We are often quick to use the term “cultural phenomenon.”  Through the back lens of history though,  few things truly are. Yet fifty years ago we experienced something that lives up to that idea.  By now we’ve all been regaled by memories of the Beatles' appearance on the Ed Sullivan show fifty year ago last week.

But with that as the backdrop, what is the larger cultural significance? Perhaps it's fair to say that the Beatles transformed music, pop culture, fashion, and movies.  They  also created something we rarely see today.  A cultural experience that brought the entire nation together in one shared set of emotions.

Penelope Rowlands was there, literally on the barricades.  Now in The Beatles Are Here!: 50 Years after the Band Arrived in America, Writers, Musicians & Other Fans Remember, she’s culled some of the most interesting retrospective thoughts of today, trying to examine Beatlemania then, and even what it might mean for us 2014.

My conversation with Penelope Rowlands: