All their lovin’ Winnipeggers come together on anniversary of Beatles’ TV debut By: Alan Small Posted: 5:52 PM CST Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024

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A four-year-old Martine Dahlke was riveted to her family’s black-and-white television set on Sunday, Feb. 9, 1964 — 60 years ago — eagerly waiting for Ed Sullivan to utter the words that would change the world.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Beatles!”

There were the Fab Four, making their famous debut on The Ed Sullivan Show: Paul McCartney singing All My Loving on the left of the screen, playing bass; George Harrison on guitar in the centre, occasionally joining McCartney for harmonies; John Lennon on the right, also singing and playing guitar.

Ringo Starr sat behind them on a riser, setting the beat. They would perform five songs that night.

In front of them was an audience in rapture, young women screaming and becoming part of history along with the band. Joining in were millions of television viewers across North America, including Winnipeggers like Dahlke.

“Ed Sullivan was getting close to bedtime,” says Dahlke, who has collected six decades of Beatles memorabilia, including the Beatles on Broadway magazine her kindergarten teacher wouldn’t let her read during quiet time.

“I was excited beyond words. My mom was like, ‘Meh,’ She was six years older than John Lennon.

“We thought it was funny — all the screaming and, of course, the captions: This is Paul, this is George, and for John, ‘Sorry, girls, he’s married.’”

How big a deal was the Liverpool quartet’s debut on the Sullivan show? Dahlke’s father, George West, who would often use his reel-to-reel tape recorder to capture his wife, Lorraine West, when she performed on local TV stations, set the machine up for the show knowing how big a moment it would be.

“He had a sense of history. He was a voracious magazine reader and he loved music and wasn’t snobby about it,” she says. “He was aware of the hubbub and the event that was coming this week.”

Winnipeg artist Katharine Bruce was 16 when she visited her friend’s house that evening. Like so many people in front of the TV that night, seeing the Beatles perform for the first time was a moment she’ll never forget.

“We took photographs of them on the TV and we were mesmerized. I totally loved them. Here were these four magical beings,” Bruce says.

While history suggests the Beatles split the generations — with kids of the early ’60s screaming for John, Paul, George and Ringo beside parents disapproving of the band’s music and their mop-top haircuts — that wasn’t the case for Bruce and her mother.

Bruce’s mom urged her to enter a radio station contest that required listeners to collect 7Up bottle caps, with winners getting to see the Beatles at the Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, Minn., on Aug. 21, 1965.

Bruce was one of the winners who got to see the Fab Four in person.

“We got on the bus in the morning, they drove us to Minneapolis and we went to the show and then we were back on the bus,” she remembers of the whirlwind trip.

“The concert was phenomenal.”

Bruce recalls having good seats and was selective with her screaming.

“I don’t know whether that’s being Canadian or a respect for the musicians. We wanted to hear them play.

“I probably screamed in between the songs.”

Grant Boden, Bruce’s partner, was a 16-year-old student at Kelvin High School and worked shifts at the grocery store in the basement of the Bay downtown in 1964.

He remembers heading up to the Bay’s record department one night after work to check if the Beatles’ debut album was on the racks yet. It was and he bought it when the store opened the next morning.

So naturally, he was in front of his family’s black-and-white Admiral television set to watch Ed Sullivan and his “really big shoe,” as the host often pronounced it.

“Probably our only family get-together was every weekend to watch The Ed Sullivan Show,” Boden says, “When you first heard them, you knew there was a change from the old rock ’n’ roll. They changed the style of music and I certainly sensed that — and that was exciting because change is great.”

The Beatles were all the talk in the hallways at Kelvin the next day, at least among the cool kids.

“Everyone thought it was amazing but there were some people who never saw them or weren’t interested. I think those were the ones who belonged to the glee club, doing The Pirates of Penzance,” says Boden, who was part of the Down to Earthenware Jug Band, which would become the Electric Jug and Blues Band shortly after the Beatles appearance on the Sullivan show and would perform Beatles’ covers to join in on the Beatlemania craze.

While Don McLean sings about “the day the music died” in American Pie — the 1971 tune that references the plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper, on Feb. 3, 1959 — the music came alive again a little more than five years later when the Beatles played All My Loving at what is now the Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway in New York.

McCartney would perform at the theatre several times over the years, including doing the Beatles’ hit Get Back atop the theatre’s marquee as part of a 2009 appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman.

“The memory of being here is great,” McCartney said during the interview with Letterman, remembering how makeup was done on one floor and wardrobe on another. “It was kind of scary the first time.”

Beatlemania remains alive 60 years later and Rod Kozak, who was seven when he watched the Beatles perform on his family’s 21-inch DuMont TV in ‘64, is doing his part to keep the spirit thriving.

He co-hosts Vinyl Vault on nostalgia station CJNU 93.7 FM; tonight at 8 p.m., he and Vic Gaggini will open two hours of early Beatles music by broadcasting the audio portion of the group’s debut on Ed Sullivan.

Saturday at 8 p.m. on The Vinyl Museum, Kozak and Gaggini will showcase music from the Beatles’ later years.

Winnipeg would get its own footnote in Beatles’ history on Aug. 18, 1964, when the band’s plane landed in the city to refuel. The Fab Four got out and stretched their legs on the tarmac in front of a throng of fans, including Kozak, perched atop the old terminal’s observation deck.

“In order, it was The Ed Sullivan Show, then watching the movie A Hard Day’s Night and then seeing the Beatles at the airport, so ‘64 was a big year in music for me,” Kozak says. “It was incredible.”

Alan.Small@winnipegfreepress.com

X: @AlanDSmall