with Freakbeat.

Another reason for bands to want to come to America was the fact that they could make a lot of money without the burden of British taxes. These taxes could be upwards of 90% in the highest bracket. Some bands in the 1960s wrote songs about the tax issue. In 1966 The Beatles' George Harrison wrote “Taxman”, which "put the situation in perspective." Ray Davies of the Kinks also wrote about the same issue in his song "Sunny Afternoon." Also in 1966 the American Federation of Musicians were "convinced that British bands were getting a disproportionate share of musician's income," and therefore managed to get the Kinks banned from touring in the United states. In October 1969, the organization finally decided to let the band resume touring in America.

The emergence of a relatively homogeneous worldwide "rock" music style about 1967 marked the end of the "invasion".