While researching the question Pete had about Ed Sullivan in England, I
decided to revisit another assumption. Some time ago I'd searched
through the New York Times for the first mention of the Fabs, which I
found in the newspaper for 4 Nov 1963, an apparently truncated AP or UPI
story about fans rioting over an English pop group called the Beatles.
Bruce Spizer cites this as the first as well in his book "The Beatles
Are Coming!".
But it turns out that the earliest cite in U.S. newspapers (so far
known) occurred three weeks before this on 14 Oct 1963, all in:
El Paso Herald Post, El Paso TX
Eureka Humboldt Standard, Eureka CA
Long Beach Press Telegram, Long Beach CA
Tucson Daily Citizen, Tucson AZ
Oakland Tribune, Oakland CA
Ogden Standard-Examiner, Ogden UT
and probably a few other regional papers that haven't yet been digitized.
All carry the same two-paragraph UPI story (truncated to one paragraph
in two cases). Here's an example from the Tucson Daily Citizen:
http://www.sakionline.net/uploads/tucsondailycitizen14oct1963.jpg
But Canada gets the award for being most prescient of all. The earliest
known North American coverage was the Winnipeg Free Press, Winnipeg,
Manitoba, on 28 Sept 1963, via the Times of London:
http://www.physics.ucla.edu/hep/fab/winnipegfp28sept1963.jpg
This is a chatty article by Derek Jewell who mentions other Merseyside
groups of the day and provides some analysis of the Beatles' fame. It
also sounds to me (from his prose) as if he'd just seen the do***entary
"The Mersey Sound".
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