Invasion USA!
April's column had this list of British Invasion groups: Dave Clark Five, Animals, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, Searchers, Rolling Stones, Swinging Blue Jeans, Herman's Hermits, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Freddie and the Dreamers, Manfred Mann, Nashville Teens, Honeycombs, Small Faces, Kinks, Them, Yardbirds, and Zombies…and the number of times they appeared on "American Bandstand" in 1964 and 1965, combined: zero.
Take that same list and check the "Ed Sullivan Show": 24 appearances, including 7 by the Dave Clark Five, 4 each for the Animals and Gerry & the Pacemakers…even the bad boy Rolling Stones were invited back for a second go. And Sullivan did around 40 shows per year, while Dick Clark was on every week. The old geezer really understood show biz. In fact, the DC5 were on one month after the Beatles, for 2 consecutive Sundays. I can still remember the buzz on the school bus that Monday morning, how the Beatles were history, one-month wonders, and the Tottenham Sound was the new sensation.
But the British Invasion was in full swing. The earliest use of that term I can find in Billboard magazine is March 21, 1964: BRITISH INVASION OF U.S. SPREADS. REDCOATS WIDEN BEACHHEAD HERE. And on the Hot 100 chart for April 4, Beatle singles were in positions #1, #2, #3, #4, and #5, with 7 more ranging from #31 to #79...an astonishing feat not likely to ever be repeated. Record companies scrambled to sign British bands, and not surprisingly, they looked first to the Beatles' hometown of Liverpool.
Here are the British groups that charted in 1964, with the Liverpudlians marked with an asterisk: February: Dave Clark Five...March: *Searchers, *Swinging Blue Jeans...April: *Billy J. Kramer & Dakotas...May: Rolling Stones, Peter & Gordon, Hollies, Chad & Jeremy, *Gerry & Pacemakers. There was a summer lull…nothing new in June or July, only the Animals and Lulu in August. Then September saw Manfred Mann, the Kinks, Nashville Teens, Honeycombs...October: Herman's Hermits, Zombies...November: the Hullabaloos, Marianne Faithful...and December: Petula Clark joined the fray. Several other British bands released singles in 1964, but wouldn't see chart success until 1965 or later: the Who, Yardbirds, Them, Wayne Fontana & Mindbenders, Freddie & Dreamers, Fortunes, Spencer Davis, and Ian Whitcomb.
And the record bins were packed with British groups that got squeezed out in the stampede, and never hit the charts. Liverpool groups included the Merseybeats, Mojos, Escorts, Undertakers, Ian & Zodiacs, the Big Three, King-Size Taylor & Dominos…even Rory Storm & the Hurricanes, Ringo's old group, had a 45 out on Columbia, one of the few major labels, along with RCA and A&M, that didn't jump in with both feet. From all across Great Britain came the Rockin' Berries, Applejacks, Gonks, Snobs, Fourmost, Paramounts (with Gary Brooker, later of Procol Harum), Pretty Things, Screamin' Lord Sutch…even Pete Best, the Beatle's old drummer, cut some records, but made barely a ripple.
By my rough estimate, 25% of the weekly Top 40 slots and 18% of the Hot 100 slots were held by British artists in 1964. These percentages actually increased a little in 1965, but by that time an American Response was beginning to emerge. Altho paradoxically, in one sense there was virtually no American Response at all!
Sure, kids grew their hair long and got groups together, practicing in garages across America. Even my erstwhile sidekick Cool Daddy was in a group, Ringo Kuryakin and the Agitation Stipulation. I asked if he was Ringo, and he said no, he was Agitation. And they didn't have a garage, so they'd practice in the drive-way before his dad got home from work. Many of these groups would attain local fame, playing dances and clubs, and some even had regional hit records. But can you name one national hit from 1964 by an American group that sounded even remotely like the Beatles?
The closest I can come up with is "She's the One" by the Chartbusters, and if you've never heard it, it only reached #33 in July of 1964. They followed the typical pattern: house band at the Crazy Horse in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C…recorded a couple albums for the budget label Diplomat as the Manchesters…Tom Hanks said they were the inspiration for the one-hit Oneders in the movie "That Thing You Do." The Beau Brummels had 2 hits in early 1965, then faded away. Many people think of "Lies" by the Knickerbockers, certainly the closest an American group came to capturing the Beatles Sound, but it barely snuck into the Top 20 in December, 1965, almost 2 years after B-Day.
Simply put, trying to copy the Beatles didn't cut it with the record-buying teens. As I said last month, there was too much of the "real thing" around. What the Beatles did do for American pop music was invigorate it like nothing else could. The look, the style, the clothes, the hair, the whole idea of "a group"…the attitude, the atmosphere, the "scene" if you will…it was something new, fresh, exciting. Young American musicians took their cue from the Beatles, and what did they come up with?
Add the Beatles to the surf bands and you got the Kingsmen, the Premiers, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, the Barbarians, the Leaves with "Hey Joe," the Music Machine, what was then called "punk," but is now referred to as the "garage bands." Take the Standells…when they appeared on "The Munsters" in 1965, they were a lame imitation of the Beatles, with something called "Come On and Ringo." By 1966, they were snarling with "Dirty Water."
Add the Beatles to rhythm and blues and you got the Blue-Eyed Soul of the Young Rascals. Even black music was energized…listen to Motown recordings before and after B-Day, and hear the pop sheen Barry Gordy was astute enough to apply to the Sound of Young America. Add the Beatles to country & western and you got the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield, leading to Poco, America, and the Eagles. Add the Beatles to folk, and out comes the Mamas and Papas, Lovin' Spoonful, Simon and Garfunkel…and when Bob Dylan went electric, it was time for the Yanks to take back their music!
Add the Beatles to harmony groups like the Lettermen, Four Preps, even the Four Seasons, and you got the Turtles, the Buckinghams, the Grassroots, and especially the Association. Add the Beatles to big band jazz with a horn section, and you got Blood Sweat & Tears and Chicago. And there was Paul Revere and the Raiders, who had been copying whatever sound was hot since 1961 with little success, until they hit their stride in 1965.
Then came the Monkees, further commercializing what was a blatantly commercial enterprise to begin with, and you got the stripped down silliness of bubble gum, followed by the bouncy records of the early 1970s, today collectively labeled "Sunshine Pop." And ironically enough, the Beatles took note of it all, and themselves fed on the emerging new American sounds. It was only after the Beatles weren't the Beatles anymore that real imitators emerged: Badfinger in the UK, the Raspberries in the US, the whole Power Pop movement, and the Electric Light Orchestra, an outgrowth of one of the most Beatle-like British bands, the Move. And the Move never hit it big in the US…they were just too Beatley for their own good.
In short, what a time to own a transistor radio! Catch you on the web at Deepfriedhoodsiecups.wordpress.com, and c'mon baby let's do the rock on!
