Ladies and Gentlemen...The Beatles!
A Beatles traveling exhibition presented by the Grammy Museum and Fab Four Exhibits, LLC
The Woody Guthrie Center
Tulsa, Oklahoma
February 4 - May 25, 2015
For more information, visit http://woodyguthriecenter.org/blog/ladies-and-gentlemen-the-beatles/
A special video preview of the Tulsa exhibit can be seen here:
http://www.tulsaworldtv.com/Beatles-exhibit-stops-at-Tulsa-museum-28458211
KOTV 6 news coverage of exhibit opening (February 3, 2015), featuring an interview
with Fab Four Exhibits partner Chuck Gunderson! See video and story here:
http://www.newson6.com/story/28016599/ladies-and-gentlementhe-beatles-comes-
to-tulsas-woody-guthrie-center
Window dressing: The Woody Guthrie Center in downtown
Tulsa, Oklahoma, home to Ladies and Gentlemen...The Beatles!
from February 4 - May 25, 2015.
Woody Guthrie Center members and patrons get a
sneak preview of the exhibit at the opening party
held Tuesday evening, February 3, 2015.
Woody Guthrie Center
museum members at the opening
party, Tuesday, February 3, 2015.
View of the exhibit, prior to the opening, February 3, 2015.
Welcome to Ladies and Gentlemen...
The Beatles! The entrance to the special gallery in the Woody Guthrie Center hosting the Beatles exhibit.
Photo by Melissa Payne.
Paul McCartney's original jacket worn at the famous Shea Stadium concert and other shows in 1965. Also a rare unused Shea Stadium '65 concert ticket.
Artifacts from 1964: Beatles-signed
New Orleans Proclamation, 45 rpm record sleeves and Hollywood Bowl press pass.
Deana McCloud (WGC Executive Director) and Becky Hawkes (Education and Program Manager) welcome guests to
the new Beatles exhibit. Photo by Melissa Payne.
A guest takes a photo of the Sullivan stage set-up, February 3, 2015.
Photo by Melissa Payne.
Contemplating the case where the Beatles' 1964 North American tour artifacts are exhibited. Photo by Melissa Payne.
Checking out the "1963" case and the rise of Beatlemania in England that year. This display also features the Madame Tussauds drum head from 1964.
Photo by Melissa Payne.
Woody Guthrie Center Archivist, Kate Blalack, at the VIP
Opening of the Beatles exhibit. Photo by Melissa Payne.
A trio of younger fans learn a little
about John, Paul, George and Ringo
at their biography displays.
Photo by Melissa Payne.
Ladies and Gentlemen...The Beatles! The Grammy Museum exhibit at the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa,
held in conjuction with Fab Four Exhibits, LLC. Photo by Melissa Payne.
It's all about the Beatles' instruments.
Fab Four Exhibits partner Chuck Gunderson (shown at left)
was interviewed by KOTV-6 reporter Rick Wells for the
evening newscast, February 3, 2015.
Recreation of The Ed Sullivan Show stage set-up from the
night of the Beatles' live American debut, February 9, 1964.
Two of the earliest mentions of the Beatles in print: Mersey Beat newspapers
from July 1961 and January 1962, the first spelling Paul's surname as
"MacArthy" and the second spelling it "McArtrey"!
A couple looks through the "pre-fame" case where artifacts related to
the Beatles' early years as a struggling Liverpool band are on display.
Photo by Melissa Payne.
The Beatles' influences: original guitars from Buddy Holly (left) and Elvis Presley (right). To the immediate right of the Elvis guitar is the original set list used
by the Beatles onstage at their first American concert.
A crash course in drumming with the most unlikely of instructors -
Ringo Starr himself. Photo by Melissa Payne.
At left: Recreation of the Pan Am Lounge at New York's JFK International Airport
where the Beatles held their first American press conference. At right: Details
about the quartet's famous instruments. Photo by Melissa Payne.
Opening night VIPs await a lecture on the Beatles' 1964 North American
tour by Fab Four Exhibits partner Chuck Gunderson (below), who has
chronicled all three of the Beatles' American tours in his new book,
Some Fun Tonight! Photos by Melissa Payne.
Above and below: Programs, tickets, newspapers, original autographs,
performance contract and other artifacts related to the Beatles' first
full-fledged tour of North America, August-September 1964.
The original New Orleans "Beatles Day" proclamation, signed by all four
Beatles at their press conference in the city, September 16, 1964.
Actor and musician Billy Bob Thornton visits the Beatles exhibit
at the Woody Guthrie Center on Sunday, April 26, 2015.
Photo courtesy of the Woody Guthrie Center.
The original Ludwig "Drum City" drum head used at Madame Tussauds
in London in 1964, artifacts related to the Beatles' rise to fame in England
in 1962-63 as well as their first record releases in the United States (1963).
The story of the Beatles' incredible popularity and success in America
in February 1964. Featured: the original drum head used by the group
on all three of their Ed Sullivan Show appearances that month.
Museum members study the artifacts in the "1963" display case as FFE partner Chuck Gunderson stands at right to answer questions about the exhibit. Photo by Melissa Payne.
Original Cavern Club membership cards from all three years the
Beatles played there (1961-63), the American and German "My Bonnie"
releases, early Liverpool-era publicity photos and show tickets.
The earliest known Beatles set list, handwritten in June 1960 by
an 18-year-old Paul McCartney and a 1962 program for a Little Richard
show in Liverpool, with the Beatles as his opening act.
Mersey Beat newspapers from 1961-62 with Beatles covers,
a September 1960 letter written by first Beatles bassist Stuart Sutcliffe,
a sketch by Stuart, a 1961 handbill and a 1963 set list.
More pieces related to the Beatles' first full-fledged tour
of North America, August-September 1964.
Four young Fab Four fans visit the exhibit on February 5, 2015,
wearing their Beatles T-shirts.
Fab Four Exhibits partner Mark Naboshek visits the Woody Guthrie Center.
Woody Guthrie Center Welcomes Traveling Beatles Exhibit This Week
The traveling exhibit on the Fab Four will be on display from Wednesday through June
Article by Jerry Wofford, Tulsa World, Sunday, February 1, 2015
Beatlemania is taking over the Woody Guthrie Center. Tulsa is hosting the next stop on the Grammy Museum’s traveling exhibit on
the Beatles, with artifacts and exhibits on the Fab Four’s early days in Liverpool to their appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and
through the massive shift in pop culture that John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr ushered in.
“You get to see things you’ve never seen before about the Beatles,” said Chris Morrison, a curator for the Grammy Museum and one
of the exhibit’s curators. “The hardcore Beatles fans will probably come first thing in the morning and stay all day.”
“Ladies and Gentlemen ... The Beatles!” opens Wednesday at the Woody Guthrie Center, 102 E. M.B. Brady St. It will be on display through June.
The exhibit, made up of artifacts collected by Fab Four Exhibits LLC, is the second Grammy exhibit to visit Tulsa after it was announced
that the Woody Guthrie Center would be the first Grammy Museum affiliate last year.
It’s the fourth stop for the exhibit, which debuted last year in New York City to mark the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ first appearance
on the Ed Sullivan Show on Feb. 9, 1964. It was a turning point in American culture, changing how people looked at music, pop culture
and celebrity, Morrison said.
The exhibit includes a looping documentary that features musicians talking about the Beatles’ influence, and according to Morrison,
Ozzy Osborne said it best: “One day you go to bed and you live in one world, and you wake up the next and it’s a brand-new world.
That’s what it was like for teenagers at the time.”
What the exhibit hopes to show is some of how that happened. Included in the collection are early setlists and photos from even before
the Beatles formed into the band they’re known as today, when they still wore leather jackets and slicked-back hair.
It charts their journey from landing in America, their appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” (with a replica of the stage setup for
that show) and their travels around the country, met at each stop by hordes of screaming fans.
Several interactive exhibits allow fans to explore that history on a richer level.
And an interactive drum kit features drum lessons from Starr, recorded and designed by the Grammy Museum.
“I’ve been around these for just over a year, and I’m still peering closer at an item and studying it,” Morrison said.
And Deana McCloud, executive director of the Woody Guthrie Center, said the connections between the Beatles and the museum’s
namesake aren’t overt but reach deep to look at how both were able to make change with art.
“We’re all about the way the arts can make change in a society,” McCloud said. “The way you make change in a society is through creativity.”
The impacts the Beatles and Woody Guthrie had on music and culture were different, but both were far-reaching. And even musically,
Guthrie was a well-known collaborator with the Delta blues and folk musician Lead Belly.
“George Harrison has said without Lead Belly, there would be no Beatles,” McCloud said. Two degrees of Woody Guthrie.
Having the work and history of the Beatles in the same place as Guthrie’s entire archive makes a unique atmosphere to learn from
both, McCloud said.