George Martin “saw the real talent in John Lennon and Paul McCartney”, Beatles biographer Philip Norman said as he paid tribute to the star.
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George is survived by his wife, Judy, their children, Lucie and Giles, and his children, Alexis and Gregory Paulfrom, his first marriage to Sheena Chisholm.
The producer, who signed up the Beatles after hearing their demo record in 1962, was so essential to the band’s success that he was nicknamed the “Fifth Beatle”. He went on to produce all of the Beatles’ albums, except one. “I fell in love with them really”, Martin said. “George will be missed”.
Happy with the first half of one take and the second half of another, Lennon tasked Martin with finding a way to piece them together – despite the first half being recorded at a different speed and tempo to the first.
Whether horns or harpsichord, so numerous embellishments you hear on the Beatles’ songs came from Martin.
Now, obviously a lot of people conveyed their condolences on Twitter, but some people got a bit confused with what George Martin they were paying their respects to.
During his early career, Sir George produced comedy and novelty records in the early 1950s, working with Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan. But his open-minded approach helped them integrate Indian music and dreamy, fanciful imagery into their songs without losing their shape, structure or propulsive beat.
Their styles at first seemed to clash: Martin was a product of the British establishment the Beatles loved to lampoon, and even his necktie drew early scorn from Harrison. But during a time when the young were displacing the old, Martin too would be upstaged.
Saying Martin fired Pete Best from the group might be overstating it a little, but it was his call not to use the quiff-wearing drummer on their first proper studio recordings.
Martin was born in January 1926, a carpenter’s son from north London.
“They weren’t hit material, I didn’t think anyway”.
After serving in the Second World War, he studied at the prestigious Guildhall School of Music and began playing the oboe in bars and clubs around London. He slowed down Lennon’s haunting vocal on “Strawberry Fields Forever” to match the key of the Beatle’s favorite take on the instrumental track (the evolution of the song, available via the “Anthology” series and more extensively elsewhere, offers a master class in the creation of a masterpiece). The work they produced has been covered and copied for decades, played as reggae music or chamber music or given a salsa beat. He played a prominent role at Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee concerts in 2002, leading a cheer of “hip, hip hooray” in her honor, and was sometimes seen at Royal Festival Hall when Brian Wilson performed.
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McCartney said that with his passing, “the world has lost a truly great man who left an indelible mark on my soul and the history of British music”.
