The First Beatle, passed at 90

[arbilab]

A fixture in my home since 1963, the works of Sir George Martin. The First Beatle, without whom we would never have heard of the other 4.

Gone but never forgotten. I can hear him now. "John, Please Please Me doesn't work as a dirge. Snap it up and I think we'll have something."

Without George and his adopted sons, roughly a third of my life experience would be missing. I mean, I really liked The Lion Sleeps Tonight but it didn't make me buy and learn drums and join a dozen bands, one of which ended up in front of 7~10 thousand people.

I might have lifted their spirits for 45 minutes, while George did that for many lifetimes.

 

[vacerator]

First beatle?

he soloed? I understood he was their producer.
Rolling Stones drummer also diagnosed with prostate cancer.

 

[tomturbomatic]

I heard him referred to as the fifth Beetle. He was their arranger and did a great deal to keep them together after Brian's death.

 

[stricklybojack]

.
Yes he has often been referred to as the fifth Beatle, including Paul as recently as upon hearing of Martin's death. They even offered him a full 20% of royalties to reflect it but he refused and only received his standard EMI salary of, well shall we say far fewer farthings, whilst he made records with them.[this post was last edited: 3/9/2016-13:50]

 

[customline]

Well ..............

There is some debate as to who was the FIFTH Beatle. It was either Brian Epstein or Stuart Sutcliffe, and it's Bill Wyman first Stones BASSIST that has cancer.

 

[firedome]

oddly...

just yesterday afternoon I pulled out my Sgt. Pepper vinyl and listened to it on the turntable for the 1st time in probably 25 years, he had major influence on that album. Then this AM I heard he had died...weird.

George Martin was an audio engineer for London Records with classical training and it was mostly classical production work he did for them, he originally thought the Beatles work "rubbish" but changed his mind and was responsible for the classical backing on many of their pieces (Yesterday, Eleanor Rigby are good examples) and arrangement/production for every Beatle record until 1969.

 

[kenwashesmonday]

vacerator wrote:
"he soloed? I understood he was their producer."

I know he played piano on quite a few Beatles tracks. He also did the string and wind arrangments. Might also mention the wonderful score he wrote for the the film "Yellow Submarine"

http://https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_xfzC712LY

 

[firedome]

sorry...

I misspoke - it was indeed EMI not London where Martin worked his magic. He was universally described as a kind and gentle man.

 

[kenwashesmonday]

The guy over at London (British Decca) was easy-listening bandleader Bert Kaempfert, the guy who famously turned the Beatles down.

 

[goatfarmer]

I'd always heard Billy Preston referred to as the "fifth Beatle".

 

[kenwashesmonday]

There were at least a few so-called "5th Beatles", including NYC disc jockey Murray the K.

http://https//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_the_K

 

[vacerator]

Thank you all

for the Beatles education. I grew up with Motown, but I did listen to them a lot, especially Abbey Road, then John Lennon, and Ringo Staar. I even mistook 10 CC's song for Ringo or George Harrison at age 15.
I'm a bit tone deaf.
Come to think of it now, my folks listened to everything from Chopin, Mario Lanza, Billy Extine, to Dusty Springfield, Nat King Cole, and Chet Atkins.

 

[goatfarmer]

The "fifth" Beatle....

http://https//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Beatle

 

[arbilab]

"The Fifth"

Yeah I know. I promoted him.

A couple more Bert Kaempfert encounters and they might have given up and become lorry (truck) drivers.

 

[davetranter]

'First Beatle'

I agree with you, Arbilab! Without the support of George Martin there would have been no 'Beatles' phenomenon. They would have just been another pub/club band who would probably have played the local 'circuit' for a few years before moving on to other things... (Lorry driving, perhaps??).

Many thanks for marking his 'passing'.

All best

Dave T

 

[arbilab]

Cheers Dave. Least I could do. Outside the weapons industry there's not a lot of genius left to go around.

 

[toploader55]

Bert !!!



But wait... There's more !!! Ginger and MaryAnne

 

[arbilab]

Hey, I bought Wonderland By Night and Swingin Safari 45s. But that was the last I heard of cousin Bert.