You can accomplish a lot in 90 years.
George Martin just passed away, and my thoughts are with his family and loved ones.
Some of you younger kids have probably never heard of George Martin. He’s a good name to look out for if you’re browsing through older music; he produced and arranged music for Gerry and the Pacemakers, Cheap Trick, America, Jeff Beck, Ultravox, and especially the Beatles.
I would argue that Martin did a lot to help shape the musical form we call rock. He brought orchestration into the Beatles’ recordings, and vastly increased rock’s musical vocabulary, adding nuance to a language then mainly spoken by teenagers.
If Martin had not been around in the 60’s, I wonder if we would have Jeff Lynne, King Crimson or Yes?
George Martin’s name is almost always linked with the Beatles. He worked on every album they recorded. I’m not putting down the Beatles at all, by the way – they came with their fantastic songwriting and their own ideas about arranging and producing. Martin helped them to realize their ideas, and added a few of his own.
And the next time you’re having an argument about whether the drums should have 12 dedicated tracks, keep in mind the Beatles’ albums were all done on either 2-track, 4-track or 8-track tape machines.
Here’s a wonderful tribute, courtesy of Paul McCartney.
http://www.paulmccartney.com/news-blogs/news/paul-mccartney-on-george-martin
And here’s one of my favorite Beatles tracks:
EARNOIZE 
Probably the greatest record producer ever! Phil Spector always gets a lot of votes because he’s edgy (to put it mildly), but Martin seemed like such a classy guy. A real role model! And your drum comment made me smile 🙂 I don’t know how many tracks sound best (maybe White Album? That was 16-track, 1″ I believe), but four mics seems like a good limit to get a great Ringo sound. –Paul
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