The Beatles!: A One-Night Stand in the Heartland : A Collection of Original Photographs from August 21, 1965 - Hardcover

The Beatles! A One-Night Stand in the Heartland brings together strands from many remarkable stories. First, there is the story of the Beatles themselves as phenomenal artists who changed music and culture forever. Second, Bill Carlson tells his own impressive story of how he interacted with the Beatles on that one day. And third, the 25,000 or more screaming, shouting, cheering, swooning, clapping, crying, and singing Minnesotans who were transformed by what they experienced that day.

While a high school student, Carlson apprenticed with the prestigious photographer Merle Morris. When the press passes for the Beatles' day in Minneapolis came through, he grabbed one, picked up his Hasselblad and Nikon cameras, and headed out to Met Stadium, where the Minnesota Twins and Vikings performed and where the Mall of America now stands. He went not so much as a Beatles fan but as a photography-hungry youth determined to seize every opportunity to learn and perfect his art.

His images show the public faces of the Beatles at their press conference at the stadium as they expertly pose and trade quips with reporters. They show the fans, who look so young, hardly even teenagers, putting Minnesota youth on the same footing as those in London and New York. They also show the more familiar scenes of Beatlemania, and his long shots of the concert stage recall that security was so strict that even photographers were banned from the field.

There are other books by Beatles photographers, including The Beatles: A Private View (2003) by Robert Freeman, who photographed many album covers for the group, and Once There Was a Way (2003) by Harry Benson, who photographed them on tour from Paris to Miami. But there is no other book like this that documents one day, one concert, one place. It was a day that brought high fun and high art to the Twin Cities and changed many Beatles fans forever.