EMI and Parlophone Martin joined
EMI in November 1950 as an assistant to Oscar Preuss, the head of EMI's
Parlophone label. Although having been regarded by EMI as a vital German imprint in the past, it was then not taken seriously and used only for EMI's insignificant acts. Among Martin's early duties was managing Parlophone's classical records catalogue, including
Baroque ensemble sessions with
Karl Haas; Martin, Haas, and
Peter Ustinov soon founded the London Baroque Society together. He also developed a friendship and working relationship with composer
Sidney Torch and signed
Ron Goodwin to a recording contract. In 1953, Martin produced Goodwin's first record, an instrumental rendition of
Charlie Chaplin's theme from
Limelight, which made it to no. 3 on the British charts. Despite these early breakthroughs, Martin resented EMI's preference in the early 1950s for short-playing 78
rpm records instead of the new longer-playing and 45 rpm formats coming into fashion on other labels. He also proved uncomfortable as a
song plugger when occasionally assigned the task by Preuss, comparing himself to a "sheep among wolves"..|leftPreuss retired as head of Parlophone in April 1955, leaving the 29-year-old Martin to take over the label. However, he had to fight to retain the label, as by late 1956 EMI managers considered moving Parlophone's successful artists to
Columbia Records or the
His Master's Voice, with Martin possibly to take a junior
A&R role at the His Master's Voice under
Wally Ridley. Martin staved off corporate pressure with successes in comedy records, such as a 1957 recording of the two-man show featuring
Michael Flanders and
Donald Swann,
At the Drop of a Hat. His work boosted the profile of Parlophone from a "sad little company" to a highly profitable business over time. As head of Parlophone, Martin recorded classical and
Baroque music,
original cast recordings,
jazz, and regional music from around Britain and Ireland. He became the first British A&R man to capitalize on the 1956
skiffle boom when he signed
the Vipers Skiffle Group after seeing them in London's
2i's Coffee Bar. Martin's first hit production came in 1956 in the Johnny Duckworth Band's
jazz parody "The Three Blind Mice". Martin produced numerous comedy and novelty records. His first success in the genre was the "Mock Mozart" single, performed by Peter Ustinov with
Antony Hopkins. In 1953, Martin produced
Peter Sellers' debut in music, the failed single "Jakka and the Flying Saucers". Two years later, Martin worked with
BBC radio comedy stars
the Goons on a parody version of "
Unchained Melody", but the song's publishers blocked it from release. The Goons subsequently left Parlophone for
Decca, but Sellers, a member of the group, achieved minor success with Martin in 1957 with "Boiled Bananas and Carrots"/"
Any Old Iron". Recognising that Sellers was capable of "a daydreaming form of humour which could be amusing and seductive without requiring the trigger of a live audience", Martin pitched a full album to EMI. The result,
The Best of Sellers (1958), has been cited by the music historian
Mark Lewisohn as the first British comedy LP created in a recording studio. Martin scored a major success in 1961 with the
Beyond the Fringe show cast album, starring, among others,
Peter Cook and
Dudley Moore; the show catalyzed Britain's
satire boom in the early 1960s., for whom Martin produced his first no. 1 compositionMartin courted controversy in summer 1960, when he produced a cover of the teen novelty song "
Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini" and released it mere days after the release of the record in the UK, opening him to public accusations of
piracy. Nonetheless, his first British number-one came a year later, in May 1961, with
the Temperance Seven song "
You're Driving Me Crazy". He then earned praise from EMI chairman Sir
Joseph Lockwood for his top-ten 1962 hit with
Bernard Cribbins, "
The Hole in the Ground". Though Martin wanted to add
rock and roll to Parlophone's repertoire, he struggled to find a "fireproof"
hit-making pop artist or group. When Martin visited
Liverpool in December 1962, the Beatles' manager
Brian Epstein, with whom he had cultivated a working relationship, showed him successful local acts like
Gerry and the Pacemakers and
the Fourmost. Martin urged Epstein to audition them for EMI. Gerry and the Pacemakers scored their first no. 1 with their version of "
How Do You Do It?", which Martin produced, in April 1963. Martin also produced the Epstein-managed
Billy J. Kramer and
the Dakotas,
the Fourmost, and
Cilla Black. Between the Beatles, Gerry and the Pacemakers, and Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, Martin-produced and Epstein-managed acts were responsible for 37 weeks of no. 1 singles in 1963, transforming Parlophone into the leading EMI label. His work with such
Liverpudlian artists contributed to the development of
beat music.
Rivalries and tensions at EMI By the time he signed a three-year contract renewal in 1959, Martin sought, but failed, to obtain a royalty on Parlophone's record sales, a practice becoming common in the US: "I reckoned that if I was going to devote my life to building up something which wasn't mine, I deserved some form of commission", he reflected. The issue continued to linger in his mind, and Martin said he "nearly didn't sign" his spring 1962 contract renewal over this matter—even threatening EMI managing director L. G. ("Len") Wood that he would walk away from his job. With their relationship strained, Wood exacted a measure of revenge by having Martin sign
the Beatles to a record contract to appease interest from EMI's publishing arm, Ardmore & Beechwood., where Martin recorded Parlophone's artists|alt=Abbey Road Studios|leftMartin also advocated that the Beatles' penny-per-record
royalty rate be doubled; Wood agreed to this, but only if the Beatles signed a five-year contract renewal in exchange. When Martin countered that EMI should raise the royalty without conditions, Wood grudgingly acquiesced, but Martin believed that, "from that moment on, I was considered a traitor within EMI". In 1955, EMI purchased American recording company
Capitol Records. Thereafter, Capitol's head of international A&R,
Dave Dexter Jr., chose to issue very few British records in the US, to Martin and his EMI A&R colleagues' dismay. Dexter passed on issuing the Beatles' first four singles in the US, driving Martin out of desperation to issue "
She Loves You" on the small, independent
Swan Records. Martin and the Beatles also resented Capitol's practice of issuing records often highly divergent from British record releases, sometimes affecting album titles, cover art, songs included, and even Martin's production. This treatment did not cease until the band signed a new contract with EMI in January 1967.
Separation from EMI and start of Associated Independent Recording After his repeated clashes over salary terms with EMI management, Martin informed them in June 1964 that he would not renew his contract in 1965. Though EMI managing director Len Wood attempted to persuade Martin to stay with the company, Martin continued to insist that he would not work for EMI without receiving a commission on record sales. Wood offered him a 3% commission minus "overhead costs", which would have translated to an £11,000 bonus for 1964, though, in doing so, Wood revealed to Martin that EMI had made
£2.2 million in net profit from Martin's records that year. "With that simple sentence, he cut straight through whatever vestige of an umbilical cord still bound me to EMI. … I was flabbergasted", Martin observed. As Martin exited the company in August 1965, he recruited a number of other EMI staffers, including
Norman Newell,
Ron Richards,
John Burgess, his wife, Judy, and
Decca's
Peter Sullivan. Artists associated with Martin's new production team included
Adam Faith,
Manfred Mann,
Peter and Gordon,
the Hollies,
Tom Jones, and
Engelbert Humperdinck. Martin conceived of his new company as being modelled on the
Associated London Scripts cooperative of comedy writers in the 1950s and 1960s, offering equal shares in the company to his A&R colleagues and expecting them to pay studio costs proportionate to their earnings. He named it
Associated Independent Recording (AIR). Short of funds and with many of AIR's associated acts still under contract to EMI, Martin negotiated a business arrangement with EMI that would give EMI the right of first refusal on any AIR production. In exchange, EMI would pay a producer's royalty on all AIR records. Martin's departure from EMI and foundation of an independent production company was major news in the music press. Wood attempted to lure Martin back to EMI in 1969 with an offered salary of £25,000, but Martin rejected it.
The Beatles Epstein approaches EMI song publishers first heard Beatles demo recordings and pressed EMI to sign the group|alt=Plaque of London Office where EMI first heard Beatles demoesIn November 1961, the
Beatles manager
Brian Epstein travelled to London to meet with record executives from EMI and
Decca Records in the interest of obtaining a recording contract for his band. Epstein met with EMI's general marketing director Ron White, with whom he had a longstanding business relationship, and left a copy of the Beatles' single with
Tony Sheridan, "
My Bonnie". White said he would play it for EMI's four A&R directors, including George Martin (though it later emerged that he neglected to do so, playing it only for two of them). In mid-December, White replied that EMI was not interested in signing the Beatles. Martin claimed that he was contacted by Sid Colman of EMI music publisher Ardmore & Beechwood at the request of Epstein, though Colman's colleague Kim Bennett later disputed this. In any event, Martin arranged a meeting on 13 February 1962 with Epstein, who played for Martin the recording of the Beatles'
failed January audition for Decca Records. Epstein recalled that Martin liked
George Harrison's guitar playing and preferred
Paul McCartney's singing voice to
John Lennon's, though Martin himself recalled that he "wasn't knocked out at all" by the "lousy tape". With Martin apparently uninterested, Ardmore & Beechwood's Colman and Bennett pressured EMI management to sign the Beatles in hopes of gaining the rights to
Lennon–McCartney song publishing on Beatle records; Colman and Bennett even offered to pay for the expense of the Beatles' first EMI recordings. EMI managing director Len Wood rejected this proposal. Nonetheless, to appease Colman's interest in the Beatles, Wood directed Martin to sign the group. Martin met with Epstein again on 9 May at
EMI Studios in London, and informed him he would give the Beatles a standard recording contract with Parlophone, to record a minimum of six tracks in the first year. The royalty rate was to be one
penny for each record sold on 85% of records, which was to be split among the four members and Epstein. They agreed to hold the Beatles' first recording on 6 June 1962.
Early Beatles sessions (1962) Though Martin later called the 6 June 1962 session at EMI's studio two an "audition", as he had never seen the band play before, the session was actually intended to record material for the first Beatles single. Ron Richards and his engineer
Norman Smith recorded four songs: "
Besame Mucho", "
Love Me Do", "
Ask Me Why", and "
P.S. I Love You". Martin arrived during the recording of "Love Me Do"; between takes, he introduced himself to the Beatles and subtly changed the arrangement. The verdict was not promising, however, as Richards and Martin complained about
Pete Best's drumming, and Martin thought their original songs were simply not good enough. In the control room, Martin asked the individual Beatles if there was anything they personally did not like, to which Harrison replied, "I don't like your tie." That was the turning point, according to Smith, as Lennon and McCartney joined in with jokes and comic wordplay, that made Martin think that he should sign them to a contract for their wit alone. After deliberating for a time whether to make Lennon or McCartney the lead vocalist of the group, Martin decided he would let them retain their shared lead role: "Suddenly it hit me that I had to take them as they were, which was a new thing. I was being too conventional."'', produced by Martin|alt=The Beatles' first LPThough charmed by the Beatles' personalities, Martin was unimpressed with the musical repertoire from their first session. "I didn't think the Beatles had any song of any worth—they gave me no evidence whatsoever that they could write hit material", he said later. He arranged for the Beatles to record Mitch Murray's "
How Do You Do It" at a September session, with the Beatles now featuring
Ringo Starr on drums. The Beatles also re-recorded "Love Me Do" and played an early version of "
Please Please Me", which Martin thought was "dreary" and needed to be sped up. While Martin pushed for "How Do You Do It" to be released, the band and Murray protested, so he decided to have "Love Me Do" issued as the A-side of the Beatles' first single and save "How Do You Do It" for another occasion. Despite Martin's doubts about the song, "Love Me Do" steadily climbed in the British charts, peaking at number 17 in November 1962. With his doubts about the Beatles' songwriting abilities now quashed, Martin told the band they should re-record "Please Please Me" and make it their second single. He also suggested the Beatles record a
full album, a suggestion
Mark Lewisohn later deemed "genuinely mind-boggling", given how little exposure the Beatles had achieved so far. On 26 November, the Beatles attempted "Please Please Me" a third time. After the recording, Martin looked over the mixing desk and said, "Gentlemen, you have just made your first number one record".
Commercial breakout (1963–1964) As Martin had predicted, "
Please Please Me" reached no. 1 on most of the British singles charts upon its release in January 1963. "From that moment, we simply never stood still", he reflected. For the Beatles' first LP, Martin had the group record 10 new tracks to include with the four tracks already released. They accomplished this in one marathon recording session, on 11 February 1963, with the Beatles recording a mix of Lennon–McCartney originals and covers from their stage act. Nine days later, Martin overdubbed a piano part to the song "
Misery" and a
celesta on "
Baby It's You". The resulting album,
Please Please Me, became a huge success in the UK, spending 30 consecutive weeks at top of the charts, a feat no album bar one had accomplished by then. At this early stage of their working relationship, Martin played a major role in refining and arranging the Beatles' self-written songs to make them commercially appealing: "I taught them the importance of the
hook. You had to get people's attention in the first ten seconds, and so I would generally get hold of their song and 'top and tail' it—make a beginning and end. And also make sure it ran for about two-and-a-half minutes so that it would fit DJs' programmes". He added that, at the beginning of his recording career with the band, his aim was to "[get] a really loud rhythm sound", manifested in "
She Loves You". The Beatles' frenetic recording schedule continued in March 1963, as they recorded "
From Me to You", "
Thank You Girl", and an early version of "
One After 909". Martin altered the arrangement of "From Me to You", substituting the Beatles' idea for a guitar intro with a vocalized "da-da-da-da-da-dum-dum-da", backed by overdubbed harmonica. The Beatles returned to EMI Studios on 1 July to record a new single, "She Loves You". Martin liked the song but was sceptical of its closing chord, which he found clichéd. The Beatles, now increasingly confident in their songwriting, pushed back. Martin and the recording engineer
Norman Smith changed the studio microphone arrangement for the song, giving the bass and drums a more prominent sound on the record. "She Loves You" was released in August and it would become the best-selling UK single by any artist in the 1960s. Around this time, the foundations for
Beatlemania had been laid. Sometime in 1963, Martin and Brian Epstein arranged a loose formula to record two Beatles albums and four singles per year. The Beatles began work on their second LP on 18 July. Like their debut album, this record reflected the repertoire of the Beatles' contemporary stage act. Martin played piano on several of the tracks, including "
Money (That's What I Want)" and "
Not a Second Time", and also played
Hammond organ on "
I Wanna Be Your Man".
With the Beatles came out in November 1963 and remained at no. 1 on the album charts for five months. Martin and the Beatles recorded their next single, "
I Want to Hold Your Hand" on 17 October—their first recording session with
four-track recording. Impressed with the song, Martin merely suggested adding handclaps and adding
compression to Lennon's rhythm guitar sound to imitate the sound of an organ. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" extended the Beatles' success to the US. Shortly after, he had the band record
German-language versions of "She Loves You" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand" for the
West German market. Martin travelled to New York with the Beatles on 7 February, as the band embarked on their first visit to America—including
landmark performances on
The Ed Sullivan Show.'' sessions|alt=Martin during the Beatles for Sale sessions|leftIn late February, the band re-entered the studio and began recording the soundtrack album to the Beatles' upcoming untitled feature film. The
film,
album, and
lead single were all titled ''A Hard Day's Night''. In addition to producing the Beatles' songs for the album—their first not to feature any cover songs—Martin orchestrated several instrumental numbers for the film. The film was a success, and the album and single both reached no. 1 in the UK and US in July. Martin joined them for part of their
August/September North American tour, recording their performance at
the Hollywood Bowl. The Beatles began recording their next studio album,
Beatles for Sale in August, though the sessions continued intermittently through late October and the record was released in December. Martin observed that the Beatles were "war weary" during many of these sessions, and the album included six covers because Lennon and McCartney had not written enough songs to fill out the record.
Beatles for Sale also featured new percussion sounds on several tracks, such as
timpani and
chocalho. The album reached no. 1 in the UK but was not released in the US.
Shift to studio experimenting (1965–1966) In mid-February 1965, Martin and the Beatles began five months of sessions to record the music for their second film,
Help!. The Beatles adopted new studio techniques for these sessions, typically
overdubbing vocals and other sounds onto a carefully laid rhythm track. The group by now had grown confident in the studio, and Martin encouraged them to explore new ideas for songs, such as an outro to "
Ticket to Ride" that was at a faster tempo than the rest of song. They continued to experiment with unusual instruments, such as an
alto flute solo for "
You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" scored by Martin. It was Martin's idea to score a string quartet accompaniment for "
Yesterday" against McCartney's initial reluctance. Martin played the song in the style of
Bach to show McCartney the
voicings that were available.
Help!, again, peaked at no. 1 in the UK and the US. The group reconvened in October and November to record another album in time for the holiday shopping season.
Rubber Soul continued the Beatles' experimentation with new sounds and contained several groundbreaking tracks. "
Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" featured Harrison on
sitar, making it one of the first Western pop records to feature Indian instrumentation. The shimmering electric guitar sound on "
Nowhere Man" was achieved by repeatedly reprocessing the signal to increase the
treble frequencies, beyond the EQ limits permitted for EMI engineers. Martin himself recorded a
baroque-style piano solo on Lennon's "
In My Life", recording the tape at half-speed and playing it back at normal speed so the piano sounded like a
harpsichord. Though Martin didn't play a harpsichord on the record, "In My Life" inspired other record producers to begin incorporating the instrument in their arrangements of pop records.
Rubber Soul received strong critical acclaim upon its release and proved highly influential among the Beatles' musical contemporaries, such as
the Beach Boys. Martin sensed a shift in how the group was recording albums:I think
Rubber Soul was the first of the albums that presented a new Beatles to the world. Up to this point we had been making albums that were rather like a collection of their singles. And now, we really were beginning to think about albums as a bit of art in their own right. We were thinking about the album as an entity of its own, and
Rubber Soul was the first one to emerge in this way. The Beatles re-entered EMI Studios in April 1966, with the group's exploration of recording at
Stax Records' studio in
Memphis. The sessions of the
Revolver album began with a highly experimental track, "
Tomorrow Never Knows"—a Lennon song inspired by
Timothy Leary's book
The Psychedelic Experience. The song featured several innovations in pop recording, including the use of a
tanpura drone loop throughout the song, a backwards guitar solo, sped-up
tape loops, and
artificial double tracking (ADT) on Lennon's vocal. Martin worked closely with EMI engineers
Geoff Emerick and
Ken Townsend to achieve these radical effects. For Lennon's "
I'm Only Sleeping", the recording was conducted at a fast tape speed and then slowed down to achieve a drowsy, dream-like sound, and "
For No One" featured a French horn solo scored by Martin and played by
Alan Civil. Furthermore, the
Revolver sessions produced the single "
Paperback Writer"/"
Rain", with the former featuring three-part
harmonies arranged by Martin and mixed to have a fluttering echo sound.
Revolver was released in August to highly favourable critical reaction, particularly in the UK. Retrospective criticism has recognized it as being among the finest pop albums ever made, with numerous critics deeming it the very best.
Sgt. Pepper (1966–1967) By the time the Beatles resumed recording on 24 November 1966, they had decided to discontinue touring and focus their creative energies on the recording studio. Martin reflected, "the time had come for experiment. The Beatles knew it, and I knew it." Their late 1966 sessions stretched into April 1967, forming what became ''
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band''—a record continuing the Beatles' and Martin's imaginative use of the studio to create new sounds on record. He was involved as an arranger throughout the album, except for "
She's Leaving Home". For "
Within You Without You", Martin arranged a score that combined Indian and Western classical music. He used
vari-speed editing to alter the recording speed of several of the album's vocal tracks, including "
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". He and Geoff Emerick superimposed crowd noise sound effects onto the title track and
crossfaded the song into "
With a Little Help from My Friends", mimicking a live performance. Martin also played instruments on several songs, including the piano on "
Lovely Rita", the
harpsichord on "
Fixing a Hole", and numerous instruments on "
Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!": the
harmonium, organ, and perhaps the
glockenspiel. For the song's circus-themed instrumental breaks, he had engineers cut tapes of numerous carnival-instrument recordings into tape fragments, then reassemble them at random. Martin applied heavy
tape echo to Lennon's voice in "
A Day in the Life". Additionally, he worked with McCartney to implement the 24-bar orchestral climaxes in the middle and end of the song, produced by instructing a 45-piece orchestra to gradually play from their instruments' lowest note to their highest.
Sgt. Pepper cost
£25,000 to produce (), far more than any previous Beatles record. When the album was finally released in early June 1967, it received widespread acclaim from music critics, with a
Times critic deeming it "a decisive moment in the history of Western civilisation". The Beatles historian Jonathan Gould writes that it received "the most momentous public reception that had ever been given to a popular recording."
Sgt. Peppers accolades also raised Martin's public profile as a record producer, and contemporary musicians sought to copy its production methods. This augmented the producer's role in popular music. Thus, Lennon and McCartney complained that Martin had received too much attention for his part in ''Sgt Pepper's'', beginning a feeling of resentment by the band towards him. According to Emerick, with the album's recording sessions, McCartney emerged as the Beatles' de facto producer, as Martin was increasingly absent near the end of prolonged sessions. During the
Sgt. Pepper sessions, the Beatles worked on Lennon's "
Strawberry Fields Forever", which began as a simple arrangement of guitar, drums, and
Mellotron. They would remake the song in a new key and
tempo and with much added instrumentation. Lennon asked Martin to combine takes 7 and 26 of the song, even though they were recorded at different tempos and in different keys. Martin,
Ken Townsend, and Emerick accomplished Lennon's unusual request by carefully speeding up take 7 and slowing down take 26 so they were nearly equal in key and tempo. Martin mixed the track to include a
false ending. Soon after, the band began work on McCartney's "
Penny Lane", which featured a
piccolo trumpet solo that was requested by McCartney. McCartney hummed the melody that he wanted, and Martin notated it for the trumpeter
David Mason. Martin also orchestrated a larger brass and woodwind score with trumpets, piccolo, flutes, oboe, and
flugelhorn. In February, the group issued "Strawberry Fields Forever"/"Penny Lane" as a double
A-side. The single drew critical praise for its musical and recording inventiveness, but it proved the first British Beatles single in four years not to top the charts, instead reaching no. 2. Martin blamed himself for weakening the forthcoming album by caving in to external pressure for a standalone single and called it "the biggest mistake of my professional life".
Magical Mystery Tour, "All You Need Is Love", and Yellow Submarine (1967–1968) Before
Sgt Pepper was even released, the Beatles held several sessions from April to June 1967 to record additional songs for a yet-to-be-determined purpose: "
Magical Mystery Tour", and "
Baby, You're a Rich Man", among others. Martin later described many of these sessions as lacking the strong creative focus the band had displayed in recording
Sgt. Pepper. Showing less interest, he came uncharacteristically unprepared for the "Magical Mystery Tour" trumpet overdub session on 3 May, forcing the session musicians to improvise a score for themselves. On 27 August, the Beatles manager
Brian Epstein died of an accidental drug overdose, devastating the band and Martin. McCartney urged the group to focus on the
Magical Mystery Tour film project, and they resumed recording with Lennon's "
I Am the Walrus". For this song, which Martin initially disliked but grew to appreciate, he provided a quirky and original arrangement for brass, violins, cellos, and the
Mike Sammes Singers vocal ensemble singing nonsense phrases. Much of the fruit of these sessions went to
Magical Mystery Tour, released as an
EP in the UK in December 1967 and an LP in the US in late November; it reached no. 2 and no. 1 on those charts, respectively. In May 1967, Epstein agreed to have the group record a song live on the world's first live global television broadcast,
Our World. The band decided to record Lennon's "
All You Need Is Love" for the occasion. Martin believed it was too risky to record the entire track on the live broadcast, so he had the Beatles record a
backing track on 14 June at
Olympic Studios—with the unusual arrangement of Lennon on
harpsichord, McCartney on double bass, Harrison on violin, and Starr on drums, with
Eddie Kramer as audio engineer. The band also asked Martin to write an orchestral score, starting with the beginning of "
La Marseillaise" and ending with a fade-out with bits from
Johann Sebastian Bach's
Inventions and Sinfonias, "
Greensleeves", and "
In the Mood". Despite some technical glitches, the Beatles, the orchestra, and the assembled crowd of Beatles friends recorded what
Kenneth Womack deems a seamless live take of the song to an audience of hundreds of millions. "All You Need Is Love" was quickly released as a single, the first Beatles single on which Martin received a written credit as producer. In early 1967, Epstein and the media producer
Al Brodax signed a contract to have the Beatles provide four original songs to support an animated feature film,
Yellow Submarine. The Beatles were initially contemptuous of the project, planning to relegate only their weakest songs to
the soundtrack. Some, such as "
All Together Now", were recorded without Martin's involvement. However, he did compose the film's orchestral scores, which comprises the second half of the film's soundtrack album. He claimed to take inspiration for the score from
Maurice Ravel, "the musician I admire most". The
Yellow Submarine film debuted on 17 July 1968 and was favourably received by critics.
Conflict and final years (1968–1970) By the time of the
White Album sessions in mid-1968, Martin found himself in competition with
Apple Electronics's eccentric inventor,
Magic Alex, for the Beatles' interest in studio production. The Beatles grew increasingly hostile toward each other. Additionally, the Beatles began recording lengthy, repetitive rehearsal tracks in the studio. With all these disruptions to their studio dynamic, Martin consciously stayed in the background of many sessions, reading stacks of newspapers in the control booth until his guidance or assistance was sought. For instance, when he gave McCartney suggestions for his vocal part on "
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da", and McCartney chastised him, he shouted in reply: "Then bloody sing it again! I give up. I just don't know any better how to help you". Parts of the White Album sessions required Martin and his engineers to attend to simultaneous recordings in different studios, such as an occasion when Lennon was working on "
Revolution 9" in Studio Three, while McCartney recorded "
Blackbird" in Studio Two. Martin scored a
fiddle arrangement on Starr's first composition, "
Don't Pass Me By", as well as brass arrangements on "
Revolution 1", "
Honey Pie", "
Savoy Truffle", and "
Martha My Dear". He also played
celesta on "
Good Night" and
harmonium on "
Cry Baby Cry". Martin recommended the Beatles choose the best few tracks from the sessions and issue a standard LP, but they instead went with a
double album. The album was released in November to strong commercial and critical success, reaching no. 1 in the UK and US for eight and nine weeks, respectively. In early January 1969, the Beatles gathered at
Twickenham Film Studios to compose and record new material for a live album. The group sought a raw, unedited sound for the album, with Lennon telling Martin that he did not want any "production shit". The band's working relationships faltered during these sessions, with Harrison quitting the group for several days out of frustration. Martin chose not to attend many of these tense, aimless sessions, leaving balance engineer
Glyn Johns to act as de facto producer. In mid-January, the Beatles relocated their work to the basement studio of
Apple Records at 3
Savile Row, where their work ethic and mood improved. While these so-called
Get Back sessions were underway, they and the keyboardist
Billy Preston performed on the roof of Apple Records on 30 January 1969, which resulted in recordings of five new tracks. The next day, the band returned to the basement studio to record several more, including "
Let It Be" and "
The Long and Winding Road". , who altered the production of
Let It Be and is formally credited as the album's producer In March 1969, the Beatles rejected Glyn Johns' proposed mix for a
Get Back LP, scuttling hopes for a public release in the near term. In May, Martin and Johns worked together on another mix of
Get Back—which the Beatles also rejected. Martin began at this time to consider that the Beatles might be finished as a commercial act. The Beatles rejected yet another Johns mix of the album in January 1970. Martin supervised the final Beatles recording session (without Lennon) on 3 January 1970, when the group recorded "
I Me Mine". In March and April 1970,
Phil Spector remixed the album—now known as
Let It Be—and added orchestral and choral overdubs to several tracks. Martin, along with McCartney, was critical of these embellishments, calling them "so uncharacteristic of the clean sounds the Beatles had always used". The album was finally released in May 1970, after McCartney had publicly announced he was leaving the Beatles. When EMI informed Martin that he would not get a production credit because Spector produced the final version, Martin commented, "I produced the original, and what you should do is have a credit saying 'Produced by George Martin, over-produced by Phil Spector'." The first song for what became the
Abbey Road album was recorded in February 1969 without Martin. The band did not inform Martin they planned to record a new album until later in the spring when McCartney asked if he would produce it for them. "Only if you let me produce it the way we used to", he replied; McCartney agreed. In fact, the
Abbey Road sessions marked Martin's return to prominence in the studio. Martin's first session came on 5 May, when he supervised overdubs to Harrison's "
Something". He soon set to help the Beatles develop the second side of the album into a symphonic "
medley" of songs, akin to a
rock opera. Martin guided the band using his knowledge of classical music to conceive a fluid, cohesive series of songs with repeating themes and motifs. Along with an
electric harpsichord accompaniment to "
Because", Martin composed and orchestrated orchestral arrangements for four of the album's songs. In September 1969,
Abbey Road was released to great commercial success but mixed critical reception, partially owing to what was perceived as a synthetic sound. Martin took particular pride in the medley, later claiming, "There's far more of me on
Abbey Road than on any of their other albums". As notes the critic
Ian MacDonald, "After
Abbey Road, the group was effectively dead," and McCartney announced
the band's break-up a few months later.
Post-breakup Beatles work Beatle solo records Martin produced the first solo album by a member of the Beatles after John Lennon had privately announced he was leaving the group, Ringo Starr's March 1970
standards album,
Sentimental Journey. Throughout the next three decades, he collaborated with Paul McCartney extensively for the latter's studio albums and compositions. After scoring some orchestral arrangements for the 1971 album
Ram, Martin produced
Wings' "
Live and Let Die" theme song for the 1973 James Bond
film of the same name, They reunited in 1980 to record "
We All Stand Together", a song for a
Rupert Bear animated short film. He produced the critically and commercially acclaimed
Tug of War (1982), as well as
Pipes of Peace (1983). For the latter's lead single, "
Say Say Say", Martin scored a horn arrangement. He also produced the
soundtrack album to McCartney's 1984 film
Give My Regards to Broad Street. Though the film was poorly received, the soundtrack reached no. 1 in the UK. In the 1990s, he recorded orchestral overdubs for McCartney's singles "
Put It There" (1990), "
C'Mon People" (1993), and his album
Flaming Pie (1997). In 1998, at
Yoko Ono's request, Martin scored an orchestral arrangement to the 1980 Lennon demo of "
Grow Old with Me".
The Beatles Anthology Martin oversaw post-production on
The Beatles Anthology project in 1994 and 1995, working again with
Geoff Emerick. Martin decided to use an old 8-track analogue
mixing console to mix the songs for the project instead of a modern digital console. In his view, the old console created a distinct sound which a new one could not accurately reproduce. He said he found the project a strange experience, as they had to listen to themselves chatting in the studio, 25 to 30 years previously. However, he was not involved in producing the two new songs reuniting McCartney, Harrison, and Starr: the Lennon demos "
Free as a Bird" and "
Real Love". Though Martin's hearing loss was publicly cited as the rationale, he was not asked by the band members to produce the tracks;
Jeff Lynne performed these duties instead.
Cirque du Soleil and Love In 2006, Martin and his son,
Giles Martin, remixed 80 minutes of Beatles music for the Las Vegas stage performance
Love, a joint venture between
Cirque du Soleil and the Beatles'
Apple Corps Ltd. A
soundtrack album from the show was released that same year. As part of his contribution to the soundtrack album, Martin orchestrated a score for a demo version of "
While My Guitar Gently Weeps"; the orchestra session, recorded at
AIR Lyndhurst Hall, was his final orchestral production. Martin received the 2008
Grammy Awards for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album and Best Surround Sound Album.
Independent projects and work with other artists , where Martin's
AIR London studio was based|alt=Martin's AIR London studioMartin's early work under his new
Associated Independent Recording (AIR) banner included
Cilla Black's rendition of
Burt Bacharach's "
Alfie", which made no. 6 in the UK, and musical scores for
Lionel Bart's much-maligned
Twang!! theatrical production. He also reunited with other artists from his
Parlophone days, such as
Matt Monro and
Ron Goodwin, though these reunions often failed to produce the same success as earlier records had. Martin continued to produce novelty music acts, such as
The Master Singers and
the Scaffold. Other artists that Martin worked with include the singers
Celine Dion, and
Neil Sedaka, the guitarists
Jeff Beck, In 1997, Martin produced "
Candle in the Wind 1997",
Elton John's tribute single to
Diana, Princess of Wales, which became the
best-selling British single of all time. It was also Martin's final production of a single. In 1988, Martin produced an album version of the play
Under Milk Wood, with music by Martin,
Elton John, and
Mark Knopfler;
Anthony Hopkins played the part of "First Voice". In 1992, Martin worked with
Pete Townshend on the musical stage production of ''
The Who's Tommy. The play opened on Broadway in 1993, with the original cast album being released that summer. For this, Martin won the 1993 Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album. In 1998, Martin released an album of Beatles covers titled In My Life''. In October 1970, Martin and his AIR partners opened their
first company studio at the top of the
Peter Robinson building in
Oxford Circus, London. Nine years later, he opened another studio,
AIR Montserrat, on the Caribbean island of
Montserrat. This studio was destroyed by a hurricane ten years later. On 15 September 1997, Martin arranged a
benefit concert for the island of
Montserrat, which had been devastated by volcanic activity. The event,
Music for Montserrat, featured Paul McCartney, Elton John,
Sting,
Phil Collins,
Eric Clapton,
Jimmy Buffett, and
Carl Perkins. Martin served as a consultant to the June 2002
Party at the Palace at
Buckingham Palace Garden for the Queen's Golden Jubilee. In 2010, he was the executive producer of the hard rock debut of Arms of the Sun, a project featuring
Rex Brown,
King Diamond, Lance Harvill, and Ben Bunker. ==Other work==