'Ladies and Gentleman...The Beatles!' exhibit coming to Grammy Museum in Newark
Madness descended on America on Feb. 7, 1964. Literally, out of a clear blue sky.
On that date, the Beatles arrived at Kennedy Airport in Queens — newly rechristened after the assassination of JFK less than four months before. To a nation still in mourning, the lads from Liverpool were just the pep pill America needed.
"I always thought that was so interesting that's where they landed," said Mark Conklin, director of artist relations and programming at the Grammy Museum Experience Prudential Center in Newark.
"Ladies and Gentlemen…The Beatles!," the new exhibit opening Friday, Nov. 18, recalls that intoxicating moment in 1964 — and all that followed.
"To have that youthful hope, which is what JFK had brought to this country — to have that taken away and suddenly brought back to us, I think was extremely important to the country as a whole," Conklin said.
With that first press conference at the airport, and then the Ed Sullivan shows that followed, the Beatles turned America upside down.
There were Beatles wigs, dolls, bubble-gum cards. There were Beatles charms, hats, magazines. There were Beatles posters, plates, lunchboxes. There were Beatles badges, books, puppets. And of course there were the records themselves: "Please Please Me," "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You" blared out of every transistor radio.
Beatlemania had arrived. And, says Conklin, it never really left.
"I'm always amazed how many times I interview young artists who still cite the Beatles as the reason they started writing songs," he said. "It's almost hard to believe they're still having that kind of impact on music being made today."
"Ladies and Gentlemen…The Beatles!" co-curated by the Grammy Museum and Fab Four Exhibits and running through June 25, 2023, recalls that momentous two-year period in the mid-1960s when The Fab Four changed the landscape of pop culture forever.
Lots to see
Setlists, contracts, lyric sheets, Paul McCartney's 1965 Shea Stadium jacket, a gold record from the Capitol label, lots of photos and other authentic souvenirs will be on display, along with such cutting-edge attractions as an interactive virtual drumming lesson from Ringo, one of rock's best known and most under-appreciated drummers.
"Growing up, they were the reason I became a musician and a songwriter," Conklin said. "For me, personally and professionally, this is the most exciting exhibit we could ever have."
A series of public programs featuring such Beatles experts as May Pang (Friday, Nov. 18), Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair (Wednesday, Dec. 14), and Mark Lewisohn (Thursday, March 30, 2023), hosted by Beatles historian Ken Womack and produced in collaboration with Wonderwall Communications, will keep the show fresh over the coming months.
"[It] affords visitors to the museum with a unique window into the rise of Beatlemania,” Womack said.
Go: Grammy Museum Experience Prudential Center, 165 Mulberry St., Newark, open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays on non-event days, and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on event days, $7 to $10.; 973-757-6300 or grammymuseumexp.org.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Beatles exhibit coming to Grammy Museum Experience in Newark
