Farewell to the fifth Beatle

Sometimes it's simply a matter of optimism. Without the optimism of George Henry Martin, who passed away on 8 March at the age of ninety, there would never have been the Beatles. When in 1962 the four lads, fresh from paying their dues in Hamburg, showed up before that young Parlophone executive, thanks to the good offices of their manager Brian Epstein, disaster was just one step away. "The boys were terribly nervous," Martin recalled, "they played me their demos: terrible, rubbish, but there was also 'Love Me Do' (which Martin himself would later turn into a hit by speeding up its tempo, ed.). I knew Decca and other major labels had already turned them down, and I understood why. But they had charm, charisma and a sense of humour, and I wanted to give it a try: an hour in the studio to see what we could get out of them. Especially since my scepticism had brought them close to tears. You all know the rest of the story."

Without George Martin, "the Duke of Edinburgh" as John Lennon called him, the world would have lost not just the Beatles, but their songs as we know them today. The London-born producer didn't just play some of the instrumental parts on these tracks: he was their demiurge, their supreme architect. Slowing them down, speeding them up, manipulating them with distortion units, delays, echoes, reverbs, reassembling them from tape reels like so many tiles in that wonderful mosaic upon which contemporary pop music was built. A few concrete examples? The orchestral part of "Yesterday", the astonishing opening chord of "A Hard Day's Night", the classical-tinged arrangement of "Eleanor Rigby" (the only rock hit without any rock instruments – no bass, guitar or drums), the harmonisation of two takes recorded in different keys and at different speeds for the psychedelic trip of "Strawberry Fields Forever" ("I'm sure you'll fix it," Lennon's famous line; though it took 45 hours of studio work!), the primal scream that sets "Can't Buy Me Love" ablaze, the circus atmosphere of "Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!", his decisive contribution to McCartney's tape-splicing for the loops on "Tomorrow Never Knows", and – perhaps the most brilliant stroke of all – the "end of the world" sound of "A Day In The Life": faced with Lennon's outlandish request, Martin responded by writing parts for forty orchestral musicians, from the lowest note to the highest, in a rising glissando. But the list could go on forever.

No one deserved the much-claimed title of "fifth Beatle" more than he did. Perhaps an even more prestigious honour than being knighted "sir" in 2004, or being made a Knight Bachelor eight years earlier. Or than his 6 Grammy Awards and the keys to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, handed to him in 1999. Because between Martin and the Beatles there was total symbiosis, a unique and unrepeatable alchemy. "He guided our career with skill and a sense of humour. He was like a second father to me," Paul McCartney movingly recalled in a lengthy letter. And it was the other surviving Beatle, Ringo Starr, who broke the news of his death – the very man Martin wanted in the group in place of original drummer Pete Best, despite his initial doubts (indeed, on "Love Me Do" he had him replaced by session drummer Andy White, deemed more suitable). A tweet full of devotion: "Thank you for all your love and kindness George, peace and love. I'm so shattered I have no words." Because not even eternal glory can shield anyone from the anguish of that fateful moment, as Martin himself suggested when speaking of the death of another Beatle, George Harrison: "It was a shock, we all know we're only here on Earth for a short time, but we're never prepared for death."

But Martin wasn't just the loving father figure who enjoyed watching the four lads from Liverpool at play, turning their dreams into reality in Studio 3 at Abbey Road. He was a trailblazer for an entire new school of producers, the one who ferried the strategies of avant-garde music into pop.

Born in London in 1926, a classically trained pianist and arranger, he began working in the 1950s on EMI productions and recordings for comedy records with Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and others, even cutting an instrumental of his own, "Time Beat", before landing his first major hit in 1961 with The Temperance Seven. Over his long career he produced more than seven hundred hit records, working with, among many others, Cilla Black, Shirley Bassey, Gerry and the Pacemakers, America, UFO, Van der Graaf Generator, Peter Gabriel, Sting, Jeff Beck, Elton John (the reworked "Candle In The Wind" for Lady Diana), Ultravox (the splendid "Quartet") and jazz musicians such as Cleo Laine, John Dankworth, Humphrey Lyttelton and Stan Getz.

His tall, elegant figure – forever in jacket and tie, like a lord from another era – moved through recording studios for half a century, also bringing about a decisive shift in sound production and recording techniques. Yet he never lost sight of the noblest sense of the craft: "I experimented a great deal," he recalled, "but I don't believe at all in technology as an end in itself, in the power of machines for their own sake. Technology is a great thing only if it serves ideas; otherwise it remains a shapeless entity that ends up stifling thought."

From 1997 onwards he had been forced to scale back his work due to severe hearing problems. "Caused by all the music of the last thirty years, there's no doubt about that," he commented. We already miss you, Sir George.

Extended version of an article originally published in the newspaper Leggo

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