The Beatles' first New York trip resonates 60 years on

Six days after I Want to Hold Your Hold broke through as their first No.1 hit in the , Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison braced for a warm welcome as Pan Am Flight 101 out of London neared its destination in Queens.

Never, however, did they expect the spectacle they found when they disembarked.

Some 3000 fans, many of them smiling, shrieking, hysterical girls who skipped school on a Friday, ambushed JFK Airport, congregating along the rooftop and pushing past police barricades to catch a glimpse of the mop-topped British heart-throbs.

Delighted screams from overwhelmed teens served as the soundtrack as the grinning, waving Beatles stepped off of a Boeing 707 and onto American soil for the first time.

Those screams became a staple of McCartney, Lennon, Starr and Harrison's two-week trip, during which they made history on The Ed Sullivan Show, played back-to-back concerts at Carnegie Hall and journeyed down to Washington, D.C., and Miami Beach.

"No one will understand the emotion of us landing in America," Starr said in 2019. "But it was New York, and all of the music we loved came from there. It was just far out."

Wednesday marks the 60-year anniversary of that epic airport arrival, which remains a watershed moment in pop culture society is still trying to unravel.

February 1964 offered America its first taste of Beatlemania, but the singer-songwriters from Liverpool had already achieved super stardom in their native England behind two full albums, a trio of chart-topping songs and the distinction of being the first pop act to perform before the Royal Family.

However, Capitol Records, an American subsidiary of the British label EMI, doubted the Beatles could satisfy US ears and repeatedly passed on initial singles such as Please Please Me, From Me to You and Love Me Do.

I Want to Hold Your Hold was different. There were no harmonicas, which Capitol decision-makers feared gave previous Beatles songs too much of a blues feel to connect locally.

Capitol released I Want to Hold Your Hand on December 26, 1963, and dumped money into a publicity campaign to generate excitement about their US arrival six weeks later.

Americans fell fast for the Fab Four. Often equipped with pins and signs declaring their favourite band member, admirers followed the Beatles' every move. Hordes of fans surrounded New York's prized Plaza Hotel, where the Beatles stayed. Some navigated cars as they ran through the neighbouring streets. At one point, the crowds required the Beatles' chauffeur to climb across his car to reach the driver's seat.

Being in America delighted the Beatles, too. McCartney, Lennon, Starr and Harrison, all in their early 20s, adored American music, from girl groups such as the Ronettes through to Little Richard.

Upon arriving stateside, the Beatles phoned radio stations and requested other artists' records instead of their own.

"They wanted to hear more," a world-renowned authority on the Beatles Kenneth Womack said. "'What are we missing?' It was doing recon at a certain level. I think that's kind of cool, that they weren't coming over and just indulging in an easy ego trip. They meant business."

Nothing resonated more than their performances on The Ed Sullivan Show.

At the time, Sullivan was known as the "Star Maker," with his TV variety show offering the biggest platform for entertainers to introduce themselves to a national audience.

A whopping 50,000 requests to attend the Beatles' first Sullivan Show performance poured in, shattering the previous record of 7000 submissions to see Elvis Presley nearly eight years earlier. US president Richard Nixon and Jack Paar managed to get spots in the 728-seat studio for their daughters.

The Beatles achieved 20 No.1 hits in the US, which remains a record.

"The interesting thing about the Beatles is that those echoes are still out there," Womack said.

"We're still coming to grips with that level of originality and what that means, or I think we would've repeated it or found a way for other talented folks to make their marks."

To Americans, it all started six decades ago, when McCartney, Lennon, Starr and Harrison touched down at JFK.

Australian Associated Press