It was truly a "Night to Remember" as many of today's top artists gathered Monday night to pay tribute to The Beatles' astonishing musical legacy. With Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr in attendance, and late members John Lennon and George Harrison always in mind, at The Recording Academy's taping of "The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to The Beatles."
Maroon 5 started the program by re-creating the opening moments of the Feb. 9, 1964, appearance with "All My Loving," then "Ticket to Ride."
Alicia Keys and John Legend faced each other as they sat at matching black baby grand pianos. John Mayer and Keith Urban traded guitar licks, as did Gary Clarke Jr. and Joe Walsh on "As My Guitar Gently Weeps." Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart of The Eurythmics reunited to play "The Fool on the Hill."
Dave Grohl and Jeff Lynne hammered deep cut "Hey, Bulldog," and Harrison's son Dhani joined Lynne and Joe Walsh on his father's classic "Something." Stevie Wonder performed "We Can Work It Out" twice, asking for a retake after a slow first start.
Legend and Alicia Keys sang "Let It Be." Katy Perry performed "Yesterday," while her boyfriend, Mayer, teamed-up with Urban on "Don't Let Me Down." And Brad Paisley and Pharrell Williams took on the challenge of "Here Comes the Sun,".
"We are honoring the most important band of all time, and trying to do justice to their song while two of them sit there," Paisley said in an interview before his performance. "We know, going in, we're not going to sing like them, and we're going to try to do our own thing with it. But ... there's reasons why people get blasted when they cover Beatles songs in any situation. But here we are, we're all doing that tonight. So, I guess it's an even playing field in that sense."
The crowed were aww strucked as it was time for McCartney and Starr take the stage, turning what had been a fairly sedate affair into an arm-in-arm sing-a-long of hits "Hey, Jude," ''Sgt. Pepper" and "Yellow Submarine" that prompted movie stars and Grammy Award-winning musicians alike to sing along.
McCartney stated he was hesitant to agree to commemorate it.
"What can I say about this evening, it's just amazing," he said. "At first when I was asked to do the show, I was wondering if it was the right thing to do. Was it seemly to tribute yourself? But I saw a couple of American guys who said to me, 'You don't understand the impact of that appearance on the show on America.' I didn't realize that."
Grammy producer Ken Ehrlich said the tribute event was more than a decade in the making and was produced at the Los Angeles Convention Center with archival footage from the band's "Ed Sullivan" era as well as their psychedelic and hirsute, hipster periods.
"We were in a band. It's called The Beatles," Starr said near the end of the show. "And if we play, John and George are always with us. It's always John, Paul, George and Ringo."
The telecast will air Feb. 9, 50 years after The Fab Four made their first appearance in front of an American television audience on "The Ed Sullivan Show." It was a historic moment with more than 73 million Americans tuning in, changing pop culture in profound ways.
