There are those who can make a claim to greatness because of their association with the music industry. And then there are those who are in rarefied air. These are the ones who can be considered Forward Progressives. When your ideas can transcend music itself and become part of the re-shaping of culture itself, you are in rarefied air. George Martin was rarefied air.
George Martin was one who was lucky enough to have had a change in his life when he met four very open-minded Forward Progressives from Liverpool. He went from producing music and comedy which would have provided him with a rather pedestrian living to forever changing the musical landscape of our times. His open-mindedness, along with that of John, Paul, George and Ringo, changed music production values to the point of re-defining them. He took a technician’s feel for studio instruments and machinery and pushed the boundaries of how music could be presented on tape. He was the first person to to re-distribute our minds and make tape looping something so far beyond a novelty-most especially backward looping. He created orchestration that was both grand and completely logical to both the music and the times in which they were produced-whether a precise minimalism was required (as in “Eleanor Rigby”) or mind-blowingly explosive (“A Day In The Life”). He, along with the four lads, made the integration of various instruments from around the world and of genres not only something beyond acceptable. He helped to make it a vital part of throwing music forward on a continual basis. With the exception of The Beach Boys, I can think of nobody who helped to advance harmonies in popular music more than he did in the ’60s.
It is actually very easy to be writing about George Martin this evening. His work with The Beatles is definitive. One can wax poetic about what he did for The Beatles and for all of us. Instead, what George did is cause for people to shorten the length of their words for moments. His achievements are so towering.
He was a product of history. It was a necessary history. The meeting of possibility between himself with the those of John, Paul, George and Ringo created a perfect storm. Our culture would not have been the same if this hadn’t happened. There would have been no ’60s if they had not gotten together.
I am also so very thankful that George Martin and the collective minds of The Beatles were aware of how much competition between themselves and other artists who existed during their time in existence as a band was enough to help propel themselves forward without letting the competition stifle their creativity. In this regard, George Martin went beyond the producer role. He not only thought musically, but he also thought like a second manager to the boys when Brian Epstein was still alive and also in the wake of Epstein’s passing in 1967. After Epstein’s passing, even when things were getting tense between the band members, he still managed to get the guys to keep pushing their boundaries. Even during the hard times of 1968 during the “white album” sessions and clear through the bitterness of the Get Back/Let It Be project of early ’69, he kept things together so that we could get that one last magnificent salvo which became the Abbey Road album. My God! Even Beatles basic backing tracks were forward facing throughout the whole of their existence.
And let’s talk about his mixes. I can’t think of anybody who produced greater in-studio mono mixes than George Martin. The impact of the early singles would not have been as effective in getting people to latch onto the band had it not been for the clarity and punch of the mono singles. Bad mixes would have turned people away from them or they would not have developed the groundswell of fans had they not had the benefit of George’s work in the beginning. A lot of people forget that The Beatles were actually a very mono-centric band. John, Paul, George and Ringo preferred to listen to themselves and their play-backs in the studio in mono. Stereo mixes up to and including 1968, were oftentimes an afterthought. However, we can all be thankful that the stereo album mixes were accurate reflections of their times and a blueprint in logical presentation.
As one listened to Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, you were hit with the realization that it was no longer a basic wide-stereo gimmick anymore. Martin’s panning sequences and the placements of instruments in the stereo field (especially when listened to with headphones) were the result of experimentation which led into brilliant results. A listener could almost allow themselves to imagine that it wasn’t a two-channel stereo limitation. You felt as if you were surrounded within a fantastic horizon of sound coming at you from different directions. George Martin had great imagination. He was also a further facilitator of what (especially) Paul, John and George were hearing in their heads and made them into reality. I’d like to think that Martin’s stereo mixes, especially on Revolver, made Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Kramer take the creative inspiration of what Martin was doing to create their own brand of pushing musical boundaries and mixes when Jimi first showed up on the landscape in late 1966 and into early 1967 as his first album was in its early stages.
George Martin’s mixes also greatly enhanced the emotional impact of what you were listening to. The emotional value of the songwriting of Lennon/McCartney and of Harrison and Starr was never cheapened by bad or gimmicky mixes. If there are people out there who look back upon the ’60s and think that all of the Psychedelic movement within music was just a throwaway, listen to something like “It’s All Too Much”. All of the good which can be encapsulated about great music of the ’67 and early ’68 period can be found within that song. It’s a beautiful example from before the back to the roots movement among musicians took hold as ’68 marched forward. There’s the stunning impact of the sheer force of the loudness of the music and its sense of joyful abandon. And then there’s the playfulness contained within the song.
George also had a hand in creating what possibly may be the defining song of the ’60s. It was the one which may have been at the very peak of when The Beatles and their fans around the world had their greatest moment of oneness. “Hey Jude” might possibly be the perfect single. It may be the greatest single of the entire ’60s. Who but George Martin could have taken a song and defied radio programmers by producing a long single with an extended fade-out which only drew all people of all kinds closer together? Who could have given us a song which bound us all together amid the terrible storms of 1968 in the manner in which Martin and The Beatles did?
George Martin was a great blessing to us all. He was a great blessing to John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr.
Long live George Martin!
–Steve Talia