Beatles without George Martin

This thread wouldn't exist if George Martin hadn't been involved with The Beatles because no one would still be talking about them.

 

It's true that we wouldn't be debating about George Martin if it were not for George Martin.

 

Let’s not forget the other bands and singers that crossed his path Billy J- Cilla The Pacemakers

 

The Beatles had already been on a record before Brian met them, already in demand in both Liverpool and Hamburg. Brian discovered them because there were teenagers asking about them in his record shops.

Brian was not their first manager and had he not taken them on some other person would have. The opportunity to make money from them was growing increasingly obvious.

And its not like it was Brian who secured them a record contract, that was Ardmore and Beechwood. Brian struck out at every label till they got involved.

The Beatles made Martin and Epstein. That is not to say they were not at good at their job, but there is more chance we'd be talking about the Beatles had they had another manager and signed to Decca or another label than we would be talking about Brian, Martin and Gerry and the Pacemakers right now.

I do like the contrast in the Beatles and Beach Boy fandoms though. With the Beach Boys everyone else's contributions get downplayed in favour of Brian, while for John & Paul it is hammered home how much they needed George, Ringo, Martin, Brian, Emerick, Smith, Ed Sullivan....

 

Exactly what I was thinking thanks for the verification

 

The pre-Epstein Beatles (with the look the Ramones later adopted) would not have made it on Sullivan. Would they have "smartened" up without Brian? Not known.

Also, without Brian getting them the Decca audition, they would not be known to Ardmore and Beechwood, correct?

 

But ... he did

 

It's an interesting comparison.
The Beatles were more of a democracy by design than the Beach Boys---Get Back doc really underscores it. I don't think it's a matter of downplaying anything. Brian could make a track from the ground up---he filled the role that Martin did for the Beatles.

 

I think everyone in the Beatles' sphere got "lucky", including the Beatles, themselves but without Martin, certainly no "white coat guy", it would have been a very different story - or perhaps, no story at all.

 

Martin made The Beatles

 

That's because there wasn't any fart noises on it....

 

If you listen to The Shadows' Apache, recorded at Abbey Road, it's a lot clearer and there's much more separation compared to Martin's production of The Beatles. McCartney had to bring a Motown single (pressed by EMI) into Abbey Road to show Martin how he wanted the bass to sound because the white coat boffins said a bass sound like that would make the record jump.

The best production of The Beatles was

1. Bert Kaempfert
2. Phil Spector
3. Jack Good
4. Chris Thomas
5. George Martin

 

Get Back was being made at the same time as Sunflower, a far more democratic album than Let It Be was, with the Beach Boys producing and every member contributing songs.But I get your point.

Brian rarely could make a track from the ground up. You are buying into Derek Taylor's mid 60's media campaign, that in my opinion, helped destroy Brian's mental.

Brian was the primary writer and after the first couple of albums sacked his father and moved on Nick Venet to take on the role as producer (till Smiley Smile, then it seems to have been shared amongst the band). But he still needed others to help him write the songs, not just Mike Love and (occasionally) other members of the band, but the likes of Gary Usher, Roger Christian, Tony Asher and Van Dyke Parks. As well as having the Wrecking Crew on call. And like the Beatles and Martin, he has some pretty talented engineers helping him out.

And then there is Murry. Awful, awful father that he was, he was a more competent manager than Brian. Able to get them signed up shortly after they formed as a band, their debut single two years before the Beatles despite all the Wilson brothers being younger than John and Paul. Able to set them up their own publishing company. And had a greater hand in their music than Brian or any of the Beatle parents would have.

The Beach Boys and Beatles are very different bands and have different set-ups. But it was not Brian vs the Beatles, Brian had a huge amount of support from his bandmates and label, who gave into most of his whims until they had to step in as Smile was destroying his mental health.

Give John or Paul the same resources that Brian was given and I daresay they'd have produced something special in the 60's as well. And the same is likely true of Brian. If he was told that he could not be the producer and could not have the Wrecking Crew perhaps his lyricism and musicianship would have reached John & Paul's level .

 

Martin was not a white coat guy until the Beatles conquered the world with their songwriting, singing and charisma. Then they were given all the time in the studio they wanted, which is excellent for the Producer and the engineers. They are not having to second guess the choices of the talent with the expectations of the label because the Beatles music never stopped peaking.

It is like managing a top sports team. Easier to take risks when you have the best players in the world on the pitch.

Martin produced a lot of non Beatle's music in the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's, yet it's only really the production of the Beatles he's known for. John, Paul and George at least have music outside of Martin's production that they are known for.

 

I do think the quality of the recordings plays a big part in why they hold up so well.

 

As I’ve said in the past, I have this belief that Martin didn’t put the same level of thought and effort in these other Epstein acts. He put as much effort as needed to for immediate success but not significantly long lasting. This shows in the sounds of the respective records compared to that of, say, With The Beatles or any if the Beatles 45’s which themselves had a progression in sound, one to the next.

 

Not Derek Taylor....but footage plus session tapes for Pet Sounds and Smile. The band comes back from touring to have tracks ready to go, produced by Brian---he was getting sole producer credits prior to Derek Taylor's involvement---it's a stretch to attribute Derek's marketing to Brian's breakdown given all the other known factors. This is the period I'm referring to where Brian served as Martin, pre-break down when other members were forced to step in.

 

Oh boy… I really gotta hold back here. If this is what you’re hearing, then respectfully so be it.

 

It was a mutual “making”. A great producer needs the raw product to start with.

 

Without George Martin, the Beatles would be a band that took time off from their day jobs to play pubs around Liverpool every August starting in the '90s, during Gerry & The Pacemakers Week.

 

Thank you. You are being generous and kind, as we should be on a public forum, but I too was a little surprised by Mylene's post. I do not have the technical expertise to argue about the relative strengths of the different producers, but history (and my intuition) strongly suggest that the Beatles were fortunate when EMI assigned George Martin to work with them. And vice versa.

 

Liking one producer over another is fine; we all hear things our own way. But in this case, I think Martin’s crucial importance in “the story” speaks for itself many times over. It’s not even a matter of him being a better or lesser producer than the others; the key point is that he was perfection for The Beatles same as they were perfect for one another.

 

They would have become a jazz cover band instead of a blues cover band ...

 

i have the emi recordings for billy j and the pacemakers and the production sounds pretty good to me

 

It's clean and sharp sounding but it doesn't go anywhere to progress the sound of those early sixties recordings. Once again, I cite With The Beatles; the production, in terms of texture and tone, put The Beatles in a whole other studio-stratosphere from the others under Martin's wing. The sound of their singles is an even better example; record by record there was something new, aurally, in the sound of Beatle recordings while the others remained "happily nice" but, stagnant. By I Want To Hold Your Hand, they were miles and miles ahead of the sound on Gerry's or Billy's records; not even a remote comparison. With them, Martin produced good sounding records for the moment. With The Beatles, each record, progressive as it was, continually looked beyond the moment.