Journalist Piers Hemmingsen was a natural choice to help curate the National Music Centre at Studio Bell’s new exhibit, From Me to You: The Beatles in Canada 1964 – 1966, which runs until January 5, 2025.
After all, having lived in Beatles ground-zero, Liverpool, between 1961 and 1963, he was listening to them before most Canadians even heard of them. Having written two books about the Beatles and their impact on Canada, he had definitely demonstrated his research chops.
“I’ve been working over the years with colleagues in the States, attending Beatles fests and working with other Beatles book authors,” Hemmingsen said from his Toronto home. “I was recommended to NMC by the Grammy Museum.”
Hemmingsen had never been to the NMC until he arrived for the exhibit’s July 10 opening. In 2016, he published The Beatles in Canada: Origins of Beatlemania!; The Beatles in Canada: The Evolution 1964-1970 will follow this year.
Hemmingsen’s father fought in WWII and Korea before eventually landing in Liverpool in July 1961 with his family in tow, including young Piers and his two brothers. By the time they arrived at Camp Petawawa near Pembroke, ON, in August 1963, they’d witnessed the blossoming of Britain’s infatuation with The Beatles, including hearing them on British radio, buying the album Please Please Me as well as the singles, and viewing the band on black and white TV on Thank Your Lucky Stars. All of this was well before most of North America “discovered” The Beatles when they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964.
In the US, it was that appearance that ignited instant Beatlemania, while in Canada, growing fandom had already been a slow, building burn.
Hemmingsen’s brother even took his Beatles records to CHOV in Pembroke and got DJ Robert Stanion to play them. “There was a real groundswell as there was in the rest of Canada because there were a lot of kids going back and forth between Canada and England,” says Hemmingsen.
That groundswell, and the waves that followed it over the next few years, is captured in the NMC exhibit, which features a brief history of pre-Beatles rock and roll radio, an overview of the first Beatles fan clubs in Canada, including the Ontario branch sponsored by CHUM, which pre-dated those in the States, a look at Beatles tours and performances in Canada, and a sweet display of the paraphernalia of Canadian Beatlemania, including Beatles wigs, trays, dresses, boots and figurines.
There’s also a section on journalist David Gell, who wrote for The Calgary Herald in the 1950s before becoming a foreign correspondent for Radio Luxembourg. He was the first person to play an Elvis Presley record on the European airwaves and was later invited by Beatles producer George Martin to a reception for their first album.
“John Lennon came up and thanked him, literally bowed down to him because David had played an Elvis Presley record and it was the first time Lennon had heard Elvis. [Lennon] told David he had changed his life. So, a little Calgary connection there. He also wrote early reviews of Beatle records for several music magazines.
“Canada had these ties to the [United] Kingdom that the United States didn’t have. Capitol Records in Canada had a fellow named Paul White, and he released Beatles Records from the get-go on the Capitol label. His counterparts in Los Angeles rejected the first four singles, including She Loves You.” By December 1963, that song was Number One in Canada, while the United States still hadn’t heard of the band.
There are more fun snippets of history at the museum, such as postcards from a young George Harrison to his sister Louise, who had moved to Canada after getting married. At the time, Harrison was touring Scotland as a Beatle, then the backing band for Scottish singer Johnny Gentle.
While these things happened long ago, The Beatles’ influence in Canada continues to be unstoppable. Hemmingsen recalls having just seen a young teenager in Toronto wearing a Beatles shirt, indicating the new crop of youth discovering the band for themselves.
“Here we are talking about it 60 years later. It changed our youth culture, our attitudes towards fashion, the establishment, music, the media. And here we are in 2024, talking about something that happened 60 years ago. When I was 16 in the late ’60s would I be talking about something that happened in 1910? No.”
From Me to You: The Beatles in Canada 1964-1966 runs until January 5 at Studio Bell, home of the National Music Centre. For information visit studiobell.ca.
