Footnotes

I'm often fascinated by uber-footnotes in history; either in pictures (eg. who's the woman in the picture they always show kneeling over the body at Kent State?) or otherwise (eg Raymond Jones - to quote Wikipedia: The Beatles had recorded the 'My Bonnie' single with Tony Sheridan in Germany...Epstein's version of the story was that a customer—Raymond Jones—walked into the NEMS shop and asked Epstein for the "My Bonnie" single, which made Epstein curious about the group.") Who are these people? Has anyone ever interviewed them? That should be a whole book, interviews with these footnote people. There's millions of 'em. - SEE XMASTIME FOOTNOTES HERE.

While Raymond Jones may have been responsible for leading Brian Epstein to The Beatles, it was a 15 year-old girl who prompted the first-ever playing of The Beatles on American radio:

In addition to prompting CBS to begin promotion of The Beatles' upcoming appearance on the Sullivan show, Cronkite's decision to broadcast The Beatles story on Dec. 10 set forth a domino effect causing Beatlemania to explode in America nearly three weeks ahead of schedule. That evening, 15-year-old Marsha Albert of Silver Spring, MD, viewed The Beatles performing "She Loves You" on the CBS news and like what she saw and heard. Marsha wrote a letter to her favorite radio station, WWDC, referring to The Beatles' appearance on the news and asking, "Why can't we have this music in America?" DJ Carroll James, who also had seen The Beatles on the news, arranged to have a copy of the group's latest British single, "I Want to Hold Your Hand", delivered to him by the BOAC airline.

On Dec. 17, 1963, exactly one week after the CBS broadcast, James had Marsha Albert come down to the station to introduce the song on his radio show. After the song ended, James requested that listeners write in to let him know what they thought of The Beatles. Bust most couldn't wait and began calling the station immediately. According to James, the station's switchboard lit up like a Christmas tree with eager listeners phoning in to praise the song. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" was immediately added to WWDC's playlist and placed in heavy rotation. It didn't take long for Capitol to learn that a Washington station had jumped the gun by playing "I Want to Hold Your Hand" four weeks prior to its scheduled release date of Jan. 13, 1964. Capitol telephoned WWDC and requested that the single be pulled off the air, but the station refused. Capitol then hired New York entertainment attorney Walter Hofer, who represented Epstein, The Beatles and the song's publisher, to contact the station and demand that WWDC "cease and desist" playing the song. According to Hofer, James told him, "Look, you can't stop me from playing it. The record is a hit. It's a major thing."

Incredibly, because the internet is incredibly incredible, here's a the audio clip of Marsha introducing the song on the air.

In 2004, The Washington Post found her:

There's no doubt whatsoever that The Beatles would have conquered America anyway," says Beatles historian and Fab 40! member Martin Lewis. "But the speed and magnitude of that stratospheric kick-off could not have happened without Marsha Albert. If the record had been released Jan. 13, as first planned, kids wouldn't have heard it 20 times a day, as they did during the school break. It would never have sold 1 million copies in three weeks. There wouldn't have been 10,000 kids at JFK to greet The Beatles. Marsha didn't start Beatlemania; she jump-started it."

Albert told the Post she sees herself as "kind of a footnote, a little asterisk."

I also had never realized that the four-minute Walter Cronkite clip Marsha had seen on CBS was originally supposed to air on November 22, but postponed for obvious reasons (Cronkite had the trots.) Extensive article on Cronkite's involvement with Ed Sullivan booking The Beatles HERE. In the Post link you can see a video of Cronkite's daughters talking about meeting The Beatles.

Here's a picture of Marsha with Carroll James in 1984.