3 Things You Didn't Know About the Beatles' 1964 North American Tour

The second time the Beatles invaded the United States in 1964, a month-long expedition that began Aug. 19, Art Schreiber was one of just two American newsmen on tour. He rode with their chartered planes, stayed in their hotels and night after night witnessed concerts where music was completely beside the point. Now 86 and on a 50th anniversary tour of his own, Schreiber recalls three things you may not know:

• At the hotel after the concerts, Schreiber's phone would ring, and John would summon him to an all night Monopoly game. George was usually the banker.

• How bad did Charlie Finley, owner of the Kansas City Athletics baseball team, want the Beatles to play Municipal Stadium? He paid the band $150,000, at the time the highest sum ever for a single performance.

• Although the Beatles famously experimented with drugs in later years, there was none of that on their first tour, according to Schreiber. "George was a chain cigarette smoker," he says, "but I never one time saw any pot - nothing. They didn't [even] drink."

 

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(Find more of Art Schreiber's reminiscences in his book Out of Sight and the radio documentary The Beatles in America - 1964)

Photo: iStock/leezsnow

 

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