“I Want to Hold Your Hand” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles. With advance orders exceeding one million copies in the United Kingdom, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” would have gone straight to the top of the British record charts on its day of release (29 November 1963) had it not been blocked by the group’s first million seller “She Loves You”. It was also the group’s first American number one, starting the British invasion of the American music industry. “I Want to Hold Your Hand” became the Beatles’ best-selling single worldwide. In 2013, Billboard Magazine named it the 44th biggest hit of “all-time” on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. (More from Wikipedia)
The Beatles are well known for honing their craft in the clubs of Hamburg, Germany in the very early 1960’s, as well as in their hometown of Liverpool. Still, there was some question back then as to whether they could be successful selling records in a non–English-speaking country, so the Fab Four were cajoled by their manager Brian Epstein and their producer George Martin into recording German-language versions of two of their biggest hits, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “She Loves You” in January 1964. “Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand” was later released on the band’s American album, Something New about six months later.
(April 2013)
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This photograph of the Coronados with Jack Spector, a prominent New York City disc jockey on WMCA, was published in Billboard Magazine in 1965. (Spector is notable for having been the first DJ in New York to play the Beatles’ initial Capitol Records single, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” in late December 1963). Their music is described in the Daily Herald article mentioned previously in this way: “The mode became eclectic – show tunes, popular numbers – with a professional gloss appropriate to the Borscht Belt and other resort circuits.”
Meanwhile, the four teenaged children of the bandmembers in the Coronados – who sometimes appeared with their parents on stage – were being attracted to rock music and began singing and performing together as the Real Americans.
(August 2013)
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“Popsicles and Icicles” by the Murmaids reached #3 on both the Billboard and Cash Box record charts in January 1964. Additionally, the song was ranked #1 on the Record World charts for the week of January 18, 1964; since the next Number One song on the Record World charts was “I Want to Hold Your Hand” by the Beatles, “Popsicles and Icicles” is often cited as the last Number One song of the pre-British Invasion era.
(January 2015/1)
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Like many of the British Invasion bands, the Rolling Stones primarily played and recorded R&B classics and were slow to begin writing their own songs. By contrast, the Beatles were recording mostly new material, and this seemed to be more popular at least with American audiences – the Fab Four scored one #1 single after another over here, beginning with “I Want to Hold Your Hand” in February 1964.
(May 2015)
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