The arrival of The Beatles in the U.S., and subsequent appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, marked the start of the British Invasion.

British Invasion is an American term used to describe the many rock, and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular in the United States during the mid-1960s.^[1]

Background[link]

The rebellious tone and image of American rock and roll and blues musicians became popular with British youth in the late 1950s. While early commercial attempts to replicate American rock and roll mostly failed, the trad jazz-inspired skiffle craze,^[2] with its "do it yourself" attitude, was the starting point of several British acts that would later be part of the "invasion". Lonnie Donegan, who is credited with singlehandedly popularizing skiffle in Britain, had a top 20 US hit with "Rock Island Line" during the 1950s and a top ten US hit with "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour (On the Bedpost Overnight?)" in 1961, both re-recordings of songs already known in the U.S. for several decades at the time.^[3][4] Young British groups started to combine various British and American styles. This coalesced in Liverpool during 1962 in what became known as Merseybeat, hence the "beat boom".^[5][6][7][8] In 1962 "Telstar", an instrumental by The Tornados, became the first U.S. number 1 single by a British rock act.^[9] Also that year the folk trio The Springfields featuring Dusty Springfield cracked the U.S. top 20.^[10]

The Invasion[link]

On December 10, 1963, the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite ran a story about the Beatlemania phenomenon in the United Kingdom, featuring their smash hit, "She Loves You."^[11] After seeing the report, 15-year-old Marsha Albert of Silver Spring, Maryland, wrote a letter the following day to disc jockey Carroll James at radio station WWDC asking "why can't we have music like that here in America?".^[11] On December 17 James had Albert introduce "I Want to Hold Your Hand" live on the air for its American premiere.^[11] WWDC's phones lit up and Washington, D.C. area record stores were flooded with requests for a record they did not have in stock.^[11] On December 26 Capitol Records released the record three weeks ahead of schedule.^[11] The release of the record during a time when teenagers were on vacation helped spread Beatlemania in America.^[11] For the January 25, 1964 edition of Cash Box magazine (on sale January 18) "I Want to Hold Your Hand" reached number one on the chart;^[11] it did the same on Billboard's February 1 chart.^[12] On February 7, the CBS Evening News ran a story about the Beatles' United States arrival that afternoon in which the correspondent said "The British Invasion this time goes by the code name Beatlemania".^[13] Two days later (Sunday, February 9) they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. Nielsen Ratings estimated that 45 percent of Americans watching television that night viewed their appearance.^[8] On April 4, the Beatles held the top 5 positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, the only time to date that any act has accomplished this.^[8][14] The group's massive chart success continued until they broke up in 1970.^[8]

Dusty Springfield, having launched a solo career, became the first non-Beatle act during the invasion to have a major U.S. hit, with "I Only Want to Be With You". She soon followed up with several other hits, becoming what Allmusic described as "the finest white soul singer of her era."^[10] During the next two years, Chad & Jeremy, Peter and Gordon, The Animals, Manfred Mann, Petula Clark, Freddie and the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, Herman's Hermits, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Troggs, and Donovan would have one or more number one singles.^[5] Other acts that were part of the invasion included Them and The Dave Clark Five.^[8] British Invasion acts also dominated the music charts at home in the United Kingdom.^[15]

British Invasion artists played in styles now categorized either as blues-based rock music or as guitar-driven rock/pop.^[15] A second wave of the invasion occurred featuring acts such as The Who and The Zombies which were influenced by the invasion's pop side and American rock music.^[15] The musical style of British Invasion artists, such as the Beatles, was influenced by earlier American rock and roll, a genre which had lost some popularity and appeal by the time of the Invasion. White British performers essentially revived a musical genre rooted in black American culture.^[16]

The Beatles movie A Hard Day's Night and fashions from Carnaby Street led American media to proclaim England as the center of the music and fashion world.^[5] Fashion and image marked the Beatles out from their earlier American rock and roll counterparts. Their distinctive, uniform style "challenged the clothing style of conventional US males", just as their music challenged the earlier conventions of the rock and roll genre.^[17]

The Rolling Stones were perceived by the American public as a much more 'edgy' and even dangerous band. They stated themselves that they were much more influenced by black-oriented rhythm and blues. This image marked them as separate from beat artists such as the Beatles, who had become a more acceptable, parent-friendly pop group. The Stones appealed more to an 'outsider' demographic and popularized, for young people at least, the rhythm and blues genre which had been largely ignored or rejected when performed by black American artists in the 1950s.^[17]

The emergence of a relatively homogeneous worldwide "rock" music style about 1967 marked the end of the "invasion".^[5]