Posted on 03/08/2016 11:18:15 PM PST by dfwgator
(CNN)Sir George Martin, the music producer whose collaboration with the Beatles helped redraw the boundaries of popular music, died Tuesday, according to his management company. He was 90.
Developing story - more to come
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Paul's early '80s albums, which were pretty awful, imo. But it wasn't Martin's fault. Just bad songs. My favorite McCartney album is Band on the Run ('73). And yep, the song "Live and Let Die" was a very good one.
My first concert-going experience was McCartney and Wings and the L.A. Forum in '76. That was the "Wings Over America" tour. Jimmy McColloch and Denny Laine on guitars.
Agree -- the Beatles broke up at just the right time. They went out on a very high note -- Abbey Road.
I didn't realize for years, that Denny was the original lead singer of The Moody Blues, and sang lead on "Go Now."
From the “History of the Eagles” (Netflix): Sir Martin wasn’t convinced that the Eagles had the talent it took for him to work with them. Starting out, while in the London studio with Martin, they played several songs they had written but Martin wasn’t impressed that they were worthy until they decided to sing “Seven Bridges Road”, he was blown away at the harmonizing. He went on to work with them on subsequent albums. Don Henley said that what he liked about working with Martin was that he demanded hard work and absolutely no drugs or alcohol in the studio, he learned the hard way while producing the Rolling Stones. Glenn [sic] Fry didn’t agree with the policy, saying it was “bullsh!t”.Those must have been some top of the line drugs Henley and the Eagles were on---George Martin learned nothing from producing the Rolling Stones because he never produced them.
A few classics:
* When John Lennon came up with the idea for what became "Tomorrow Never Knows," Martin showed the Beatles what could be done with tapes played in reverse and suggested using assorted tapes and splicing parts of them. The Beatles each went nuts with their own home tape recorders, put assorted odd sounds on tapes, brought them back to the studio, and Martin worked with Lennon splicing them up into the odd sounds you hear threading "Tomorrow Never Knows."
* When Lennon wrote "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" (maybe my absolute favourite Sgt. Pepper song), he told Martin he thought about having circus sounds behind the middle and closing instrumental passages. Martin raided the EMI tape library, came up with an armload of circus-related sounds, mostly fairgrounds organs but a few other things like carousel calliopes, and sliced, diced, and spliced those tapes into the sounds you hear in both breaks.
* When the Beatles first came up with "Please, Please Me," after Martin challenged them to do one better after they rejected a song he wanted them to do as their second single, the song was originally slowed down somewhat. (Paul McCartney has said they were thinking of Roy Orbison when they wrote the song.) When they played it in the studio, Martin suggested they speed it up a bit. They played it faster, nailed it in a few takes, and Martin called from the control room, "Gentlemen, you've just recorded your first number one record." Ballsy prediction but Martin turned out to have been right---the song did go to number one in England.
* When the Beatles couldn't think of any way for a rock quartet to play "Yesterday," both John Lennon and George Martin suggested Paul McCartney do it solo with just his acoustic guitar. When McCartney played it that way, Martin set about convincing McCartney that he could add a string quartet and do it tastefully. McCartney was extremely dubious until Martin brought in a cellist to play a low-register part he'd written for the song. That convinced McCartney. "He taught me how you voice for strings," Sir Paul has said of Sir George.
* Martin rejected George Harrison's "Only a Northern Song" for Sgt. Pepper, the only time he ever rejected a Harrison song, but he made it up to Harrison with "Within You, Without You"---he worked with Harrison on the song's unique arrangement, having Harrison work with the Indian musicians writing their parts (Harrison had learned Indian notation as well as the sitar from Ravi Shankar) while he, Martin, worked with the string section that also featured on it.
* Martin figured out what John Lennon wanted for the middle of "In My Life" by finally playing a piano solo an octave lower and into a tape recorder, then speeding the tape up (hence the faux harpsichord sound) and dubbing it onto the song's break. Lennon was amazed.
* When Paul McCartney hummed a support part he wanted a French horn to play on "For No One," he didn't realise he'd hit one note that wasn't supposed to be in the instrument's range until Martin told him so. Yet Martin found a French horn player who could hit that high note---and did.
RIP Sir George.
Agree.
There were so many fortuitous circumstances that seemed to align, making the Beatles the Beatles. (Lennon asking Paul to join the band, a simple record shop owner managing the band, the loss of Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe, George Martin being thrown a bone by EMI with this unpolished band....)
I just heard about his death a moment ago and already have a tear in my eye. Another meaningful piece of our lives lost. RIP Sir George.
Right. Glen Johns. I tried to correct my post but FR doesn’t allow post edits.
I was completely wrong about it being Martin who produced the Eagles. It was Glenn Johns.
Mess up in a post on my beloved FR and there is no correcting it. So I have to chase down replies to let you all know that I know of my mistake.
Did anyone else notice that Martin was as old as the Queen? Heck, at least Martin lived to 90 (unlike my stepdad who died just after turning 89 last summer).
ff
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