A lot happened in 1964, but it’s not a particularly striking year in historical terms. It is not easy to remember some event and put that date on it, as we do with other years: 1962 and the Cuban missile crisis; 1968 and the French May or the Prague Spring; 1969 and the arrival of man on the Moon; 1973 and the oil crisis… But 1964 was the year in which the flame of some things was lit that ended up exploding shortly after. For example, in musical and cultural terms, beatlemania.
And it is that 1964 was one of the key moments in the configuration of this phenomenon that forever changed the relationship of musicians –whether groups or soloists– with their followers. In that year, The Beatles undertook their first major international tour, which would take them to the United States for the first time, the true mecca of rock and roll. And nothing was the same anymore.
A lot has already been written about The Beatles, also about that tour that, in addition to New York, Washington or Miami, took them from their native Liverpool to London or Paris. But with such a large group, large above all for what they meant artistically and culturally, there is always something to discover. And that is 1964. The eyes of the storm, the revelation of the graphic history of that very special moment for The Beatles through the eye of one of its members, Paul McCartney. That is, the photographs that McCartney took of those months, unpublished until today, and which are now collected in a book and, soon, in an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Precisely the director of the British museum, Nicholas Cullinan, explains that this collection of images provides “a new perspective” of “three crucial months” for the group but also crucial as a sample of “the cultural maelstrom caused by four talented musicians”. An idea that somehow endorses Pablo Salgado, editor of Liburuak (responsible for the Spanish edition of the book for the whole world), for whom these photographs reflect “a before and after in contemporary culture”, as they record “the moment of the birth of pop cultureâ€. And for this reason, they have above all a sociological and documentary value, even above the artistic value of the images, whose author –McCartney– acknowledges that he is not a camera professional and that the value of the photographs that he is now revealing is not in the technique but in what they represent as a document.
Beatlemania is certainly not comparable in historical terms to other major events that occurred in those years (two months before The Beatles arrived in the United States, in November 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated, for example), but it is it marked a path that was followed by many musicians who have been part of the gigantic cultural industry that has fueled the dreams and passions of millions of music lovers. In a way, Beatlemania marked a paradigm shift in the relationships of these musicians with their fans, with the media, and with the music industry. Never before has a musical group aroused so much expectation inside and outside its borders. As historian Jill Lepore explains in the book, “in 1964, The Beatles became the first truly global mass cultural phenomenon.” On February 9 of that year, the appearance of the four Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show was seen by 73 million viewers, a record for television audience at that time.
Paul McCartney tells in the book that he was always interested in photography, a booming practice in those early sixties, both from photojournalism or advertising and from art and, also, with domestic photography. And the beatle could not miss the opportunity to capture through his gaze that special moment for the group (and for the world). Armed with a 35mm Pentax SLR, Paul McCartney captured his bandmates and tour companions with an intimacy rarely seen before, in rehearsals, dressing rooms and hotels; he portrayed the photographers who constantly persecuted and photographed them; to the fans who wanted to get closer to them like never before; his first transatlantic flight and the places through which they passed… And he also took pictures of himself.
The book 1964. The eyes of the storm collects 275 of the almost thousand photographs that McCartney kept from that time and that one day he discovered stored. In them you can see how that amateur photographer likes to play with mirrors, with frames, with surprise. And at the same time how he lets himself be surprised by the spaces and people that are new to him.
The set of images can also be read as a journey from their original Liverpool to the pools of Miami where they discover a luxury and a light that, for the first time, McCartney decides to capture in color. There is in that transition from Liverpool to Miami a path of transformation, a germination of what The Beatles had to be.
A little over a year ago, we were able to discover Peter Jackson’s feature length documentary The Beatles. Get Back, with images from 1969 that showed us the intimacy of the group at a time already marked by the tensions that would lead to their separation. Now, McCartney’s photographs show us in contrast those other moments in which The Beatles lived a great creative moment but in which, in addition, fun still shines above all.
