The Beatles: Music's Gold Bugs

BRIAN SOMMERVILLE is a balding 32-year-old Londoner whose jaw juts out like the southeast corner of England when he thinks he is about to say something important. At Kennedy International Airport in New York on February 7, 1964, Sommerville's jaw was projecting so far he was almost unable to open his mouth to speak. A thousand screaming teenagers were trying to wriggle toward a thin white line of nylon rope that had been stretched across the terminal building lobby. Three thousand more were screaming from behind bulging metal railings atop the roof, where they were the guests of New York disc jockeys, who had invited them to take the day off from school.