LEGENDARY music producer Sir George Henry Martin passed away at home on Tuesday, March 8 at the age of 90.
He was a respected record producer who before he started his fabled collaboration with The Beatles, produced records by the likes of Matt Monro, Peter Sellers and Bernard Cribbins.
Growing up in the Highbury area of North East London, Sir George came from a solidly working class background and through a natural talent and aptitude, taught himself how to play piano and oboe.
After working at the BBC’s classical music department, he moved to Parlophone Records to head the Artist and Repertoire department. He effectively made all the important decisions about who would record for Parlophone and how those records would sound.
When he met four exuberant lads from Liverpool on the 6th June 1962, he was not to know just how important that meeting was to be for both himself and The Beatles, the band he gave a chance to.
Perhaps Sir George’s most important contribution to the popular culture that we enjoy was his encouragement to the fertile imaginations of both John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
"The world has lost a truly great man…" Paul McCartney on George Martin: https://t.co/M2ySCKfisO pic.twitter.com/dDE5cm2F0a
— Paul McCartney (@PaulMcCartney) March 9, 2016
Thank you for all your love and kindness George peace and love xx?✌️?? pic.twitter.com/um2hRFB7qF
— #RingoStarr (@ringostarrmusic) March 9, 2016
17 March 1975@JohnLennon on #GeorgeMartin#BBC #OldGreyWhistleTest @OGWT40
interview with @WhisperingBob Harris pic.twitter.com/4kVwkDc2f4— John Lennon (@johnlennon) March 10, 2016
The best example of this encouragement came in 1965, a watershed year for The Beatles. The early part of that year saw the band release the phenomenally successful song and album, Help!.
In December, the album Rubber Soul was released. It was a brave and radical departure from the ingeniously infectious popular music that The Beatles had previously made.
Most record producers would have vetoed The Beatles from making such a different and mature sounding record, in favour of maintaining the success that they were relentlessly enjoyed with safer and verse/chorus formula and the kind of bland fare contemporarily served up by Simon Cowell’s stable.
Rubber Soul was a massive success and it gave The Beatles licence to go further and produce truly extraordinary albums like Revolver, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road.
The success of Rubber Soul and Revolver also encouraged EMI to invest time and resources into bands like Pink Floyd. A band like Pink Floyd could never have thrived without The Beatles and by extension, George Martin opening the door for them.
Later on David Bowie came to national prominence with his androgynous appearance and groundbreaking music. They all followed on the from the avante garde leanings of the music that Sir George produced.
Former Hollies singer and Salfordian Graham Nash paid tribute to Sir George last night. Nash told the BBC: “When you’re a band and you have beautiful music like The Beatles had, you need someone to get it out there. What George did brilliantly was open that door wide”.
Sir George was renowned for his inexhaustible chivalry, he could never have written the music that the musically illiterate Lennon & McCartney wrote, but he helped facilitate and channel their idea’s with his methodical musical knowledge and his daring – maybe even devil may care streak – which acted as paradox to his natural conservatism.
In later years, Sir George worked (amongst many others) Celine Dion, José Carreras and Jeff Beck. He retired from producing in 1995 due to his deteriorating hearing.
Sir George was a man prone to modesty, it was part of the charm that made him the man he is. He recently said, “I can’t imagine anyone who’s been luckier than I have”.
Maybe he couldn’t, it is no surprise that he would say that, but this writer can think of at least four lads from Liverpool who were at the very least, as lucky to have met him as he was to meet them.
Modern popular culture is also in his debt, to a level that is incalculable.
By Anthony Murphy
@anthonymurphy73
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