There was a teenage girl who is given credit for her part in sparking Beatlemania in America. The Beatles had become a phenomena in Britain during 1963, Capitol Records in the US were a subsidiary of EMI the Beatles record company and refused to take them on so the early Beatles singles were released by smaller American companies and where radio stations did play them the response was very lukewarm. This 15 year old girl saw a news report on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite about Beatlemania in the UK and she wrote a letter to a DJ in Washington asking 'Why can't we get great music like this?', the DJ had a friend working for British Airlines and asked him to get a stewardess to bring some Beatles records for him. I think it was 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand' she delivered to him, he was the only person in America to have the record which had just been released in England, he played it on the air, the station switchboard lit up like a Christmas tree and it spread like wildfire - lots of other factors including the assassination of JFK which had really cast a pall over the country and teenagers were ready to break out of this national mourning thing it was going through.
I missed out on Beatlemania, my sisters were little but even little kids got caught up in it - we had some cool Beatles memorabilia, the Beatles completely got ripped off, didnt make a dime off the Beatles merchandise.
All I could think about listening to Punnett interview Peter Asher was what if Noory was in the host's chair.
George Noory: Do you think the Beatles will ever get back together?
Peter Asher: uh ... John and George are dead so ...
George Noory: that's true. maybe they could do a hologram of them
Peter Asher: um .... yeah
George Noory: You produced a lot of hit records for music stars like James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt. Did you ever work with Pat Boone? He's a friend of ours.
Peter Asher: No unfortunately I never had the ... uh ... opportunity.
George Noory: What about Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top, Billy listens to our show.