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Sir George Martin, 5th Beatle- RIP

funKYcat75

funKYcat75

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RIP

 
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cricket3

cricket3

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Knew this was going to happen! What are they going to do with Game of Thrones now?
 
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mapcatfan_rivals31344

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George Martin was a giant in the music industry. Yet another piece of the very best and most influential rock band ever now gone. Very sad. :cry:
 
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gamecockcat

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Honest question: how much of the Beatles success did Martin contribute to? Certainly I can see that early in their career, he was critical to getting their sound down. After a few years and experience in the studio, was he still as critical? I know more about the Stones than the Beatles and they seemed to sort of drive the process themselves after a handful of albums. Their choice of engineer was as crucial as the producer (Andrew Loog Oldham, who quit showing up for recording sessions around 1967). Eventually, they started producing themselves. Did George Martin stay as critical to the Beatles as he undoubtedly started out? The band members certainly gave/give him a lot of credit so that says something.
 
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mapcatfan_rivals31344

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gamecockcat said:
Honest question: how much of the Beatles success did Martin contribute to? Certainly I can see that early in their career, he was critical to getting their sound down. After a few years and experience in the studio, was he still as critical? I know more about the Stones than the Beatles and they seemed to sort of drive the process themselves after a handful of albums. Their choice of engineer was as crucial as the producer (Andrew Loog Oldham, who quit showing up for recording sessions around 1967). Eventually, they started producing themselves. Did George Martin stay as critical to the Beatles as he undoubtedly started out? The band members certainly gave/give him a lot of credit so that says something.
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Yes, Martin was still very influential during their studio years. Especially on arrangement. He talked a reluctant McCartney into recording Yesterday with string accompaniment instead of just performing it as a guitar solo. He occasionally played piano on some of their recordings.

If I remember correctly, he produced all of their albums with the exception of Let It Be. But as far as writing their own music - their song-writing acumen grew quickly and exponentially through the years. I know that Paul was influenced at a very young age by his father, who was a part-time musician.

So wild to think that none of the Beatles could read music. I remember seeing an interview with McCartney where he said that from the beginning, when they would write songs, he and Lennon would sit close, facing eachother, with their guitars. It's crazy to think that they couldn't read music. Paul still doesn't to this day as far as I know. Incredible.
 
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Midway Cat

Midway Cat

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If only John Lennon were still around to sing his praises. This guy was as important as anyone to the success of the Beatles. The popular narrative is that McCartney, Lennon, and Harrison were geniuses who just dreamed up all of those classic songs, but that's just not the case. In reality, Martin probably deserved writing credits for pretty much everything the Beatles ever did.

Here's an interesting example of the way things actually worked. It's about the process of creating Strawberry Fields Forever. You think John Lennon leaned on George Martin? Of course. Because he was brilliant. Anyway, on with the story:

The band recorded three distinct versions of the song. After Lennon played the song for the other Beatles on his acoustic guitar, the band recorded the first take. Lennon played an Epiphone Casino; McCartney played a Mellotron, a new home instrument purchased by Lennon on 12 August 1965 (with another model hired in after encouragement from Mike Pinder of The Moody Blues); George Harrison played electric guitar, and Ringo Starr played drums. The first recorded take began with the verse, "Living is easy …", instead of the chorus, "Let me take you down", which starts the released version. The first verse also led directly to the second, with no chorus between. Lennon's vocals were automatically double-tracked from the words "Strawberry Fields Forever" through the end of the last verse. The last verse, beginning "Always, no sometimes", has three-part harmonies, with McCartney and Harrison singing "dreamy background vocals". This version was soon abandoned and went unreleased until the Anthology 2 compilation in 1996.


Four days later the band reassembled to try a different arrangement. The second version of the song featured McCartney's Mellotron introduction followed by the refrain. They recorded five takes of the basic tracks for this arrangement (two of which were false starts) with the last being chosen as best and subjected to further overdubs. Lennon's final vocal was recorded with the tape running fast so that when played back at normal speed the tonality would be altered, giving his voice a slurred sound. This version was used for the first minute of the released recording.


After recording the second version of the song, Lennon wanted to do something different with it, as Martin remembered: "He'd wanted it as a gentle dreaming song, but he said it had come out too raucous. He asked me if I could write him a new line-up with the strings. So I wrote a new score (with four trumpets and three cellos) and we recorded that, but he didn't like it." Meanwhile, on 8 and 9 December, another basic track was recorded, using a Mellotron, electric guitar, piano, backwards-recorded cymbals, and the swarmandel (or swordmandel), an Indian version of the zither. After reviewing the tapes of Martin's version and the original, Lennon told Martin that he liked both versions, although Martin had to tell Lennon that the orchestral score was at a faster tempo and in a higher key (B major) than the first version (A major). Lennon said, "You can fix it, George", giving Martin and Emerick the difficult task of joining the two takes together. With only a pair of editing scissors, two tape machines, and a vari-speed control, they compensated for the differences in key and speed by increasing the speed of the first version and decreasing the speed of the second. They then spliced the versions together, starting the orchestral score in the middle of the second chorus. (Since the first version did not include a chorus after the first verse, he also spliced in the first seven words of the chorus from elsewhere in the first version.) The pitch-shifting in joining the versions gave Lennon's lead vocal a slightly other-worldly "swimming" quality.

Strawberry Fields Forever - Wiki Link
 
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gamecockcat

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Wow. Didn't know any of that stuff. Sounds like he was intimately involved in the creation process and not just the recording/mixing. Thanks for the info.

I'm not sure how many rock musicians can read music. Bobby Keys, the saxophonist, couldn't. Many, many of the old blues guys couldn't. Guitar players generally don't need to read music as they're playing chords and licks in the key. If you learn to play by ear and imitation, not sure you need to read music. I've played in bands for 30+ years and never once have I had a written piece of music to play by - and I read music fine. You figure out the key, the chord progression, the basic feel of the solo and you play. You don't need the written music to play by. It surprises me a little that both McCartney and Lennon played piano and didn't learn how to read music. Most of the keyboard players I've played with learned by taking lessons and, therefore, were required to learn how to read music. Guess they were both self-taught?
 
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TransyCat09

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Look no further than the Beatles' solo careers for the impact Martin had.

He did do the arrangement for Live and Let Die, tho [smoke]
 
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mapcatfan_rivals31344

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TransyCat09 said:
Look no further than the Beatles' solo careers for the impact Martin had.

He did do the arrangement for Live and Let Die, tho [smoke]
Click to expand...
I actually love a good bit of their individual work. Although McCartney has always been my favorite, each of the Beatles have some great solo songs. All of them also had some duds. However IMO, so did the Beatles. (Although few and far between).

Of course nothing can top their collective work, and as far as I'm concerned, nothing ever will.........................from anyone.
 
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TransyCat09

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If you stripped away the names and fame, George Harrison had the best solo records. Even then, we're not talking about anything Earth shattering. Like you said, some good songs from all of them, but they were few and far between imo.

Harrison also penned some of my favorite Beatles tunes
 
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mapcatfan_rivals31344

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TransyCat09 said:
.......Harrison also penned some of my favorite Beatles tunes
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Funny, even though McCartney is my favorite as I said above, George did write a few of my favorites as a Beatle. I love even some of the first songs he wrote, when most critics (John and Paul included) still thought he wasn't very capable.

However he did really progress. Long Long Long is just excellent and one of my favorites.
 
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WalkersGoggles_rivals310859

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George Martin was the absolute right guy for them. Martin was up to the challenge of trying to do new things and another producer might have tried to get them to rewrite "Love Me Do" over and over.
 
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