The Beatles are the only group and artist to ever have the top five records on Billboard’s Top 100. For the week ending April 4, 1964, they were:
1 Can't Buy Me Love 2 Twist and Shout 3 She Loves You 4 I Want To Hold Your Hand 5 Please Please Me
What you might not know, is that along with these five, the Fab Four had seven other hits on the charts that week. They were:
31 I Saw Her Standing There 41 From Me To You 46 Do You Want To Know A Secret 58 All My Loving 65 You Can't Do That 68 Roll Over Beethoven 79 Thank You Girl
That’s 12 songs on the Billboard Top 100.
The Beatles held the number one spot from February 1 until May 9. Prior to this run, starting with I Want To Hold Your Hand, the number one song in America was Bobby Vinton’s There I’ve Said It Again. Ending the streak in May was Hello Dolly by Louis Armstrong. No wonder the British Invasion was so successful.
American rockers were on the scene at this time, but none made a major splash. I’m talking about Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everlys, Fats Domino, and Dion.
The Beatles reached the American shores prior to 1964. None of their songs were major hits: My Bonnie (April 1962), Please Please Me (February 1963), From Me To You (May 1963) and She Loves You (September 1963).
I first heard Please Please Me and From Me To You when they came out in February and May 1963 respectively. I liked both songs. But I thought at the time that Beatles was a strange name for a group (it was OK, though, for Buddy Holly and the Crickets).
By the way, the first Beatles song recorded by an American artist was From Me To You in June 1963. It was sung by Del Shannon, the guy who had the hit Runaway. He met the Beatles while on tour in England. It reached number 77 on the charts.
By the Way, the Beatles were issued on a variety of record labels: Capitol, Capital of Canada, Swan, Atco, Vee-Jay, MGM, Tollie, United Artists, Decca, Apple, Parlophone, and Odeon. It was Capitol that screwed them over. More on that another time.
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