1964 British Invasion had profound impact on many
The night the Beatles appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” Feb. 9, 1964, is hailed by historians and critics as one of the most historic moments in music and television.
That show 50 years ago certainly changed the lives of some Butler County residents who were among the estimated 74 million watching.
John, Paul, George and Ringo caused Tom Menchyk of Butler Township to put down the trumpet and pick up the guitar.
Menchyk, a retired elementary school teacher in the Butler School District, was 14 that night.
“The Beatles looked like they were having fun,” he said.
“At the time I was playing the trumpet, and we had an old guitar around the house. I had no idea what to do with it. I went out and got a book and learned to play it.”
Menchyk said it was an easy decision.
“You didn't see the girls screaming at the trumpet players,” he said. “It was the guitars that made them go crazy. You didn't see them screaming on the 'Lawrence Welk Show.'”
Menchyk said, “It motivated me to learn because I thought maybe I could do that. And just because I learned to play guitar and got together with other guys who saw and felt the same thing, we formed a little band.”
“And based on the fact that I started playing music with other guys, I eventually joined the Jentz after I graduated from high school,” Menchyk said.
Menchyk played guitar with the Jentz from 1968 to 2007.
“It took me places. Learning to play music helped me meet people and do things and make friends that have lasted a lifetime, and none of that would have happened if I hadn't been motivated by the Beatles on 'Ed Sullivan,'” Menchyk said.
Menchyk's fellow Jentz member, Bob Dandoy of Butler, feels the same way.He was 12 when he watched that CBS broadcast.“What I remember most vividly is all the girls screaming,” said Dandoy, a retired Karns City High School teacher.“I think probably there were hundreds and hundreds of kids that reacted the way I reacted,” said Dandoy. “It was a very different sound from what I had been hearing. It made me immediately say 'I want to be a musician. I want to play a guitar. I want this.' You are looking at a screen and seeing that excitement.”Dandoy said he started playing in a band in his sophomore year in high school and played music for the next 20 years.Another lifelong musician is Randy Roth of Butler.“I graduated from IUP in 1974 and have done nothing but music all my life,” said Roth.He “absolutely” remembers the Beatles appearance in 1964 when he was 12.“It struck a chord. I had been listening to the Everly Brothers, Carl Perkins, Elvis,” said Roth.“When the Beatles came in, it was like it hit a different part of my ear, my soul. I was definitely inspired by them. Their harmonies were beautiful. I followed them my whole life,” said Roth.“I'm still a Beatles nut. They've influenced me all through college,” Roth said. “They were cutting edge from the first album until the end. 'Sgt. Pepper,' 'The White Album.'”David Lytle of Butler played bass guitar in a band called the Sequins from 1965 to 1968.Lytle said he thinks he saw the Beatles' American debut.
“I think so. I saw them on a number of times so it's hard to know for sure, but I know everybody was excited about it,” said Lytle, who was 14 when the Beatles debuted.“What I got from the Beatles was an enjoyment of music far beyond what I would have had otherwise,” said Lytle.“It got me performing before crowds. My life would have been totally different if I hadn't gotten into music, and the Beatles were instrumental in that. They helped me become an inventor and a generally creative person,” he said.Lytle said the Sequins were popular in the Pittsburgh area.“We were on TV a lot. Channel 13 had a show called 'The Place.' Channel 11 had 'Come Alive,' which was sort of an 'American Bandstand' sort of thing,” said Lytle.Drew Moniot, a 1968 Butler High graduate, is the creative development manager at KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh and also an adjunct professor at Point Park and Robert Morris universities.He used to be Lytle's bandmate in the Sequins.“I still play guitar and sing and play a little bit of keyboards,” Moniot said.He remembers the excitement leading up to the Beatles' appearance.“Kids in school were talking about it. Radio stations were starting to play their music,” Moniot said.“I remember hearing them one night on WBZ from Boston and thinking how strange the music was. It wasn't like the American rock 'n' roll,” Moniot said. “It had me curious to see how they looked.”“People were glued to their sets. I remember going to school the next day and that's all people were talking about. People were so excited about it,” Moniot said.
“People talk about that moment as significant in American pop culture in the wake of the Kennedy assassination, which was just a few months before that,” said Moniot of Pittsburgh.“The country was in a somber frame of mind. The Beatles was the first moment of optimism and glimmer of light,” Moniot said. “Everybody was hungry for it back then. That's it really, it really was the right moment for them to step on stage.”“The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Dave Clark 5, the Kinks, we started to learn to play this stuff and grew our hair out to look like the Beatles. If you could play those bands' music, you played a lot,” said Moniot.“There were a lot of local bands. We were all working, all busy. It was cool to be in a band back then. There was so much live music going on. It was a golden age of live music sparked by the Beatles,” Moniot said.Patricia Steere of Butler said many teens were primed for the television appearance by the Beatles' music on the radio.Steere said she took pictures of the Beatles' performance on the TV with a Brownie camera.“I was just so excited I had to take pictures,” Steere said.She went on to collect Beatles posters, buttons, magazines and eventually saw the group at Pittsburgh's Civic Arena.“I gave them all up when I got married. I gave them to my cousin,” Steere said of her Beatles memorabilia. “There's not many things I regret, but that was one of them.”Longtime Butler radio host Larry Berg remembers interviewing Paul McCartney the day before the Sullivan show.
Berg, then 33, was a disc jockey on WCAQ radio in Baltimore.“We were playing four Beatles records an hour and that was a lot,” said Berg. “That's all the young people were talking about in those days.”Berg said he was supposed to emcee a Beatles concert in Washington, D.C., the Friday before the Sullivan show appearance, but an ice storm made travel from Baltimore impossible.“But I made arrangements with Capitol Records. They were taking the Saturday train to New York. They had a private car on the train,” said Berg.“When they stopped in Baltimore, I got to go on board. I interviewed Paul McCartney for two, three minutes before I had to get off,” Berg said.“The one thing that struck me was because the Beatles were so big in England and Germany for a number of years, they were used to this kind of reception,” Berg said.But of all the magical mystery tours sparked by the Beatles for Butler County residents, perhaps the longest was the one taken by Norman Saleet, who now is a songwriter and actor in California.“I got on the path because of the Beatles,” said Saleet.Saleet said he had been taking guitar lessons but he wasn't inspired until he saw the Beatles perform.Saleet said guitarist Danny Ruddick, drummer Dave Markwell, Saleet's brother, Mitchell, on bass and himself on lead guitar and vocals formed a band called the DeeJays.“Then that turned into the Good Family, and we played the Butler Holiday Inn and played all of the clubs and the bars in Butler and all the surrounding areas,” Saleet said.“In 1966 or '67, I remember starting to write my own songs,” Saleet said.
Saleet said he eventually sent cassette tapes with his songs to booking agents in Southern California.Saleet said Joy Healey Booking liked his songs and arranged for the Good Family to go to California by booking the band in Holiday Inns across the country.“I never set eyes on this man, that's how innocent things were,” said Saleet. “We ended up in Stockton, California.”After the Good Family broke up, Saleet and his wife stayed in Los Angeles where he wrote songs and pursued contacts at Warner Brothers and MCA Records.“I wrote the song, 'Magic in the Air,' which really started my career,” he said. It won the American Song Festival, which led to him writing hit songs for Air Supply, Karen Carpenter and America among other performers.“It's ironic,” said Saleet of the Beatles. “In 1964 they came on the scene and by 1969 they were gone. They weren't a band anymore. And today we are still talking about them.”
<b>WHAT:</b> “The Night that Changed America: A Grammy Salute to the Beatles”<b>WHEN:</b> 8 p.m. Sunday<b>WHERE:</b> CBS, Channel 2<b>INFO:</b> Performers include Eurythmics, Alicia Keys, John Legend, Maroon 5, John Mayer and Keith Urban. The show was taped on Jan. 27, the day after the 56th Annual Grammy Awards, and will be broadcast 50 years to the day when the Beatles performed on the “Ed Sullivan Show” in 1964.
