George Martin and Geoff Emerick in the studio together in 1995; photo by Phil Dent/Getty Images.
George Martin achieved more from 1962 to 1970 than most producers hope to in a lifetime. Though the passing of "the fifth Beatle" last week at the age of 90 was sorrowful, the feeling that he had lived an extraordinary life — one in which he really changed the world, via his work with its biggest pop band and beyond — prevailed. Some of his success came from being at the right place at the right time, but much of Martin's acheivements derive from an aversion to the status quo. His unconventional techniques facilitated the Beatles' big ideas, shifting the very notion of what the recording studio could be.
Geoff Emerick, the Beatles' go-to recording engineer from 1966's Revolver onward (with a small handful of breaks along the way), likely spent more time with Martin than anyone outside of John, Paul, George, and Ringo during the band's run. Like the Beatles, Emerick thought of Martin as a father figure, using much of what he learned at Abbey Road when he found himself in the producer's chair for folks like Elvis Costello, Cheap Trick, and Art Garfunkel. Pitchfork caught up with Emerick by phone late last week, to discuss Martin's lessons and legacy — a conversation that quickly became a state of the union on audio production in the digital age. It's difficult not to think big when you're discussing one of the greatest producers ever.
Pitchfork: Besides the obvious — that both parties were exceptionally talented — what was it about George Martin that made him so suited to collaborate with the Beatles? Given his background producing mostly jazz and comedy records, he was not necessarily the most ideal producer for them on paper.
Geoff Emerick: They weren't the Beatles as we know them today when they first started, and it wasn't magical or brilliant. But it was the combination of a pop band plus George's middle-of-the-road musical knowledge. For instance, he would tell them different chords that they could possibly play instead of the regular ones. His forte really was in the harmony and vocal work. They'd sit at the piano and they would say, “This is our harmony.” George would say, “Well, why don't you do this, and why don't you do that?” They spent a long time working on harmony parts, and musical ideas, really — things they wouldn't have thought of without George’s input.
Pitchfork: At the time, music producers seemed like they played a different role than they do now, functioning more as technicians rather than as someone who introduces new ideas. George seemed to change that.
GE: The producer's job was really to find the song from the music publisher, find the right arranger, oversee the session. Normally the only comment would be, “Oh, the tempo is not right, it's too fast or it's too slow.” And the producer would pick the best performance. What happened with the Beatles was that George started to interject his input into the arrangement itself rather than bring in another arranger. So this is where the big change was. But it was done in a really professional way, and it was a unique way of working for those days. People try to do that now and destroy what they were supposed to be improving.
George could always interject. He always had a sense of calm on the session to begin with. Whenever there was a problem, it was always solved and sorted out. There was a lot of laughter; those were really fun sessions with George, whereas some sessions [with other producers] could not be good fun. Both he and I have the same sense of humor, that's why we got on so well.
Pitchfork: How would you describe George’s sense of humor?
GE: Cynical, maybe. In our sessions later on when I was then recording engineer — and I did a lot of his other artists [outside the Beatles] as well — I could read his mind and he could read mine. People used to say, “You don't say much to each other in your sessions,” but really, there was no need. It was a little bit eerie. But when an instance happened in a session — whether an artist had said something or some incident had happened — we just knew. Like I was saying, it was a bit cynical, the way we would look at each other with a wry smile, and we knew that we were thinking the same funny thing about what had just happened. It was such a beautiful working relationship, and it was so much fun. That's why the sessions were so, so good.
The Beatles with Martin (background) and music publisher Dick James at Abbey Road in 1963; photo by Terry O'Neill/Getty Images.
Pitchfork: I imagine those sessions ran pretty long and quite late. George always seemed like a father figure to the band — what did he make of the crazier schedules the Beatles would keep, especially in their later days?
GE: The days were really long. The Beatles could really get away with anything they wanted because they became such a big act for EMI, so what used to happen was: We would start work maybe at three or four in the afternoon and work through to four or five in the morning. As time went by, they would come in at 11 at night. It was one of those situations. They changed the whole concept of the recording process. And George, well, he didn't like it. Because he was also doing other artists and he was running their studios, there were other things to do all the time. So he would leave at two or three [in the morning], and we would carry on without him. There was no way he was going to change it because they could do what they wanted. Even George couldn't stop that.
Pitchfork: George had all sorts of unconventional production techniques, from changing tape speeds to instruments played backwards to reassembling chopped-up tape. Was there any approach that you thought was particularly crazy?
GE: Not really. By the late years, we both knew what we could do. We're going way back now: When I first started [at Parlophone], when I was really young, George and Norman Smith [the engineer on Beatles albums up to 1965’s Rubber Soul] were putting together the Beatles’ first album [1963’s Please Please Me], and it was the album that "Misery" was on. It was a George Harrison guitar line on "Misery," and it needed it a different sound to make it more interesting. I realized at this point that what George [Martin] did is he played the tape at half speed and put the little piano part, which was the same as the guitar part, underneath to play along with the guitar. When you play it back at normal speed, the harmonics are different — and it has that special sound. So from that moment on, as far as I was concerned, I knew that you could create things from doing things like that. That's when the seed was planted for me, straight from George.
When we [cut up tapes of fairground organs] for “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite,” a lot of that came from George’s work on comedy records, because a lot of comedy records needed special sound effects. Basically we were just stuck! We couldn't get a real calliope [a steam organ common in circuses], but there were pre-recorded sound effects from EMI's tape library. George’s plan to disguise the sound effects was to chop it all up and throw it in the air and stick it together again. We did something similar on "Yellow Submarine” [with reassembling chopped tape], and it came back almost the same way.
Pitchfork: Did you ever talk to George about what he thought of modern digital production techniques?
GE: I hadn't seen him in a few years, to be honest, but I know he felt exactly the same way as I do. He knew the direction it has gone, although he embraced some new ideas. But the way it's going now it's just ridiculous, it really is.
Pitchfork: Why do you say that?
GE: There is no artistic involvement. They think records are made from a technical angle and they are not — it's an artistic angle. I can't manufacture a record from nothing in the control room, I’ve got to work with a real artist. Producers now don't [think like that] because they don't know. Which is a shame, because there's a lot of talent around. But since accountants are in charge of everything now…
It used to be expensive to make a record. It's like making a film: If you're going to make a really good film, you get a great director and a great cameraman, a great cast, and you make it. If you had the budget, you would make a great record. But now there’s so much stuff that is stuck to the wall that occasionally something is a hit.
Pitchfork: Are there any new-school producers or engineers that you look at and think, They’re getting it right?
GE: To be honest with you, I'm slightly out of touch. Not really. I can't even listen to anything [new], to be honest. It’s all too digitally compressed because they want it to be louder than someone else's record. I can't distinguish any of the instruments in pop music anymore. I can’t say, “That’s a rhythm guitar, that's a lead guitar, that’s a piano, that's the bass, that’s the drums.” It's just a noise that comes screaming out of the speaker.