“I yelled, ‘Paul, George, Ringo and John, you guys were just wonderful!’ He said, ‘Ernie, if it were not for the Isley Brothers, the Beatles would still be in Liverpool’”: Ernie Isley on the time he met Paul McCartney – and they jammed Twist

Before the British Invasion, which brought The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and a whole host of British acts to the States, Ernie Isley was a pre-teen whose family happened to be hosting a young Jimi Hendrix at the early stages of his career.

And it was next to Hendrix that Isley witnessed the cultural watershed moment that truly kicked Beatlemania into a frenzy: The Beatles’ first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964.

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