Say you want a revolution

They came to America on Friday, Feb. 7, 1964, taxiing up to the terminal at New York?s John F. Kennedy Airport in a Pan American jet.In 1964, there were no jetways at JFK. The steps were wheeled to the main door. And when it flew open, out came, in order, George Harrison, John Winston Lennon, James Paul McCartney and Richard (Ringo Starr) Starkey.All the way across the Atlantic, the Beatles had fretted. America was the birthplace of rock ?n? roll, the blues, jazz and all those wonderful forms of music that had formed the basis of their sound.?What could they possibly want from us?” one of them asked manager Brian Epstein.They found out in a hurry. Everywhere they looked, there were screaming girls ? thousands of them ? enraptured at every smile ? every wave. It was Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley times four.In Lynn, 8-year-old Gary Brewer sat in his living room, like he had three months earlier when he watched – with his family – every second of John F. Kennedy?s assassination and funeral.He took note at the long hair, which didn?t put him off the way it did some others, and looked forward to Sunday night, Feb. 9, when they?d be appearing on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Sullivan was a former newspaper columnist who hosted a weekly variety show on Sunday nights – the perfect vehicle to expose the Beatles to the entire nation.?There?s obviously a connection between Kennedy?s assassination and the Beatles,” says Brewer. “For three months, everything was gloom and doom and sadness. These guys came along and it was like, yeah, we can have some fun again.”Ballyhooed buildupThere had probably never been a more ballyhooed buildup for Ed Sullivan than the Beatles – not even when he made a big deal out of filming Elvis from the waist up so that his gyrating hips couldn?t be seen on national TV.In fact, noted Sullivan – who had seen the commotion that greeted the Beatles at a London airport in 1963 and knew he had to book them on his show – Presley and his manager Col. Tom Parker sent the Beatles a telegram, via the nation?s pre-eminent talent impresario (at the time), to the group.Before introducing them, Sullivan said this in his fidgety, distinctive delivery: “Yesterday and today, our theater has been jammed with newspapermen and hundreds of photographers from all over the nation. And they agree with me that the city has never witnessed the excitement stirred by these youngsters from Liverpool who call themselves the Beatles.”And with that, he introduced them to gales of screams from the studio audience, and they broke into one of their most enduring classics, “All My Loving.”?Right then and there,” says Lynn attorney Judith Wayne, “you knew this was a life-changing experience.”?I knew the moment I saw them that?s what I wanted to do,” Brewer said. “I knew I wanted to play music. I didn?t care about the screaming girls, or anything like that. I wanted to be cool, and that was cool.”In another part of Lynn sat Ed Dupont, 11 years old.?You were glued to the TV,” he said. “It was something I?d never seen ? beyond refreshing. Everything ? the sound, John Lennon?s stance ? the harmonies ? it was like going to another planet.”Wayne, who had first heard the Beatles in 1963 while in the hospital recuperating from a broken leg, saw them first on the Sullivan show.?Of course, I went crazy,” she said. “I went out and bought every Beatles record ? I knew the words to every Beatles song ?”The second song in that set was a McCartney solo, “?Til There Was You,” from the show “The Music Man.”?That was brilliant marketing on someone?s part,” recalls Dupont, “because they got all the parents on board. They knew parents would be watching, and they?d be curious.”It was during “Til There Was You” that the group was introduced individually, by first name only, including the message on Lennon?s intro, “sorry girls, he?s married.”?At first,” said Dupont, “Paul seemed the most polished. But it was really impossible to tell, just by watching, who the real leader wa