From Virgin Megamagazine, an interesting article/interview:
http://www.virginmegamagazine.com/default.asp?aid=8BB
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George Martin (The Fifth Beatle) Speaks Out
Sir George Martin talks about his new classical collection and his years as one of the most important men in the music industry. His love for real music, the future of pop, and how he misses George Harrison.
Despite constantly telling himself "I really must retire," Sir George is still a very busy man. Fresh from overseeing, the musical arrangements for the Queen's Jubilee party, the "fifth Beatle" has already embarked on preparations for a charity benefit in the memory of legendary comic performer Spike Milligan for later in the year, and is just about to launch a new series of classical CDs here in the US called Sir George Martin Presents.
For the series, Martin cherry-picked a selection of works from the greatest classical composers, compiled the sleeve notes and oversaw the artwork, all of which carries a picture of this sprightly and relaxed looking musical elder statesman. Despite 50 years in the music business and losing his hearing, he's still passionately attached to all of its elements, not least the running of Air Studios in Belsize Park, a huge church in London converted by Martin especially for recording orchestras.
Why classical music?
George Martin: Classical music's always been my love although I'm one of those people who don't believe there's anything wrong with either rock 'n' roll or jazz or folk music or classical music, as long as it's good. I'm a self-taught musician and I was running a band when I was 15 or 16. I loved classical music although I'd never been taught, and started playing what I thought was classical music. I used to play it by ear and then, of course, when I learnt music properly and I was able to study it I realised they were interwoven. Certainly the music we make in these studios [Air Studios in London, England] is largely film music, and film music today is written for symphony orchestra, so it is classical music. It is popular classical music which uses traditional resources and that's something I've done too.
Why now?
George Martin: Well, because there are a lot of young people who have grown up under the influence of today's society which means very much a television society, and young people tend not to listen to music, they tend to see it. They listen with their eyes and with popular music, certainly, it has deteriorated somewhat because the vision is more important than the sound.
Would there be a point in time when you saw this trend actually starting?
George Martin: It definitely wasn't before the '60s because videos didn't exist then. As far as I can remember the video we did for "Strawberry Fields" or "Penny Lane" was probably the first video of all time in that it was designed specifically to promote a record. Things have moved on a long way since then
I suppose really it began in the '80s where the image became more important than the sound and you had very attractive young people gyrating impossibly to music and that was what started this off.
How can we address it?
George Martin: Well, this is a classical series and what I'm saying is we're looking to turn people on to classical music who haven't really listened to it before the kind of people who've been stuck with just the television unfortunately. There are an awful lot of people who do know a lot about classical music, and this series is not aimed at them at all. It's a taster. It's for people to say, Hey, wait a minute. That sounds very good. I've never heard that before. Presenting it in the way we have done with little anecdotes, was how the music affected me when I was young. We thought this was the most effective way of getting the music across. We're the product of our pasts and I've done so many different things. I've written music for 15 films and I've done lots of scoring for people. It's all part of the wonderful world of music. If I was allowed one special wish, if a fairy could come down and grant me a special wish, I would wish that pop music became more solid again, that people studied again the art of writing a good song, instead of just sitting over a computer and programming a drum track with clever noises.
Is there anyone currently working in music who you think is writing good songs?
George Martin: Well it's going out of fashion because the songwriters who wrote intelligent lyrics found that they weren't getting their wares across and so it has been a dying art. I do hear one or two people who want to have a bash. Noel Gallagher is very, very aware of the importance of a song, so all is not lost. There's a kind of conspiracy
(laughs), it's not deliberate! There's a kind of coalition of taste, which is partly the record business, partly the broadcasting business, partly the effect of young people being given what they want. It all seems to work out now that people are very unimaginative and they won't take risks, so they'll say if that record was a big hit, then this one sounds a bit like it so we'll do that. It happens in all the arts.
What is the difference between working in the music industry now and, say, 40 years ago?
George Martin: There's a lot of music which doesn't see the light of day and lots made without genuine instruments at all. Now I can handle a computer and I can handle ProTools and I can generate a track but that's nowhere near a musician. I think the fundamental thing of all music is that it must come from the heart. Computers don't have hearts. I once worked with a group and they had a drummer who was absolutely on computers and drum machines. Before we did a track he would program his drum machine to work out exactly what he was going to do he was very clever and that was fine. Except when we came to record the track he'd put on his headphones and plug in his drum machine and he'd reproduce every sound as it happened. A snare sound was the same snare, a kick was the same kick, symbols and so on
It was a very efficient approach but it didn't have any heart. I said to him one day, 'I'd like to try you without this,' and he said, 'Oh, I can't. It's the way I work.' I replied, 'It doesn't flow, it doesn't ebb and flow and the rhythm is so force-controlled that to me it's sterile.' In the end I insisted and took the machine away and he couldn't play! He really couldn't play without it. He was completely driven by a robot.
Who would you say was your favourite classical composer?
George Martin: If I had to take just one
in fact, what you see in this series are some of my favorites, but if I had to choose just one, it would be the old daddy of them all, Bach. Without him we wouldn't have anything like what we have now. But I also love the Impressionists, like Debussy, Ravel, Faure
even Satie. I'm a sucker for the Romantics, like Mahler, Tchaikovsky. I think Tchaikovsky in particular was a very good musician who is much derided because he's so popular and it's actually a sin to be popular in classical music! But I will always say that there's nothing wrong with popular music borrowing from classical for inspiration
musicians have been doing it for centuries. It just seems that these days, people have lost that drive to experiment. In the '60s we were lucky. Very, very, lucky. We were lucky to be thrown together and lucky to be able to work together and to be able to take risks. When I worked at EMI in the '60s, my pay was disgusting but I did it for the love of things. I just loved being in the business and although I didn't get paid much, I did get freedom because I was running a label and the success of the label was very much up to me. So as long as I made it a success, I was left alone, rather like the editor running a small newspaper. I could be as outrageous as I liked which is why initially I went into comedy. We were outrageous with some of the things we were doing with The Beatles. Some of them didn't come off but a lot did, and we took risks which people seemed to like. At the time I did worry that I was pushing our frontiers out too fast.
You've worked with so many people, is there anyone alive or dead you wished you could have collaborated with?
George Martin: I've been very, very lucky to work with the best and that rubs off on you. I don't think there's anyone I'd like to make a record with now, partly because my hearing is going in my old age and you can't make very good records if you're going deaf, but I still have lots of friends in the business. I was over watching Paul (McCartney) in Dallas recently and it was inspiring to see him in front of an audience.
Finally, what's your fondest memory of George Harrison?
George Martin: George was such a good man in all senses. He was a generous person and if you were his friend, he would be so incredibly loyal, very quiet, and he had his own fixed beliefs on life generally. He was a fine musician. He didn't deserve what he got. There were many things that contributed at the end. After The Beatles he helped some friends in the film business, his Python friends, and it was very successful for a while. Eventually though it lost money, although it didn't deserve to. George eventually found himself with a bill for 25 million pounds [$40 million] and it all started with helping people. That was such a great strain. Then of course that awful attack in his house which was just so incredibly traumatic and he found himself fighting for his life. Without dear Olivia who had great courage and eventually laid the guy out, he could have died then. All these things told on his health. He was a great family man. In a way I miss him more than John, though I miss John greatly as well.
- Mark Wood
July 26, 2002
George Martin Speaks Out
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