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| The British Invasion was the term applied by the news media—and subsequently by consumers—to the influx of rock and roll, beat and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular in the United States and Canada. The classic British Invasion period was 1964 to 1967 (roughly bracketed by The Beatles' appearance on Ed Sullivan and the emergence of Jimi Hendrix as a U.S.- born superstar who had his first success in the UK), but the term has also been applied to later "waves" of UK artists that had significant impact on the North American entertainment market. The rebellious tone and image of American rock and roll and blues musicians also deeply resonated with British youth in the late 1950s, influencing all the British Invasion artists. The song generally cited by historians as beginning the first British Invasion was The Beatles' I Want to Hold Your Hand, which debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 on January 18, 1964, and hit #1 on February 1, 1964. It became the biggest hit of the year, as well as the fourth-biggest hit of the decade. The Beatles' first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show a week later, on February 9, 1964, started a massive wave of publicity that lasted at least five years, leading to a dozen other major British artists appearing on the show and dominating the American pop charts during those years. Technically speaking, The Beatles music was released in America six months earlier, including the first single of "From Me to You", released on Vee-Jay Records, and charting at #118 on the Bubbling Under charts on August 3, 1963. Only when Capitol mounted a massive publicity campaign in late December, 1963 did the Invasion hit full steam. The beats and catchy rhythms were hard not to like among Americans when Beatlemania first hit the nation - so much that it is often said that The Beatles as icons were so popular because they personified the generation's youth, and that their music and records "had begun to mark the passage of time in their listeners' lives." With President Kennedy's assassination, the Vietnam War and other political crises, it was only right for the Beatles to serve as "pivotal figures in the creation myth of the counterculture." Cultural critics have pointed out that the February 7, 1964 arrival of the Beatles and the ensuing mass hysteria occurred because of an existing vacuum that existed among America’s youth still in mourning over Kennedy’s death the previous November 22. The Beatles' "British oddities" as far as appearance and first impressions, with their shaggy hair and funny accents, were apparent when a reporter asked, "Does all that hair help you sing?" Their music meshed codependently with the culture and fashion of the musical group. Not only did the Fab Four influence fashion, haircuts and manners of the 1960s, they easily connected to the young "rebels" of the generation and influenced what defined a "cultural rebel" and collective nonconformity when it came to protests and activism. Early British Invasion artists The Animals The Beatles The Bee Gees Chad and Jeremy The Dave Clark Five Petula Clark Cream Donovan Dusty Springfield Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders The Fortunes Freddie and the Dreamers Gerry & the Pacemakers Herman's Hermits The Hollies The Kinks Lulu Manfred Mann The Moody Blues Mr. Acker Bilk The New Vaudeville Band Peter and Gordon The Pretty Things The Rolling Stones The Spencer Davis Group The Troggs The Who The Yardbirds The Zombies -- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: January 24, 2009 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Invasion) |