The Beatles Come to America (Turning Points, 11)
When the Beatles touched down in New York on February 7, 1964 for their first visit to America, they brought with them a sound that hadn't been heard before. By the time they returned to England two weeks later, major changes in music, fashion, the record industry, and the image of an entire generation had been set into motion.
Coming less than three months after the assassination of President Kennedy, the Beatles' visit helped rouse the country out of mourning. A breathless and condescending media concentrated on the band's hairstyles and their adoring fans, but their enduring importance lay in their music, their wit, and style, a disconnect that signaled the beginning of the generation gap.
In this intriguing cultural history, Martin Goldsmith examines how and why the Beatles struck such a lasting chord.
Book details
- Author
- Martin Goldsmith
- Imprint
- Trade Paper Press, an imprint of Turner Publishing Company
- Published
- Formats
- Hardcover
- Series
- Turning Points
- Subjects
- Biography & Autobiography › Music
- Topics
- Beatlemania · British Invasion · 1960s music · Ed Sullivan Show · rock music history · American popular culture · generation gap
- ISBN-13
- 9781620457214
About the author
MARTIN GOLDSMITH hosted NPR’s daily classical music program Performance Today for ten years and spent over a decade at WETA-FM in Washington, D.C., as producer, announcer, music director, and program director. He is the author of Alex’s Wake and The Inextinguishable Symphony: A True Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany.
Goldsmith joined NPR in 1986 and later served as director of classical music programming for XM Satellite Radio, then as host and classical music programmer for Symphony Hall on SiriusXM, a post from which he retired in 2026.
When not writing, Goldsmith has spent his career in classical music radio broadcasting. His books draw directly on that world and on his family’s experience in Nazi Germany, where his parents performed in the all-Jewish Kulturbund ensemble.
Martin lives in Maryland.
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