Sir George Martin, Beatles Producer, Dead at 90

Sir George Martin, Beatles producer, dead at 90

Posted by tbnBBM On 03/09/2016

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.

Martin died "peacefully at home" in England, according to Adam Sharp, the founder of C A Management which represents the music producer.

"In a career that spanned seven decades he was recognized globally as one of music's most creative talents and a gentleman to the end. The family ask that their privacy be respected at this time," Sharp said.

Martin worked with countless others over a career that spanned decades, including Peter Sellers, Shirley Bassey, America, Cheap Trick, Jeff Beck and Celine Dion. But his fame, and his influence, rests on the seven years he spent with the Beatles, the most successful group in music history -- a group Martin helped propel to the top spot with his musical expertise, tasteful arrangements and willing experimentation.

For Paul McCartney, Martin was "like a second father to me."

"If anyone earned the title of the fifth Beatle it was George," he said in a statement. "From the day that he gave The Beatles our first recording contract, to the last time I saw him, he was the most generous, intelligent and musical person I've ever had the pleasure to know."

Ringo Starr thanked the producer in a tweet: "God bless George Martin peace and love to Judy and his family." Judy refers to Martin's wife of nearly 50 years.

Martin's partnership with the group he signed to Parlophone Records in 1962 changed all of their lives -- and, by extension, popular culture.

"When I first met the Beatles in 1962, I didn't think much of their songs at all," he told JazzWax.com. "But they learned so quickly how to write a hit. They were like plants in a hothouse. They grew incredibly fast."

The polished, classically trained producer began as a father figure to the four somewhat scruffy lads from Liverpool, capturing their songs on tape with a minimum of fuss or studio gimmickry. But by 1966, he was as much a collaborator as mentor, using his knowledge of both musical structure and recording technology to help the band realize its musical visions.

Typically modest, he described his role as a producer in matter-of-fact terms.

"Put simply, my job was to make sure recordings were artistically exceptional and commercially appealing, maximizing the qualities of artists and songs," he told JazzWax.com.

In Martin's hands, however, that job was both expansive and unobtrusive. Songs produced by George Martin had a distinctive touch but rarely called attention to his work. The spotlight was on the music.

And yet his role cannot be overstated. Working with engineers such as Norman Smith and Geoff Emerick, Martin helped the Beatles turn the studio into another instrument.

He added a string quartet to "Yesterday" -- a decision that McCartney initially balked at, telling Martin: "Oh no, George. We are a rock and roll band."

With a gentle bit of nudging, Martin added the cello in low octave and violin in high octave. "His idea obviously worked because the song subsequently became one of the most recorded songs ever," McCartney said in a statement.

He allowed backward tape loops on "Tomorrow Never Knows," even if he couldn't make John Lennon's voice sound like chanting Tibetan monks -- one of Lennon's characteristically absurd requests.

The work reached a pinnacle in 1967, with Martin's ingenious oversight of the "Penny Lane" / "Strawberry Fields Forever" single and the album that often tops the lists of greatest ever: "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

Article, photo source: http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/09/entertainment/george-martin-obit/index.html

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