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The Beatles held the top five positions on Billboard's Hot 100. "Can't Buy Me Love" was No. 1, followed by "Twist and Shout," "She Loves You," "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and "Please Please Me."

Hard to believe that one band could hold the top five spots.

Amazing information Ken!
How many in the entire 100 ,apart from the top 5, were also Beatles songs?
I recall George Harrison saying that "My Bonnie" was also in the charts in the U.S at about the same time. Quote....."which is a larf!"

Again from Wikipedia:

"During the week of 4 April 1964, The Beatles held twelve positions on Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, including the top five positions, which has never been accomplished by any other band or artist to date. The songs were "Can't Buy Me Love" (Capitol Records), "Twist and Shout" (Tollie Records), "She Loves You" (Swan Records), "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (Capitol), and "Please Please Me" (Vee-Jay).[1] In addition, seven other singles occupied lower places on the chart: "I Saw Her Standing There" (Capitol), "You Can't Do That" (Capitol), "All My Loving" (Capitol of Canada), "Roll Over Beethoven" (Capitol of Canada), "From Me To You" (Vee-Jay), "Do You Want To Know A Secret" (Vee-Jay) and "Thank You Girl" (Vee-Jay)." Furthermore, two Beatles tribute records appeared on the chart: "We Love You Beatles" by The Carefrees (at #42), and "A Letter to the Beatles" by The Four Preps (#85)."

Who was it at Decca Records that said, "Groups of four are on the way out ...??"

That was A&R Director Dick Rowe.

A list of pre-EMI songs played by The Beatles
http://www.liobians.com/songs.html
Don't you wish we had recordings of ALL these?

brammy wrote: Don't you wish we had recordings of ALL these?

On some level yes, I do; but perhaps only for musicological reasons. After reading through the lists, I realize that the Beatles started out as what we would call a cover band today, albeit a very talented one.

I wonder that their career might have been short lived had not George Martin stepped in and encouraged them to start writing their own material.


JimK

Hmmmm, I have to disagree with that. While they started out as a cover band, John and Paul were writing songs well before going to EMI. For instance, they objected to recording 'How Do You Do It' because they wanted to do their own material. They played 'Please Please Me' for Martin and were told that it needed to be sped up..... they did and the song went to #1. While George Martins contribution to the Beatle's music can't be understated, the notion that they got going with songwriting only upon Martin's encouragement is just wrong.

Lennon/McCartney songs that preceed EMI and George Martin include:
I'll Be on My Way, One After 909, Too Bad About Sorrows, Thinking Of Linking, Hello Little Girl, Love Me Do, Love of the Loved, Cry for a Shadow, Like Dreamers Do, Cayenne, You'll Be Mine, In Spite of all the Danger, Bad To Me, Tip of my Tongue, I'll Keep You Satisfied, I'm in Love, A World Without Love, One and One is Two, I'll Follow The Sun, I Saw Her Standing There... and others. And lets not forget about the songbook that Jane Asher accidentally threw out containing "about a hundred" (says Paul) songs that he and John had been working on since 1957.