Maybe it was the Beatles’ wigs worn by Capitol Record’s sales staff or possibly the Stamp Out the Beatles Society which was exported from our own Detroit, Mich. Both of these fit into an incredible puzzle of why the Beatles soared to the top of the charts in the weeks preceding their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show 50 years ago tonight.
Another piece of the puzzle was the tiny transistor radio where as a 15-year-old in Essexville, Mich., I first heard the Beatles’ songs being played on Chicago’s WLS by Dick Biondi and his fellow DJs. I was not alone, in 1964, the transistor radio with its tinny and scratchy sound was in the hands of millions of teenagers across the U.S. The price had dropped to about $5 and millions of them appeared under the Christmas tree in 1962 and 1963.
And let’s not discount the powerhouse radio stations of the day like WLS and pure science. DJs at the time were comparable to today’s Twitter feed. They were the ultimate in word of mouth. This was the day before formula radio and DJs could, within reason, play what they liked or what was requested of them. These “clear channel” stations could also be heard long distances when late at night the AM signal became amplified. There was nothing better than pulling in Biondi’s hot hits when everyone else in the house was fast asleep. The next day in school everyone would be abuzz about the Beatles. For a more in-depth look at why the Beatles went viral read “How the Beatles Went Viral” by Steve Greenberg in the January 18 issue of Billboard magazine. Here’s the story of a few people who contributed to one of the first viral marketing campaigns.
Margot Landa Kielhorn
In 1964, Margot Landa Kielhorn of Evanson Ill., now living in East Lansing, was 13 and on her annual summer visit to her Aunt Jeannette and Uncle Lloyd Landa in New York City. She had no idea this summer vacation would be one she would never forget. Margot was no stranger to the Beatles, first hearing them on her tiny transistor radio tuned to the Chicago powerhouse AM station WLS while waiting to go into Nichols Junior High in Evanston, Ill. WLS’s Biondi had cued up “Please, Please Me” as early as March 1963, almost a full-year before the Beatles would “invade” the U.S.
Like all 13 year-old girls, Kielhorn was in “love” with the Beatles, but her strict father would never let her buy a Beatles’ record let alone let her attend a Beatles’ concert. That was about to change.
Margot’s Uncle Lloyd happened to be boyhood friends of Bobby Bonis, who had recently come off a European tour as the road manager for the Rolling Stones. Recommended by the Stones, Bonis was hired by the Beatles as road manager for their three U.S. tours. On an early Saturday morning that relationship landed Margot on a bus sitting next to one of the opening acts, Jackie DeShannon (“What the World Needs Now”), rolling to Forest Hills in Queens where the Beatles were playing their eighth concert date on the 25 stop, first North American tour.
She said DeShannon had on sunglasses and her hair was made up in giant juice can rollers.
“She had this husky voice,” Kielhorn said.
“When we got there, we were hustled back stage. I stood there shaking and as things got more exciting it was just pandemonium,” she said.
“It was an out-of body experience,” she said. She and her aunt would stand throughout the entire show.
Although she saw the Beatles perform from a highly sought location, they were a blur coming on and off the stage, and she did not get to meet them.
“Here’s the most mortifying part. After we got back to the city, Bobby came over to talk with my aunt and I. I was so tired I didn’t pick up that he had asked me to go with him into the city to visit a radio station and then stop by the hotel (Beatles’),” Kielhorn said.
“I told him I was too tired, and he said, are you sure?”
After he left, my aunt says, ‘Are you out of your mind? Bobby just asked you to visit the boys.’”
Kielhorn was crushed, but she did get a chance to meet Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager at the concert.
“He gave me this absolutely monstrous in-size flower arrangement. I took it home on the plane.”
She would sleep with it under her mattress until it just disintegrated.
“When I saw them on the Ed Sullivan Show, I was so torn which one I liked the most.” Later she would settle on John, and her favorite song became “Eleanor Rigby”.
Kielhorn said her Beatles’ experience provides an easy answer to the question often posed by baby boomer friends: “What was your first concert?”
“That’s one thing that’s easy to answer.”
The next year, as sort of a consolation prize for not meeting the Beatles, Bonis presented her with two amazing pieces of Beatle memorabilia, a North American concert program and the album “A Hard Day’s Night,” both signed by all four of the Beatles. Cased in protective plastic, they are now kept in a safe deposit box.
Kielhorn still thinks about the night of a lifetime and was reminded about Bobby Bonis two years ago when his son published “The Lost Beatles Photographs,” a collection of his father’s casual photographs of the Beatles taken during the Beatles’ three North American tours.
Susan Kitzman (formerly Kazmierski), Perry, and Melissa Kaltenbach (McGuire), Lansing, were typical teenagers who definitely did not subscribe to the Stamp Out the Beatles campaign, and on September 6, 1964, they found themselves jammed into the aging Detroit Olympia Stadium with 15,000 other screaming fans.
They remember that moment of teenage nirvana with varying degrees of certainty.
But what they both do remember is hysteria everywhere inside the Stadium.
Melissa Kaltenbach
Kaltenbach who was 17 at the time, remembers the acoustics weren’t that good, a common refrain from early concert goers, but she said, “I could see them shake their heads.”
“My dad drove us down and stayed with us. He was a bit eccentric and went around picking up fainting girls,” she said.
At first, Kaltenbach couldn’t remember who went to the concert with her and her sister Lynn, but later her sister reminded her that Glenn Frey, founder of the Eagles, drove down to Detroit with them from their Birmingham hometown.
“I remember dad and Glenn arguing over a song,” Kaltenbach said.
Susan Kitzman
Susan still remembers the first time she heard the Beatles “I Want to Hold Your Hand” on the Detroit powerhouse rock station WKNR, commonly called “Keener” by listeners. It was the beginning of a lifetime love affair with the Beatles, especially John. She soon, like every other teenage girl, became obsessed with the Beatles.
“My best friend Karen and I would hit every drugstore in our neighborhood looking for Beatles’ collectible cards. We bought everything; we read everything and then put it into our scrapbooks,” she said.
Her scrapbook, like many baseball card collections, was thrown away later by a zealous parent. Despite that, she still has some of her original Beatles records purchased at Miracle Mart on 8 Mile and Lasher.
Suzanne remembers that special day when she would first see the Beatles.
“My mom drove us (Karen and I) down to Olympia and as soon as we walked into the building the cacophony was incredible,” she said.
Taking their seats in the upper deck, she said, “I began wondering if the building would collapse. We were riveted on watching them. We were in love with the Beatles.”
“There was a mix of a young girl’s infatuation and a sexual coming of age,” she said.
She still remembers watching them all bow at the end of a number and calls that a “brilliant move that stole everyone’s heart.”
Suzanne said that summer she saw the Beatles first movie “A Hard Day’s Night” eight times.
“It personified their quirkiness,” she said.
Now about that SOB campaign. When Bill Rabe, director of Public Relations at the University of Detroit, got wind of the Beatles and the controversy surrounding their longish hair, he had an idea to take advantage of the Beatles tremendous popularity and attract attention to U of D. Rabe was full of ideas. Later, while at Lake Superior State College (University) in Sault Ste Marie he would sponsor amazing publicity magnets like the Pet Rock Beauty Contest, The Silent Record Week, the annual banishment of overused words and the Annual Stone Skipping Contest, which is still held on Mackinac Island. Rabe was a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes and in his home in Sault Ste. Marie, he recreated the office of Holmes.
Brian Epstein sporting a SOBs sweatshirt
When the Beatles went into their first press conference after landing in New York, they were asked what they thought of Detroit’s Stamp Out the Beatles campaign. Paul casually answered, “We’re bringing out a Stamp out Detroit campaign.” At some point Rabe and his cohorts got a Stamp Out the Beatles sweatshirt to the Beatles’ manager Epstein who, in good spirits, was photographed wearing it. Replicas now sell on Ebay for $.. If you look closely enough on the web, you can find a photograph of Rabe sitting at the end of the table when the Beatles held their Detroit Press Conference between shows at Olympia. Rabe is an interesting example of how individual creativity and old school PR helped fuel the Beatles’ first visit to America.
