ROCK&ROLL
36 | Rolling Stone | RollingStoneAus.com May, 2016
GETTY IMAGEST
he classical musicians who
showed up at EMI Studios in Lon-
dononFebruary10th,1967,hadno
idea what they were in for. The Beat-
leswereconstructing“ADayin
the Life”, the song that would
become the grand finale ofSgt. Pepper’s
Lonely Hearts Club Band,andPaulMcCart-
ney had a vague idea to bridge its two sec-
tionswithsomekindofgrandsonichurri-
cane.Thestringplayerswerebaled,until
producer George Martin came to the res-
cue. “These were classically trained musi-
cians, and they said, ‘We can’t do that!’ ” re-
callsengineerGeoffEmerick.“Itwas20
minutesofGeorgetryingtoexplainitto
them,saying,‘Let’strythis.’Andtheydid.”
Martinsketchedoutanimpromptuscorefor
the musicians, and with him and McCartney
conducting, the riveting orchestral windup
wasrecordedinonenight.AsEmericksays,
“George always found a way to do something,
even if it was impossible.”
Martin, who died on March 8th in Wilt-
shire, England, at age 90, from unspecified
causes, was one of rock’s least-likely produc-
ers:aclassicallytrainedmusicianhimself,
whooftenworeatieinthestudioandpro-
jectedanairofrefinement.“Ialwaysthought
hewasamemberoftheroyalfamily,”says
JefBeck,whowasproducedbyMartinon
severalofhisLPs.“Hewasthefirstperson
in rock who spoke the Queen’s English. One
nightafterasession,Isaidtomykeyboard-
ist, ‘Why don’t we follow him and see if he
turnsintoBuckinghamPalace?’”Martin’s
choice of collaborators was also striking: In
the course of five decades, he produced ev-
eryone from America to Cheap Trick to Ella
Fitzgerald to British Invasion acts like Gerry
and the Pacemakers.
Yet Martin never made the impossible more possible
than with his most famous collaborators. Between 1962
and 1970, Martin produced almost everything the Bea-
tles recorded, irrevocably changing what could be done
in a rock & roll studio session in the process. “He infl u-George Martin,
1926-2016
TheproducerhelpedmaketheBeatles
the Beatles, and became an unlikely
rock innovatorBy David Browneenced me to do good violin arrangements,” says Brian
Wilson. “Like on ‘Michelle’ – they were just sweeter. The
arrangement on ‘She’s Leaving Home’ was beautiful. He
had a whole lot of musical ability.” As McCartney said
after Martin’s death, “If anyone earned the title of the
‘fifth Beatle’, it was George.”
Born January 3rd, 1926, into a working-class family- his father was a carpenter, his mother a nurse – Mar-
tin played piano as a child and had a band in grammar
school, before serving as a pilot in the British navy dur-
ing World War II. After the war, he studied oboe and
got a job as an assistant at Parlophone Records. There,
he produced classical, jazz and comedy records. “We all
knew him before the Beatles because he produced PeterTRIBUTE
Martin in 1970