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Who was the first American artist to cover a Beatles song?

Sun 9 February 2025 22:30, UK

Calling The Beatles’ arrival in the US the start of the British Invasion wasn’t an accident. Most rock and roll fans had known that the biggest names were American artists like Elvis Presley and Little Richard, but the minute that the four moptops descended onto American soil, most of the old guard either started packing their bags or adapting to compete with the four new kids in town. But since John Lennon and Paul McCartney were turning into the biggest songwriters of their generation, why not try to make a hit out of covering their tunes?

After all, covering other people’s songs wasn’t anything new on the charts. While there were some questionable reasons why white artists were making hits out of songs written by black performers, there was a difference between Elvis Presley covering ‘Tutti Frutti’ because he liked the music rather than Pat Boone turning the Little Richard classic about as appetizing as a marmalade sandwich on Wonder bread.

Still, The Beatles were a bit of a different beast. For them, the main goal was to try to conquer America, and they weren’t going to even bother coming over until they had a hit record on the other side of the Atlantic. Before radio stations started picking up on what the Fab Four were doing on the other side of the world, artists were still paying attention to what they were doing when they heard how catchy their tunes were.

Since they weren’t going to have a hit while still being relatively unknown, the next best option was to give their songs away for people to cover. But even though ‘From Me To You’ was a cute love song in Lennon and McCartney’s hands, Americans got their first taste of their music when put in the hands of another rock legend.

So who was the first American artist to cover a Beatles song?

Even though ‘The Nerk Twins’ had originals under their belt that Chuck Berry or Little Richard could churn out with no problem, ‘From Me To You’ was given to Del Shannon and became the first major cover of a Beatles song to crack the American market. Since Shannon already had traction from songs like ‘Runaway,’ this was the pure love song to juxtapose the darker parts of his first hit.

But that was only the beginning of The Beatles slowly taking over. While history likes to paint their story as everything coming to fruition at their Ed Sullivan Show appearance, it was only a matter of time before fans heard The Beatles’ original and started requesting to hear their version. If fans loved The Beatles in their home country, though, they weren’t ready for Beatlemania overseas.

The country had still been reeling from the death of John F Kennedy, so hearing these innocent lads singing love songs was the perfect thing to bring up everyone’s spirits. The Fab Four never stopped anyone from covering their tunes, either, with Motown groups like The Supremes covering a handful of their tracks and Aretha Franklin eventually doing the very first version of the song ‘Let It Be’ as the band were breaking up.

Even if it took Shannon to break down the door, the band were nothing but grateful, with George Harrison even floating around the idea of getting Shannon to join the Traveling Wilburys for a second. It might have taken a bit more legwork than they anticipated, but once The Beatles cracked America, the country fell head over heels in love.