PERCEPTION IS REALITY. And good marketing controls perception. In the words of one pundit, “The Beatles were thugs who were put across as nice blokes, and the Rolling Stones were gentlemen who were made into thugs by Andrew [Loog Oldham].” There is some truth in this black-and-white depiction of the rivalry, but, just as in life, there is also plenty of gray.
It is, of course, the greatest argument starter in the annals of rock ’n’ roll history: the Beatles or the Rolling Stones—who’s better? (If your answer is the Who’s better, well, that’s another book entirely.)
A writer named John McMillian came to a very salient conclusion in his “Beatles, Or Stones?” essay in the June/July 2007 issue of the Believer magazine. He states that by 1968, “the mostly good-natured rivalry between the Beatles and the Stones had been ongoing for several years. Although the Beatles were more commercially successful, the two bands competed for radio airplay and record sales throughout the 1960s, and on both sides of the Atlantic teens defined themselves by whether they preferred the Beatles or the Stones. ‘If you truly loved pop music in the 1960s . . . there was no ducking the choice and no cop-out third option,’ one writer remarked. ‘You could dance with them both,’ but there could never be any doubt about which one you’d take home.”
Let’s offer a bit more background. On February 9, 1964, way before Facebook, more than seventy-three million of my dearest, closest friends and I tuned in to watch the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. It was—no exaggeration—a truly life-altering experience. If you lived it, I don’t have to explain why. If you didn’t, there are many credible print, audio, and visual accounts and resources to consult. Let it suffice to say that the Sullivan show rapidly became the Ellis Island of the British Invasion.
Sullivan’s contract with Brian Epstein called for three appearances: the live debut on February 9; another live performance from Miami Beach on February 16; and a prerecorded third visit on February 23. As 1964 was a leap year, the next open slot for a musical guest was Sunday, March 1, and the group chosen to fill it was the Dave Clark Five—whose bombastic first big American hit “Glad All Over” was zooming up the charts. Sullivan immediately invited them back for a second appearance on Sunday, March 8. Gloria Stavers, editor of the then-influential teen magazine 16 chronicled the group’s accomplishment:
GLORIA STAVERS: On the first day of March in 1964, five polite, fascinated, enthusiastic lads from Tottenham, England, deplaned at Kennedy Airport in New York City. Dave Clark, Mike Smith, Rick Huxley, Lenny Davidson, and Denny Payton had come to America to sing their first number one hit record, “Glad All Over,” on The Ed Sullivan Show. Since that time Dave and the boys have been invited back again and again to perform on that top-rated variety show. In fact, they are the only English singing group to be invited to appear on Sullivan’s show over ten times! [A record that was never toppled.]
RICK HUXLEY: Ed Sullivan was a major player in our success story in the USA. His word was law on his program and if he didn’t like you then your future career could be in jeopardy. Fortunately he liked us, and after our first show he announced we would appear the next week too. Even though we had prior commitments, such was his standing and power that we were back the next week. I wonder how it would have affected us if we had not returned the following week?
The Stones’ first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show—note Mick’s infamous sweatshirt
No question about it, the floodgate was now opened for a non-stop parade of Englishmen (and women) across the stage of CBS Studio 53 (later renamed The Ed Sullivan Theater). Firmly established as the launchpad for any and all rock ’n’ roll groups with a British accent, the Sullivan show hosted every major (and minor) player from across the pond until it was canceled in 1971 after a twenty-three year run. It was inevitable and just a matter of time before the Rolling Stones would take the plunge. It happened on October 25, 1964, but with markedly different results than the Beatles debut over nine months earlier.
The Stones had already appeared on network television in the US in June. It was a somewhat disastrous visit to ABC’s The Hollywood Palace, guest-hosted that week by a mocking, eyeball-rolling Dean Martin (see chapter 5 for more on this). So would the Sullivan show provide a friendlier opportunity for the Stones to be showcased on national television in America? Not so much.
What happened is very simple to understand and explain. The Stones were the Stones. They came off sullen, sexual, and threatening. The CBS switchboard was jammed with damning calls from angry parents about the group’s performance.
ANTHONY DECURTIS: The Rolling Stones looked tough. They looked scary. And that’s what made them enticing . . . I remember the first time they were on The Ed Sullivan Show, when Mick Jagger wore a sweatshirt. The response to that was incredible. At my Catholic school the next day, every single one of my teachers gave a lecture about the Rolling Stones and how repulsive they were. They’d pat you on the head for liking the Beatles. They got a kick out of them. They didn’t get a kick out of the Rolling Stones. Liking the Rolling Stones radicalized you. It made you make a stand. Whatever my teachers had to say, that only stiffened my spine. That was the element of the Rolling Stones that was thrilling.
Here is the content of one of the actual telegrams sent to CBS on October 25, 1964: “Stop presenting crude ignorant demoralizing disgusting groups like the Rolling Stones and causing frustration to clean American youth struggling to achieve a spot on a decent show. You disturb parents and morally sicken our youth while you greedily pursue TV ratings with odoriferous arrogance towards the moral conditions you help create in this country.”
Unlike his blanket endorsement and praise of the Beatles, Sullivan reverted to his “Elvis era” moral-guardian guise, and issued the following statement to the press:
ED SULLIVAN: I promise you they will never be back on our show. If things can’t be handled, we’ll stop the whole business. We won’t book any more rock ’n’ roll groups and will ban teenagers from the theater. Frankly, I didn’t see the group until the day before the broadcast . . . It took me seventeen years to build this show, and I’m not going to have it destroyed in a matter of weeks.
It was all talk. Sullivan rebooked the Stones for a second appearance on his May 2, 1965, telecast. They ultimately appeared six times on the show between 1964 and 1969.
Bill Wyman once told me a funny story about the Stones appearance on Sullivan in February 1966.
BILL WYMAN: So they wanted to beep out a word in “Satisfaction” and they just wound up making everything that much worse. We were miming to the record and Mick was singing live, and when he came to the line “trying to make some girl,” they beeped it so it came out, “trying to BEEP some girl,” which made it so much worse because everybody’s vivid imaginations were trying to figure out what he really said (laughs). “What did he say?” “Did he say . . . ‘fuck’?” In the end it kind of helped our image in a way (laughs). I mean, it’s still talked about now, right?
Promo ad for “I Wanna Be Your Man,” the Stones’ second single, given to them by Lennon and McCartney
There can really be no question or debate about the trailblazing role that the Beatles played for the Rolling Stones and every other British band. And the Stones also benefited mightily from the support (however self-serving it was) that the Liverpool quartet gave to the London quintet.
First of all, it may have been George Harrison himself who helped the Stones get their first recording contract.
GEORGE HARRISON: There was a big showcase at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. The Beatles had become famous . . . Anyway, I remember meeting some executives from London, one of whom must have been Dick Rowe [of Decca]. He said, “You’ll tell us who the good groups are, will you?” And I said, “I don’t know about that, but you want to get the Rolling Stones.”
Then there’s the story of the Stones recording the Lennon and McCartney–penned tune that gives this chapter its title, “I Wanna Be Your Man.”
ANDREW LOOG OLDHAM: The Rolling Stones were in this rehearsal place in Leicester Square and we had nothing to record. Can we do “Poison Ivy”? No. “Fortune Teller”? No. I went out for a walk pissed off, and ran into John and Paul who were coming—being very nice—coming from a Variety Club of Great Britain. I think they’d been honored for something for the first time, and they said, “What’s wrong with you?” So I told them and, out of the good old Brill Building/Liverpool training they had, they said, “Well we’ve got something.” And they came down and finished [“I Wanna Be Your Man”] off in front of them—which was a great lesson in songwriting for Mick and Keith as well—and I felt so good about it that I went to Paris. I didn’t even go to the session . . . I think “I Wanna Be Your Man” went to number nine or ten in England.
Here’s another take on that same tale:
JOHN LENNON: The story on “I Wanna Be Your Man” was that they needed a record. They’d put out “Come On” by Chuck Berry and needed a quick follow-up. We met Andrew Oldham, who used to work for Epstein then had gone to the Stones and probably got them off Giorgio Gomelsky. He came to us and said, “Have you got a song for them?” And we said, “Sure,” because we didn’t really want it ourselves.
We went in, and I remember teaching it to them. We played it roughly and they said, “Yeah, OK, that’s our style.” So Paul and I just went off in a corner of the room and finished the song while they were all still there, talking. We came back and that’s how Mick and Keith got inspired to write. “Jesus, look at that. They just went in the corner and wrote it and came back!” Right in front of their eyes we did it.
You could easily make the case that the Beatles were more helpful to the Stones than vice versa. So let’s give this early round to the Fab Four, but the rivalry is far from over.
