Beatles getting big in the US, 1964

How did the Beatles' popularity spread throughout the US so fast around
1963-4?

copperhead365...

Reed Hollis's sister bought Meet the Beatles. Reed brought it to
school in second grade at Cleveland Avenue Elementary in Camden
Arkansas the Friday before the Beatles were scheduled to appear on
Sullivan. We played the record over and over all afternoon and then
told everyone we knew about it. And it spread all across the US, and
everyone watched Ed Sullivan that night.

Thanks Reed.

The USA is a big place and slow to catch on to newer trends. They had
never appeared on TV until Ed Sullivan, by which time millions of fans
wanted to see them.

Art Harris...

I Want To Hold Your Hand was their first Capitol release and for the
first time a Beatles record was actually promoted in the US. That song
got a lot of airplay. It was so unique and catchy compared to anything
else out there, that it went to numbber one in January 1964 and fans
wanted more. Luckily, there was a backlog of Beatles records that fans
could buy.

So by the time they appeared on Ed Sullivan's show on Feb 9th, everyone
wanted to see them. After that, well you know what happened. The world
was never the same again.

Lookingglass...

...radio...?

dave (...tuned to a natural E...)
Head Cheerleader

Eric Ramon...

Yep, people spent a LOT of time listening to AM radio then. Transistor
radios, that you could even put under your pillow.

syna...

In 1964, I was 3 years old. My older brothers brought home all of the
first Beatles 45 rpm records that were available - like "She Loves
You", "I Feel Fine", "A Hard Day's Night", "Please Please Me", "I
Should Have Known Better", "Do You Want to Know a Secret", etc...

I still can remember as a 3-year-old toddler, standing over the
one-piece record player, watching the yellow/orange swirl label
spinning with those jangling guitars and "Yeah Yeah Yeah" coming out of
the speaker on the end on the player.

It made an enormous impression on me - it is literally the first music
I can remember hearing (preceded only by my Mom singing to me as a baby
I'm sure). I don't know exactly how it spread, but I am glad it did. I
recall there was a buzz about the music - my dad hated it, but let my
brothers listen to whatever they wanted to. I could tell it was
something that was new by the way everyone reacted to it, and over the
following years I had lots of Beatles records. I still have several of
those old 45s - including a few with the old red/silver Capitol labels
as well as the yellow/orange swirl.

To this day, when I hear the intro to "I Feel Fine" or the "Yeah Yeah
Yeah" from "She Loves You", I get transported back in time and I can
recall the feeling of being a little 3 -year old.