Springsteen Archives 'Get Back' to the Beatles with event celebrating Fab 4's U.S. debut

The Beatles had a ticket to ride to John F. Kennedy International Airport in the winter of 1964, and in some respects they never looked back.

Some of the Beatles biggest concerts occurred in the New York City area, including one in New Jersey, and two of the Fab Four put down roots in New York and New Jersey that remain to this day. The Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music at Monmouth University is presenting the “Get Back … To 1964” symposium Saturday, Feb. 3, marking the 60th anniversary of the Beatles arrival in the United States.

The Liverpudlian lads landed at JFK in Queens on Feb. 7 to a mob of fans.

"On the airplane, I felt New York," said Ringo Starr, according to Beatlesinterviews.org. "It was like an octopus grabbing the plane. I could feel like tentacles coming up to the plane it was so exciting. The first time in New York, I mean, we'd pulled big crowds and we'd had big airport receptions, but of course America is bigger than anywhere else in Europe, so therefore the crowds are bigger.

"So we got off the plane, and we were used to ten, twelve thousand people, you know. It must have been four billion people out there, I mean, it was just crazy! It was fantastic!"

The Beatles got off the plane and then held a press conference.

"Listen, I got a question here," asked a reporter. "Are you going to get a haircut at all while you're here?"

"I had one yesterday," George quipped.

Seventy-three million people watched the Beatles perform “All My Loving,” “Till There Was You,” “She Loves You,” “I Saw Her Standing There” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand” on the Feb. 9 broadcast of “The Ed Sullivan Show.” It was filmed at CBS Studio 50 on Broadway in New York City, now named the Ed Sullivan Theatre.

The Beatles played in Carnegie Hall days after Sullivan on Feb. 12. They came back to the States in August and played Forest Hills Stadium in Queens on Aug. 28 and 29, and Convention Hall in Atlantic City in Aug. 30.

John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote two for songs for the album "Beatles for Sale": "Every Little Thing" and "What You’re Doing," while in New Jersey.

"We wrote this one in Atlantic City like ‘Every Little Thing,' " said McCartney of "What You're Doing" in 1964 according to Beatlesbible.com. "It’s not that Atlantic City is particularly inspiring, it’s just that we happened to have a day off the tour there! Ringo does a nice but of drumming decoration in the introduction, and I double-track on the vocal as well as playing some piano."

The lads stayed at the Lafayette Motel in Atlantic City prior to the show, and at the Marquis De Lafayette Hotel in Cape May after.

The Beatles would also play the Paramount Theatre in New York City on Sept. 20, 1964, and Shea Stadium in Queens on Aug. 15, 1965, and Aug. 23, 1966, while they were still a touring act.

The Beatles broke up in 1970, and in 1971 Lennon moved to New York City. Before he and wife Yoko Ono set up residence in Dakota on West 72nd Street, they lived downtown. Jersey musician Gary van Scyoc, whose band Colony would become regulars at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, played with Lennon and Ono in the band Elephants Memory.

The performances included TV shows, Madison Square Garden, and on the 1972 album "Some Time in New York City."

"He was a very open guy with a tremendous sense of humor," said van Scyoc previously to the East Brunswick-based Home News Tribune. "He was even funnier than he's been portrayed."

"We used to hang out at the Home restaurant (formerly in Midtown Manhattan) and eat macrobiotic foods," he said. "We used to spend every evening there. There was a lot of running around, going to Japanese restaurants and Chinatown. We were having a good time."

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Lennon spent much of his time in the period battling to remain in America — the Nixon administration wanted to deport him. Still, Lennon embraced New York. He was famously photographed in front of the Statue of Liberty and wearing a New York City T-shirt by Bob Gruen.

Lennon, who had recently released the album "Double Fantasy" after a five-year hiatus, was assassinated outside his Dakota home on Dec. 8, 1980. He was 40. Fans to this day gather to honor the late Beatle at the Strawberry Fields, a park across from the Dakota.

As for McCartney, he married a Jersey girl.

McCartney and Nancy Shevell of Edison tied the knot in 2011 in London. She’s a graduate of J.P. Stevens High School in Edison, and her family owned the Elizabeth-based New England Motor Freight trucking company for several decades.

McCartney has been a familiar face in these parts since. He and Shevell popped into the Blue Cafe in Basking Ridge in December 2022. He took a stroll down Main Street in Metuchen in February 2020, and he sang "I Saw Her Standing There" at the Hudson House in Jersey City in November 2019 at a New England Motor Freight party.

He, Shevell and his in-laws had dinner at Jimmy’s Italian Restaurant in Asbury Park in 2017. In 2010, the couple went to the annual Rutgers Chabad National Founders Dinner at the Hyatt in New Brunswick. Shevell’s father was one of the night’s honorees.

As for the music, the Beatles effect on generations of Jersey musicians is immeasurable.

"Steven Van Zandt was telling me that before the Beatles in this area, if you did music you learned the accordion," said Ken Womack, a leading Beatles authority and professor at Monmouth University. "Everybody saw the guitars and what it could be."

Womack is a co-organizer of "1964" and symposium participants include Jim Babjak of the Smithereens; Glen Burtnik of Styx and the Weeklings; Bob Burger, who has performed with McCartney; Beatles’ authors Bruce Spizer (“The Beatles Please Please Me”); Rob Sheffield ("Dreaming The Beatles"); radio personalities Dennis Elsas (WFUV and Sirius) and Tom Frangione (Sirius); Bob Santelli, head of the Springsteen Archives; and former John Lennon assistant May Pang ("The Lost Weekend: A Love Story").

Womack recently wrote “Living the Beatles Legend: The Untold Story of Mal Evans,” which is based on the unpublished recollections of the late Evans, the Beatles roadie and No. 1 man.

"It was a minor miracle that it all worked out," Womack said. "There were so many moving pieces. We're sitting here so many years later, and obviously their impact is clear and ongoing. In Mal's time, there was a bit of a sense that this was going to be a flash in the pan. They didn't know that this was going to be for all-time, and that's what kind of makes it fascinating."

Go: “Get Back … To 1964” Beatles symposium presented by the Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music at Monmouth University, Great Hall, 400 Cedar Ave., West Long Branch, $64; springsteenarchives.org.

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Chris Jordan, a Jersey Shore native, covers entertainment and features for the USA Today Network New Jersey. Contact him at @chrisfhjordan; [email protected]

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Springsteen Beatles symposium celebrates Fab 4 arrival in NYC