"Ladies and Gentlemen... The Beatles!" Rock Grammy Museum

LBJ LIBRARY PHOTO BY LAUREN GERSON





www.nbclosangeles.com
Beatles Artifacts to Rock Grammy Museum
The Fab Four's "impact on pop culture from the perspective of their fans" is the focus.
By Alysia Gray Painter
May 16, 2016




"Ladies and Gentlemen... The Beatles!" opens at the LA Live-based museum on Friday, July 1.

Seven thousand years in the future, when our holograms are beamed to concerts in distant cities, and a private jam session with a favorite guitarist is as simple as plugging in the right cable from our virtual reality amp, scholars will still be seriously studying Beatlemania.

The scream-worthy, all-encompassing moment revved up, marvelously and mop-top-ishly, in 1964, when Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr arrived on our fair American shores for a history-changing appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show."

What followed? Millions of posters, buttons, toys, and t-shirts, the sort of collectible doodads that had already popped up in England where the Liverpudlians got their star.

The Grammy Museum will soon ponder the phenomenon starting on July 1, 2016 when "Ladies and Gentlemen... The Beatles!" opens at the LA Live-based music history institution.

True, true, the museum has already given individual shows to all the Beatles, save Paul. And true, true, The Beatles already have a presence in the museum, in various pockets and displays, because, well, they're The Beatles.

But this traveling, stuff-packed show, which has been compiled by the Grammy Museum and Fab Four Exhibits, "explores and celebrates The Beatles' impact on pop culture from the perspective of their fans."

So, you betcha, there shall be memorabilia, over 400 pieces worth, as well as "articles of clothing" and "tour artifacts" and "rare photographs."

Will you see a Paul doll, the one you loaned to your cousin Margie, there in the museum? Our childhood playthings do have a rather impressive way getting a bit priceless as we age (at least the ones we no longer own).

The exhibit is a continuing 50th anniversary celebration of when the band first arrived in the United States back in 1964, and the huge impact it had on both the fans then and the fans now.

And, yes, on the concept of fandom in general.

Which means that, in seven thousand years, when we'll all be holograms, or living inside a glowing VR world, we'll still be studying the lasting impact of Beatlemania, a force so Fab that neither time, nor your Paul doll disappearing inside your cousin's toy chest, can stop it.

Published at 11:22 PM PDT on May 16, 2016

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www.grammymuseum.org
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN... THE BEATLES!

Fifty years ago The Beatles came to America.  On Friday, February 7, 1964, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr arrived from the U.K. at the newly-named John F. Kennedy International Airport.  With cameras flashing and reporters jostling, they were whisked into Manhattan amid the screams, shouts and tears of New York area teens, braving the cold for a mere glimpse of the band.  Then, that Sunday, the veritable king of the television variety show, Ed Sullivan, introduced them to a captivated American audience of more than 73 million viewers—at the time a television record.  And just like that Beatlemania was upon us.

Ladies and Gentlemen…The Beatles! brings us back to the early ‘60s when rock & roll was re-energized--some say saved--by four lads from Liverpool.  The exhibit covers the period from early 1964 through mid-1966—the years Beatlemania ran rampant in America.  During this time the band affected nearly every aspect of pop culture, including fashion, art, advertising, media, and, of course, music.  On display are many Beatles-related pop culture artifacts from the period, as well as correspondence, instruments, posters, photographs, interviews, interactive displays, and an oral history booth in which visitors can leave their own impressions of The Beatles.   Screenings and a series of talks reveal the continuing impact of the Beatles.

Curated by the GRAMMY Museum and Fab Four Exhibits, Ladies and Gentlemen…The Beatles! provides fresh new insight into how and why The Beatles impacted America in the 1960s—and beyond.

LOCATION
SECOND FLOOR, SPECIAL EXHIBITS GALLERY

ON DISPLAY
JUL 1, 2016
THROUGH
SEP 5, 2016

HOURS
M-F: 10:30AM - 6:30PM
S-S: 10:00AM - 6:30PM