Sir Paul McCartney visits his exhibit ‘Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm’ at Brooklyn Museum on April 29, 2024 in Brooklyn, New York. (Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Brooklyn Museum; used with permission)
Paul McCartney published a new book based on largely unseen photos that he took from the end of 1963 through early 1964, in which The Beatles became an international sensation. 1964: Eyes of the Storm arrived June 13, 2023, via Liveright, the same publisher that released his acclaimed 2021 book, The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present. (Order it here and in the U.K. here.) Many of the photographs are the subject of an immersive installation, Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-1964: Eyes of the Storm, of photography, video clips, and archival material, tracing the period when The Beatles played concert halls in Liverpool and London and began to tour internationally, first to Paris and then to the United States. On May 3, 2024, it opened at the Brooklyn Museum where it will remain through August 18. [Its next stop has already been announced: the exhibit will be on display at the Portland (OR) Art Museum from Sept. 14 – Jan. 19, 2025.] See many of the photos below.
Self-portrait, Paul McCartney, 1964 © Paul McCartney
The exhibition first opened at Britain’s National Portrait Gallery on June 28, 2023. While touring the exhibit with Martha Kearney of the BBC’s Today program, he revealed that a “new” Beatles song, based on a John Lennon demo, would be released later that year, using artificial intelligence. It turned out to be “Now and Then”: details are here.
These never-before-seen images offer a uniquely personal perspective on what it was like to be a Beatle at the start of Beatlemania – and adjusting from playing gigs on Liverpool stages, to performing to a television audience of 73 million Americans on The Ed Sullivan Show.
“Millions of eyes were suddenly upon us, creating a picture I will never forget.”―Paul McCartney
John Lennon and George Harrison, from the book 1964: Eyes of the Storm (Photo © Paul McCartney)
From the publisher’s announcement: Taken with a 35mm camera by McCartney, these largely unseen photographs capture the explosive period, from the end of 1963 through early 1964, in which The Beatles became an international sensation and changed the course of music history.
The Beatles being welcomed at Miami AIrport, February 1964 (Photo © Paul McCartney)
The book features 275 images from the six cities―Liverpool, London, Paris, New York, Washington, D.C., and Miami.
George Harrison, Miami Beach, February 1964 (Photo © Paul McCartney)
The 336-page 1964: Eyes of the Storm also includes:
•A personal foreword in which McCartney recalls the pandemonium of British concert halls, followed by the hysteria that greeted the band on its first American visit
Fans, press, and police await The Beatles’ arrival at the Plaza Hotel (Photo © Paul McCartney)
•Candid recollections preceding each city portfolio that form an autobiographical account of the period McCartney remembers as the “Eyes of the Storm,” plus a coda with subsequent events in 1964
•“Beatleland,” an essay by Harvard historian and New Yorker essayist Jill Lepore, describing how The Beatles became the first truly global mass culture phenomenon
Watch the official clip for the book
Related: McCartney made a surprise appearance to promote his 2021 book, The Lyrics
Self-portrait, London 1963 (Photo © Paul McCartney)
Photographers in New York’s Central Park, 1964 (Photo © Paul McCartney)
4 Comments so far
Jump into a conversationI saw The Beatles in D.C. in the mid 1960s, the screams were so loud I couldn’t hear the music, but it was great to be there.
Saw The Beatles in Detroit, August 13, 1966. Loud sure but I heard every word. Seeing them was it for me. Girl I was with said “Alan you were catatonic!” Love it! One of my top ten moments in my life. I have a Beatles room that everyone is jealous of.
Ah! Back when they were still zany moptops! I was 13 then.
The Beatles changed my life! After that Sunday night on Sullivan the next day I told my mom that I needed to get a guitar and have been playin ever since! Just turned 68 in May. Sure I am not the only one…..