Sixty years ago, the joyful earthquake rippling across Britain was given a name: Beatlemania.
In January 1963, the Beatles toured wintry Scotland in a draughty van. In November, their Royal Command Variety Performance was seen by more than 26 million British television viewers.
The Big Bang came in 1964: in January, they were in Paris when they learnt of their first US No 1, I Want to Hold Your Hand; in February, on the Ed Sullivan Show in New York, they were seen by 73 million viewers and in Miami were photographed clowning around with heavyweight contender Cassius Clay.
Afterwards, Clay – who would beat champion Sonny Liston and announce himself as Muhammad Ali – asked, “Who were those little sissies?”
He must have been one of the few who didn’t know – they were the most photographed young men on the planet.
Those were lenses outside looking in; looking out were Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney, both enthusiastic photographers.
In 2015, Starr published Photograph, a collection of images, and in 2020, McCartney found proof-sheets from 1964 in his archive, now collated for London’s National Portrait Gallery and for the large-format hardback 1964: Eyes of the Storm.
McCartney had an eye for more than the hysteria of screaming teens and offers striking black-and-white images: a US motorcycle cop’s gun and holster outside their car window, the bleak rooftop view at the back of the home in London where he once lived, street scenes in Paris and the US, and the Beatles’ weariness and wariness – the boredom amid the bedlam.
There’s a colour image of a cool George Harrison in Miami being handed a cocktail by a woman in a yellow bikini whose head is cropped out, and uncontrived photos of their inner circle and fellow artists.
With additional photos from others – hence the plural in the title – 1964: Eyes of the Storm is considerably more than we might expect from a 21-year-old with a Pentax caught up in unfathomable fame.
1964: Eyes of the Storm, by Paul McCartney. Allen Lane/Penguin, $120.
