Beatles experts revel in the Fab Four's history at Grammy Museum
Five Beatles authorities from different corners of the seemingly infinite Fab Four universe gathered Thursday at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles to revisit and analyze the group’s impact on popular culture in conjunction with the museum’s just-opened exhibit “Ladies and Gentlemen … the Beatles.”
Museum executive director Robert Santelli moderated the discussion among Debbie Gendler, a 13-year-old fan when Beatlemania erupted in the U.S. who was in the audience for the group’s history-making live U.S. television debut on “The Ed Sullivan Show”; former KRLA-AM deejay Bob Eubanks; historian and author Bruce Spizer; and super collectors Chuck Gunderson and Russ Lease, who also co-organized the new exhibit with museum officials.
“We’d noticed there were museum exhibits on Lady Di’s dresses, the Titanic,” Gunderson said at the outset of the 90-minute session in the museum’s 200-seat Clive Davis Theatre. “Chocolate,” inserted Lease, prompting Gunderson to add, “and we thought, ‘Why not the Beatles?’”
So, Gunderson noted, over a period of several years, he and Lease and two other collector friends pooled their memorabilia into what became “Ladies and Gentlemen … the Beatles.” It premiered two years ago in New York and has visited several other cities before reaching Los Angeles, and will travel next to the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark.
But Gunderson pointed out the special L.A. connection stemming from the fact that out of roughly 90 days total that John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr spent together on U.S. soil during the Beatles tours in 1964, 1965 and 1966, “They spent more time in Los Angeles than any other city.
By: Randy Lewis
Source: LA Times
