Sunday 3 January 2010

3 January 1926

George Martin, the famous British composer, conductor, musician and of course Beatles procucer was born in Holloway, London on January 3rd 1926. He went to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and began working for EMI in 1950. At that time he worked with comedy artists like Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan, recording novelty records.

On 13 February 1962 George Martin met up with Brian Epstein for the first time to listen to the Decca audition tapes. Martin was not impressed by the recording, but thought John and Paul had promising vocals. On 9 May 1962 George Martin agreed to a recording contract and audition, to take place later on 6 June 1962.

It is often said that George Martin brought the best out of the Beatles (musically) and he arranged and even composed many of their orchestrated songs. Best examples are Yesterday (it was G.M's idea to add the strings), Strawberry Fields and Eleanor Rigby (for which he composed a string arrangement based on Bernard Herrmann's score for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.