marcus wrote:

> The kind of follow-up story after that article's appearance where this
> "mystery woman" stops acting so coy, and actually allows herself to be
> seen by the public.  What is she afraid of...the truth?

My impression is that she's reluctant to be drawn into any pumped-up 
hyperbole (such as that offered by CBS in the article) about her role in 
the rise of American Beatlemania. She herself sees herself as "kind of a 
footnote", as she says.

Bruce Spizer's comments are worth considering. Her request to WWDC, and 
the radio station's efforts to secure a Beatles record for airplay as 
early as about Dec. 15, 1963, did have some effect on persuading Capitol 
to push up its release date for "I Want To Hold Your Hand". But so did 
other radio stations in the USA, most in major markets, who obtained the 
song themselves, either on vinyl or via tape. My local station started 
playing it in mid-December as well...and Capitol Records was probably 
aware of it, being located in the same radio market.

> I find it very difficult to believe that her tipping off the radio
> station launched the career of The Beatles in America.  In early
> November, Epstein and Sullivan had all ready worked out the deal for
> their TV appearances on the latter's show.

As RichL pointed out, she didn't launch their career. She was a gear in 
the timepiece, one of many. As you point out, the Beatles were already 
contractually obligated to appear on Ed Sullivan in Feb. 1964, whether 
or not they had hit record by that time. And various mainstream print 
media outlets (Time, Newsweek, New York Times Magazine, New Yorker) had 
all had stories on the phenomenon of Beatlemania in England.

> And as many have all ready pointed out, there were a small cluster of
> stations in the US that had all ready played some of The Beatles'
> recordings before WWDC.

True! But those airings didn't catch like "IWTHYH"...not the right 
moment, I guess.

----
saki{at}ucla.edu

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