The Fab Four revolutionized sound of the '60s

Photos: The Beatles' 1964 U.S. invasion

Among the many gifts to posterity The Beatles brought with them to America in February 1964: a transistor radio.

Paul's - it's shaped like a little Pepsi machine - was with him, and blaring constantly, during those first whirlwind days in New York, as shown in the indispensable Maysles brothers documentary, 'The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit.' Because of it, we can hear just what the soundscape of America was 50 years ago today, Feb. 9, 1964 - the day that The Beatles, appearing on 'The Ed Sullivan Show,' changed it forever.

Lots of Beatles, of course - they were the new craze. But also lots of things that would be unimaginable on AM radio just a year later. The soundtrack to 'Breakfast at Tiffany's.' The overture to the Broadway musical 'Gypsy.'

All of that would be swept off the airwaves by what The Beatles brought to America in 1964.

'After 'The Ed Sullivan Show,' guitars sold out in the entire country,' says Montvale's Mark Lapidos, founder of The Fest for Beatles Fans (concluding today at New York's Grand Hyatt). 'Everybody wanted to be in a band.'

Typically, the Beatles saga is told as a rescue story: Early 1960s American pop was a wasteland, dominated by a lot of clean-cut Bobbys and Frankies, until the Fab Four came along and the '60s happened.

Not entirely untrue. But also not the whole truth.

There was great American music happening in the early 1960s: at Motown, at Atlantic, on dozens of little labels featuring R&B and group harmony (what today we would call doo-wop) acts. Not to mention all those girl groups: The Crystals, The Ronettes, Passaic's Shirelles.

Some got shunted aside when The Beatles arrived. Others had to find ways to adapt. So The Beatles in America is a dual story: of one generation of musicians who were deeply inspired by the British Invasion, and another generation that became casualties of war.

'Once The Beatles come, the vocal groups sink into oblivion,' says Bergenfield's Christine Vitale, host of 'The Group Harmony Alley' show (featuring vintage vocal groups), 7 p.m. Sundays on WFDU-FM (89.1) at Teaneck's Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Consider The Classics - who in 1963 had a top 20 hit, 'Till Then.' The Brooklyn-based vocal group's 1964 follow-up, 'P.S. I Love You' (no relation to The Beatles' later song of the same name), was No. 46 on the charts and rising the day The Beatles hit town.

'As quick as the record was on the charts, it was off the charts,' recalls lead singer Emil Stucchio, who still performs with a reconstituted Classics. 'It was like trying to hold water in your hands, and seeing it slip through your fingers. One week you're on your way to a national hit record. Next week it's off the charts like it never existed.'

Then there's Passaic's Joseph DiNicola, frontman of Joey Dee and the Starliters, who had a No. 1 hit in 1961's 'Peppermint Twist.' He fronted the house band at New York's Peppermint Lounge, the jet-set hangout that was one of The Beatles' own first stops in New York. He starred in several Hollywood movies: 'Hey, Let's Twist,' 'Two Tickets to Paris.' In October 1963, The Beatles opened for him in Stockholm.