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He hated his nickname, given to many others, and would not hear of it. “Fifth Beatle”? “ This is stupid. I could never write, much less interpret these songs “, had decided once and for all the composer, producer and arranger George Martin, died Tuesday, March 8 in London at the age of 90 years. The gentleman had received Le Monde in December 1997 in his studio built in a Victorian church in London’s Hampstead. Trapped by deafness, he decided to make his musical retirement at age 72, after 47 years of loyal service to the British music industry. But the story essentially retain this prodigious seven-year (1962-1969) spent in the company of four guys from Liverpool, which changed forever pop music
Read also:. Death of the “fifth Beatle “George Martin
the exact role of George Martin in beatlesienne revolution is the subject of debate ever closed between exegetes. Music lovers – the dullest of them deigning generally recognize some value in this pop group – tend to increase the since Martin was one of their former student of the prestigious Guildhall School of Music where he was taught orchestration , composition, conducting orchestra and oboe, a time employee classical department of the BBC before joining the Phonographic company EMI to record it of baroque music. Hard-rockers, who prefer the Beatles Revolution and Helter Skelter those of Yesterday and Eleanor Rigby welcome the nasty remark by John Lennon
With the Beatles, a clash of generations
. the originality and richness of the music of the Beatles is based precisely on a clash of generations, almost civilizations. Became the youngest artistic director of the kingdom in 1955 when he takes the head of Parlophone, EMI dusty division, Martin takes a big hit when it finally old knowledge, in June 1962, in the London studios of Abbey Road with Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, then flanked the drummer Pete Best. He chose to sign without even having met them, listening to excerpts of the tape that got them to be rejected by Decca competitor – which will bite into your fingers and do not reissue this error will occur when the Rolling Stones.
Martin was hardly impressed by what he heard, but he detected a strong potential for these boys is enthusiasm, freshness, candor and insouciance. His infallible ear was seduced by the tangle of voices of Lennon and McCartney. And he understood that Parlophone must rejuvenate its image by taking in turn the turn of rock’n’roll, even if it largely ignores this new sound imported from America.
he replaced Pete Best with Ringo Starr
with fifteen years more than the Beatles, he will play in turn the role of young uncle, mentor, sometimes supervisor. Aged 36 when their collaboration began, Martin is indeed a man of the interwar period, whose childhood was marked by the Pumps and Circumstances Elgar and nostalgia an empire in distress. If idolatrous Rachmaninov, he is at ease with jazz big bands and has broken all the tricks of the music hall. Facing him stands a tandem (Lennon-McCartney) unable to read music – in its infancy, McCartney, referred to as “nice deal” E minor – but the gods have given all melodic closets. Martin’s work will be to refine these rough diamonds illuminate the songbook the brilliant duo. If there will be a little professor, his mission will be limited to fully enhance the creativity of its students, even when it envapée by lysergic substances and the “rascals” as he calls them, will smoke their joints in secret.
His interventions are any decisive result. This is Martin who makes the decision to transfer the “bad boy” Pete Best and replace it with one that meant you were one of the best musicians in the rock scene of Liverpool, Ringo Starr, Rory Storm & amp drummer; The Hurricanes. Martin understood that the player often mocked and wrongly, is the ideal recruit, discretion, subtlety and flexibility preserving the melodies and harmonies. Martin also imposes the metamorphosis of a song with John Lennon composed the ballads of Roy Orbison in mind: it calls for the acceleration of the tempo Please Please Me, their second single. This will be the first to be ranked number 1. The new feverish energy it deploys marks the launch of Beatlemania.
The strings of “Yesterday” and “Eleanor Rigby”
the imprint of Martin is even more pregnant with roped songs. One night in 1964 or 1965 (the exact year is debated), the Creator visit McCartney in a dream. The Chosen is lucky: he wakes up, headed one of the most beautiful arias of the postwar period. At this early hour, it gives him working title “Scrambled Eggs” ( “Scrambled Eggs”) becomes Yesterday when her assistants are words evoking a breakup. The Beatles will not know how to exploit this miracle until Martin, against the initial opinion of the author, write the arrangement for string quartet (two violins, viola, cello). Upon arrival, Yesterday is more a song by McCartney (only group member to interpret) and Martin that the Beatles.
The other most obvious example is Eleanor Rigby still a melancholy song that will help establish the baroque pop. This time, Martin leads an octet whose staccato were inspired by revolutionary Bernard Herrmann score him for the Psycho Alfred Hitchcock. McCartney is conquered, he has discovered Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with his girlfriend Jane Asher – whose mother, Margaret, was the oboe professor Martin at the Guildhall School of Music. For In My Life , one of the most beautiful songs of Lennon, it is Martin who writes and plays the baroqueux bridge. An ingenious discovery. Listeners long believed that it was a harpsichord; in fact, it is a piano recorded at low speed, then restored.
Slow down and tape acceleration
With the end of summer tours 1966 and the group downturn in the studio, the role of the fifth man takes even more important. The songs do not have to be interpreted and live musicians can unleash experimentation. Martin enjoys indulging in all handling, acceleration and deceleration strips, introducing concrete elements of music, instruments additions stolen the London Symphony Orchestra. It is at its best on the great work of the “Summer of Love” Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band , one of the first concept albums of pop, and her cousin, Magical Mystery Tour.
Martin to go the circus of his childhood memories to Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite. The Beatles maïeuticien allows to realize their ideas, expressed verbally and often confused. McCartney and should sing the piccolo trumpet solo Penny Lane , he transcribed immediately. His knowledge of the strings is infinitely precious for A Day in the Life , the monument which establishes the connection between folk and twelve-tone, or the symphonic psychedelia of I Am The Walrus .
recognition of his work is symbolized by the soundtrack of the cartoon Yellow Submarine, early 1969. his score occupies the entire the second side of the album, the most remarkable theme, Pepperland , indicating how Martin remains a Victorian composer marked by Edward Elgar. Moreover, it engages in pastiches of Beatles or Bach, with a recovery in the aria of the Suite No. 3 for orchestra .
“I lost control of the situation”
Martin is increasingly sought when his proteges undertake the implementation, current 1968 of the “white album”, an anti-Sgt Pepper’s minimalist whose the concept is not to be. The four are doing often alone and in isolation, Martin is showing for the arrangement of Good Night , a Final that Lennon wanted “kitsch” . The arranger is modeled on Ennio Morricone large reinforcement celesta, vibraphone, harp and spaghetti western choirs. He imagines the second career Ringo Starr, the crooner on redeveloping series B. The title immediately with something for Barbra Streisand.
The relationship with the phenomena rapidly deteriorate early 1969, when the recording of the album will become Let It Be . Martin participates in the project registration sessions then entitled Get Back and feels that the end is near. “Dirty period, he recalled. I had lost control of the situation. Yet the original idea of this album was excellent: they wanted to repeat to perfection their new songs and record them in tune. John wanted a live without effects, honest. But through a very deep crisis, dominated the Yoko. When reviewing the film Let it Be, we see that the atmosphere was cut with a knife and repeat impossible. “
‘” Abbey Road “is my favorite album”
Martin will be discarded in favor of the final product of one of his rivals, the American producer Phil Spector, as crazy as is reasoned him and stalled since the mid-1960s: “John finally delivered him bands Let it Be and added orchestral parts, echo, new voices, all that John had not allowed me to do! I produced the original on which Spector worked. On the disc, it would have register: “Produced by George Martin, overproduced by Phil Spector.” “ His best friend in the group, McCartney, disavow the results, furious at the treatment in The Long and Winding Road. The Beatles nevertheless convieront historical producer for their song swan, their matches before the break. “ Abbey Road is my favorite album because we knew it would be the last” , had told George Martin.
After Beatles, a good relationship with McCartney
Read also: Paul McCartney: “George Martin, a second father to me”
This is of course with the McCartney musician will continue to maintain the best relations, Lennon turned to Phil Spector for his first solo albums and Harrison even making for its triple-album All Things Must Pass. is how Martin to head the New York Philharmonic Orchestra for the eccentric Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey to Ram (1972), writes the Live And Let Die , James Bond adventure, producing the title song of Wings, McCartney’s new band. The two men still find the early 1980s for albums Tug of War and Pipes of Peace.
Meanwhile, Martin was for five years (1974-1979) the official producer of America, a group heavily influenced by the Beatles and the Beach Boys. These US Air Force military son stationed in England have gained fame through a tube parodying Neil Young, A Horse With No Name . Resulting in some nuggets like Tin Man or solar Sister Golden Hair. But nothing can equal the washers with logo on black Parlophone, then an apple.
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