George Martin

George Martin0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

George Martin0:05

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1982, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:31

Our castaway this week is a record producer, and he's a very well known one. It's George Martin.

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George, you have eight records.

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You must have heard quite a few records in your time. Yes, probably too many, I think, Roy. I've certainly made a great many. I I can't remember how many. What's the first record you've chosen? Good Morning by Micky Rooney and Judy Garland. Oh, yes. In my youth I used to run a dance band, when I was still at school, in fact.

Presenter0:59

And it went by the awful name of The Four Tune Tellers. And my sister, who has always been very close to me, was a vocalist with this band and it became a party piece for us to do this particular song. And I often think back to those days when we had great fun, my sister and I, performing in this rather corny little band. And this was one of the numbers we used to play.

Speaker 31:23

When the band began to play, The stars were shining bright. Now the milkman's on his way. It's too late to say good night. Good morning. Good morning.

Speaker 31:36

Sunbeam will see

Speaker 31:43

Tell it more, tell it good morning money

Presenter1:53

Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney in Good Morning from Babes in Arms, about 1939-1940, I think. Yes. Was Judy Garland or Mickey Rooney one of the artists that you recorded, one of the many? Not Mickey Rooney, although I did write some music for a film that he appeared in. But Judy Garland I did record in the latter end of her life, I suppose about two or three years before she died. And she wasn't in great shape, but still had the tremendous magic. Of course she was much the same age as I was, and I was always amazed when I saw her in The Wizard of Oz. I was about 15 too. And she was a kind of idol for me in those days. And it was a great experience working with her.

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Are you a Londoner? I was born in London, yes, but I live in the country now.

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Well, there was obviously a music in the family, with you and your sister working in the dance band. Were you set to music? Did you study music? I wasn't taught music to begin with, but we did have a piano in the house. My uncle used to work in a piano company, and I think my father got the piano in that way. I can never remember not being able to play the piano, because as a child I used to just play with it and make sounds out of it, and I was composing by the time I was about five or six. And by the time I got to the age of about fourteen or fifteen, I decided I'd better try and learn music properly. So I was running the dance band by this time, and with the money I earned, I was able to pay for a few piano lessons. I started doing Beethoven and Chopin and that kind of thing.

George Martin3:16

And

Presenter3:22

But I didn't study music properly until after the war. You hadn't envisaged music as a profession.

Presenter3:28

Well, no. My father had always said it's a terribly unreliable profession, which of course it is. He'd had memories of being unemployed in in the thirties, and he always wanted me to have a safe job in the civil service or something like that. What did you want to be?

George Martin3:28

No.

Presenter3:41

I wanted to be an aircraft designer.

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When I left school, there wasn't much scope for would-be aircraft designers. They just wanted to make airplanes during the war rather than design them. And I found it very difficult to get into that particular anyway. I was going to be called up, so I joined the Fleeter Arm when I was 17. And any idea of forming a designing career went out the window. Well, nevertheless, you were flying. Where did you train?

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To begin with we trained in England, but then we went out to Trinidad and uh spent about or a year or more out there, eighteen months out there.

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Which was great, of course. What were you a pilot? No, I was an observer. Yeah. And, um.

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We did most of our navigational training out in the Caribbean.

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which also gave me a a love for that part of the world. Uh I've been back to it many times since.

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Now you were commissioned, you were an observer. At one time, I believe you took part in that celebrated B B C wartime programme, Navy Mixture. Yes, indeed. Well, you see, I used to do a bit of entertaining on the piano while I was in the Navy, and somebody had heard of me and asked me if I would do a broadcast.

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And when I came back to England I went to Greenwich and got my commission and so on. And it was during that time that um I appeared on Navy Mixture, and at the same time I remember Petty Officer Jack Watson, who was on the show, and Lieutenant John Pertwee.

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And uh th I think the Department of Naval Entertainment was run by Commander Anthony Kimmins. Yes, the playwright. And they asked me if I would join an amenity ship and and form an entertainment unit um for the navy.

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But I didn't like the idea of leaving my pals. I'd formed up into a squadron already, and I didn't like the idea of leaving flying, so I I said no.

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I often wonder, if I had done that, whether my career would have been any different. I wonder.

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Oh, your second record. What's that to be? De Busti's L'Aprimi des D'Enfone. My reason for choosing this is that it was the first time as a child that I really got turned on to classical music, orchestral classical music. I heard a concert in my school, in fact, which the BBC Symphony Orchestra gave under Adrian Bolt.

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And this was one of the pieces they played.

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And I couldn't believe that this magical sound was made by human beings. I thought it was the most wonderful, wonderful sound I'd ever heard in my life.

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An extract from Debussy's Prelude à la Prémidie d'Enfon, played by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andre Preven.

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So the war was over. What happened next? Well, I came out of the Vitair Arm without anything to do. I I had no career to follow.

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And during the time I'd been in the in the services I'd met up with the guy I call my fairy godfather, a chap the name of Sidney Harrison. Oh, the pianist. That's right. And in fact he used to give television shows on learning the piano and so on. And he had been terribly kind to me. He'd corresponded with me during the time I was in the theater arm and patiently went through all the compositions that I would send him and giving great criticism and encouragement to. And when I left the services he asked me to see him and said you really must take up music as a career because you are gifted and you should do something about it.

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and he arranged for me to have an audition with the principal of the Guildhall School of Music, which was Edric Kundal. Mhm. And as a result of that audition I was enrolled for three years to study composition and conducting and I took up the oboe.

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I got a government grant to be able to live during this time. Could I have been at the next serviceman?

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And that plunged me into a musical career. How long were you at the Guildhall? The full course? What? Three years? Yes, three years. And when you came out of it?

George Martin8:16

Three years ago.

Presenter8:20

Well, when I came out of it, I could play the oboe tolerably well, enough to earn a bit of a living. But I was never going to be a brilliant performer. I think I was a bit too nervous then. Where were you playing? I did sort of odd jobs. I played with the Saddlers Wells for a bit and concerts in parks and all sorts of things. And I even formed a a small woodwind quartet and took them round schools demonstrating woodwind instruments. For a time you worked at the BBC? Yes, I did. I worked in the music department in Yording House. Not for very long there. What were you doing? Mainly filing music by other people. It was a rather boring job, but it was a job in music, and it enabled me to play in the evenings as well, you see. Of course. But it only lasted a few months because I had a a job which offered me another pound a week from another company, which was EMI. EMI, the recording outfit. So that got you into recording. First of all, as what? Well, I didn't know what EMI stood for. I didn't even know how records are made. But I cycled along to see this chap who was head of Parliament Records and he asked me if I wanted to be his assistant.

Presenter9:21

Well, it was another way of keeping the wolf from the door during the day while I still played Diobo at night and still had dreams of being like Maniloff the Third and writing music. This would have been just at about the time of the changeover to microgroove and long playing records, would it?

George Martin9:30

That sort of

Presenter9:36

Rather before then, in fact, it was November nineteen fifty, I I first joined EMI.

Presenter9:42

Of course, he and I were rather late in the LP field. They came into it rather later than the others. What sort of disk were Polyphon putting out? A general catalogue of classical and dance music and everything. Being a small company, the guy in charge of it, Oscar Preus, had to do everything himself. And as an assistant, I took over quite a lot of stuff from him. Being.

George Martin9:54

Yeah.

George Martin9:59

Yeah.

Presenter10:06

on the twelve inch end of it, as they said in those days. I did all the classical work, so I recorded the London Baroque Ensemble and and people like that and uh

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I used to gradually get into the other stuff. Light music with Sydney Torch and the Queen's Hall Light Orchestra and jazz with Humphrey Littleton and Johnny Dankworth in the early days. You began to specialise in comedy discs, didn't you? When Oscar retired in 1955, I was given his job and I was made head of part of M Record. And it was then my responsibility to make everything on that label. All the Scottish country dance music with Jimmy Shand and so on.

George Martin10:34

Yeah.

Presenter10:41

And because we had no American imports, I had to find my own way of making hits. And my way of getting in between the cracks was to make comedy records. Yes. I started off with a Peter Yusnov record, actually. Which one was that? That was Phoney Folklore.

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But Peter Yusnov was much too ephemeral to pin down. You know, he was always off in some play or film or something, and Peter Sellers was waiting in the wings.

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I see you've chosen a Flanders and Swann number. That would seem to fit into that period pretty well, wouldn't it? Well, yes, I met Flanders and Swann when they appeared in in this little review in Nottinghill Gate, which later came to London.

Presenter11:18

And their form of humour was so charming, it was like the last of the dinosaurs in a way, because humour since then has become much more vitriolic and harsh. And their show was wonderful, I thought. They were such charming people. Donald, of course, is still flourishing, but alas Michael is no longer with us. At the drop of a hat, that was what it was called, wasn't it? It was. That was the first show. And then they did at the drop of another hat, and so on. We made quite a few records together. Which one are you going to play as? Well, um I'm choosing a very chauvinistic song, which they did. The chorus goes, The English, the English, the English are best. And it's called A Song of Patriotic Prejudice.

Speaker 211:59

The song starts with, I think, very typical English understatement. The English, the English, the English are best. I wouldn't give talents for all of the rest.

Speaker 212:12

The rottenest spits of these irons of ours We've left in the hands of three unfriendly powers Examine the Irishman, Welshman or Scot, You'll find he's a stinker as likely as not Okay, why we are nip professor

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Flounders and Swan, a song of patriotic prejudice.

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Peter Sellers, now did you actually devise and produce Songs for Swinging Sellers? Oh yes, yes indeed. That was the second album we made, because the very first album I made with Peter

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was done much to the scepticism of my superiors in my record company. And they thought so little of it that they insisted it was only a ten inch record, and that was called the best of sellers. I was rather elegant with my titles in those days. And in fact it did prove to be that. It was uh quite a big seller. And uh you did some Bernard Crippins discs too that were very successful. Oh yes, Bernard the Super, um Hole in the Ground and Right Said Fred and things like that. And I made quite a few comedy records, Charlie Drake and uh

Presenter13:15

Rolf Harris and so on. What about pop? Were you competing in that field? Yes, but pop in those days was very limited. There was no rock and roll to speak of in this country. I suppose Tommy Steele was the beginning of it, if you call call it that. There's a story that you turned down, Tommy Steele. That is true, I'm afraid. Yes, I went along to see him with Noel Whitcomb of the Daily Mirror in the Two Eyes Coffee Bar, and I

George Martin13:28

As a

George Martin13:31

True.

Presenter13:39

saw this brash young fellow with a mop of of fair hair,

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and he certainly was very energetic, and he seemed to sing fairly well, except that I couldn't hear him too greatly, because he was accompanied by a very loud skiffle group called the Vipers.

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So I have signed the Viper Schiffle Group to my company and ignored Tommy Steele, which was probably the worst thing I've ever done in my life.

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Now, what's your next choice for the desert island? My next choice is a piece of music by Cimmarosa, an Italian composer, and it's an oboe concerto. I've chosen this because it was one of the few concertos I could play fairly well. There were much more difficult ones which I couldn't. And again, it's nostalgic for me because it reminds me very much of my early days, and in particular some very great friends I had that I went to live with in Winoosh, who encouraged me enormously in my music, Joan and Graham. And hearing this music brings back those days very vividly to me.

Presenter15:31

The opening of the Concerto for Oboe and the Strings by Chimarosa, played by Heinz Holliger with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. Do you still keep up your oboe, George? Do you still keep? No, I'm afraid not. I don't even possess an instrument now. I guess that I would realize fairly early on that I wasn't going to be a performer.

George Martin15:42

So now I'm afraid.

George Martin15:44

Oh damn.

Presenter15:49

and in fact I sold it to buy a house.

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Sounds rather a good oboe. Now, as head of Parlophone Records, you had all the managers and promoters in to see you. One day I know there was a character from Liverpool who came in who had got some demo discs which he'd been hawking all round London, and his name was Brian Epstein. Will you take it from there? This was in 1962.

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And Brian was introduced to me by a music publisher friend of ours.

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and he played me some lacquer discs of this group that he had that he called the Beatles, which I thought was a very unlikely name for anything worth while.

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And it wasn't very good. I mean, the the songs weren't uh very original. They were one or two songs like Your Feet's Too Big, a Fat Swallow, and that kind of thing.

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And the performances weren't very good either.

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But there was something there that I thought uh was worth investigating, and in any case I was looking for something different from the run of the mill comedy stuff that I'd been doing. I envied Norrie Parrimore with Cliff Richard, who was a great success at this time. So I suggested to Brian that he brought the boys down from Liverpool and I would have a look at them, and I would take them into the studio and see how they behave.

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So I took them into EMI, Abbey Road studios, and spent an afternoon with them.

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And I thought they were great. I didn't at that time think they could write great music, but their personalities and their sound and their style and their humour

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I thought was marvellous. So I signed them to a contract. What did you give them first of all, just one single to do? No, I uh the contract was very stringent for them.

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We were contracted to only do two singles a year, four titles in fact. But um of course we did many more than that. How much was a contract like that worth? I mean what sort of royalty would they get? Oh terribly low. They shared an old penny between the four of them and Brian Epstein. A fifth of an old penny each, absolutely, which wasn't very much, was it? Did you go up to Liverpool to see them in action? Oh yes, I saw them at the cabin.

George Martin17:42

Now this

George Martin17:44

Yeah.

Presenter17:50

That was quite an experience, too, because it was a pretty awful place really, but tremendous atmosphere.

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It was the beginning of something which, of course, changed my life completely. Yes, of course. And you gave them a lot of guidance, and the result was.

George Martin17:59

Yeah.

Presenter18:03

Beetlemania

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Did did you tour around with them occasionally? Oh, yes. Once we'd broken the the dam, so to speak, and they went to America, I I went on several of their tours with them to see how they were getting on.

Presenter18:16

And saw something of their impact over there, which I don't think English people have ever really realised. It must have been a bit frightening. Absolutely amazing. The first visit to New York, I do remember, no matter where you turned your radio dial, whatever station you listened to, at any time of the day, you would hear a Beatle record. It was complete saturation. And men would be walking down Fifth Avenue wearing Beetle wigs on their heads, and the crowds outside the Plaza Hotel were so large that the Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue were blocked, let alone Central Park. It was just madness. I suppose nobody has ever computed how many Beatles discs were sold. Well, some people have, but it's run into many, many millions. I bet, EMI were delighted. I hope your bonus was a big one.

Presenter19:03

You're touching a sore point there. I don't want to revive old wounds, but um no, I'm afraid that they didn't change their attitude, and I decided actually I was thinking of leaving Emi before the Beatles came along.

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But um when I stuck to my salary of three thousand pounds a year, in spite of all the work I did, I decided that was the time to leave and set up my own independent company. And the Beatles were with you, of course.

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Well, that wasn't part of the deal. In fact, I didn't even tell them of my problems. I just said I was leaving. If they wanted me to still go on recording them, I would be grateful. On the other hand, if they wanted somebody else, that would be all right by me too. And fortunately, they decided to keep the old boy.

George Martin19:30

Yeah.

Presenter19:43

Record number five. Well, now I'd like to play one of Paul's earlier songs.

Presenter19:49

It's one of my favourite songs. Uh it's a softy. I'm a softy anyway, and I love Paul's ballads, and this one is Here, There and Everywhere.

Speaker 319:58

Lead a better life

Speaker 320:01

I need my love to be here

Speaker 320:10

Making each day of the year

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Changing my life with a wave of her love

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Nobody can.

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I that the song

Presenter20:28

Paul McCartney, here, there, and everywhere. And of course you're still recording Paul McCartney, aren't you? Well, yes, we began um working together again after about eight years, and we produced Tug of War, which came out earlier this year.

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And in fact we've got a sequel to that which will be coming out in October.

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So you started your own company and you were recording the Beatles. Who else had you got? Oh, well, you see, when I finished recording the Beatles, when they sort of went their separate ways, I realized that I wanted not to be devoted to any one group for ever again. I I I found a new freedom.

Presenter21:04

So I thought, well, how much nicer it would be just to take on individual jobs. So if I wanted to do a recording with one particular artist for one album, I wouldn't be committed to doing another one unless we really hit it off. And that made life very pleasant. I had a series of sort of affairs, if you like, with different people, like Jeff Beck. I made one album with him. That worked out well, so I made another one. I heard a group called America who were very big in the States, and I did one album with them, which I didn't think was going to be at all successful because it was much too enjoyable. I really had a great time making it. That's a cynical remark. But in fact, we made seven albums. We got on so well together, and they were all pretty big hits, all gold records.

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It's much nicer having that kind of um fleeting relationship.

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Of course the dissolution of the Beatles was a great shame. I suppose it was inevitable.

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Well, I d you see, I didn't see it like everybody else does. People talked about the break up of the Beatles. I think it's remarkable that they lasted so long together. You know, they were together in each other's pockets as prisoners virtually for eight years, and then didn't lead individual lives. They just wanted to lead their own normal lives with wives and families. And they eventually were able to do that. And I think it was quite right they should do it.

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Record number six.

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Well, I'd like to go back now to Peter Sellers. I mentioned him earlier on.

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And one of the very first records I made with Peter before we started making albums was an an old song which was a favourite of my father's, and it was first made famous by the great musical star Harry Champion. And I remember as a child going to

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I think it was Collins' Music Hall and seeing Harry Champion on the stage singing this song, and I revived it again with Peter for his fer one of his first records, and had great fun making that, as I did all his records.

Presenter22:58

Any old iron and a solo from mister Fred Spoons.

Speaker 223:05

Go on, let me hear that EPNS straight.

Speaker 223:12

Cool temperament limit!

Speaker 223:14

Oh, any old iron, any old iron, any any any old iron? You look neat, talk about street, yim bomb beal on your feet. You look nice, dressy nice, Father Joe Green tie on. I wouldn't give you something for your own old iron, old iron.

Presenter23:32

Peter Sellers. A recording is very different, of course, to what it used to be, and it's all happened very fast. There's no warm wax anymore, is there? No, alas, no. It is amazing how things have changed. In 1950, when I started in the record business, records were made by a bloke spinning a turntable, which was driven by a falling weight from the ceiling, which is unbelievable, really. There were no electric motors steady enough in those days. And the recording artist had to start on a red light and had to finish in a particular time. There was no tape. There was tape, but it was considered rather unreliable. And sometimes when recording, one would use two mics or three mics, or even for a particularly elaborate special recording, four mics. Now, the output from each microphone was controlled by a knob called a potentiometer, and there were several knobs. I've been in your London studios, not very far from here, one of the most modern in the world. And there's a great big bank of several thousand knobs. How many? Have you any idea? Oh, well, there must be about a thousand, I would think. About a thousand. What are they all for? Well, they do actually do a job.

George Martin24:38

Um

Presenter24:42

But it it does look frightfully complicated, I must admit. But everything is much more computerized and automatic to day, and it gives the artist a recording facility of, I guess, delaying his decisions. He can add things and subtract them, and mix them, and cook them.

Presenter25:01

And well, you know, cook in musical terms. He can change things and come up with something that that is completely different by the time he's uh finished.

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Sometimes it's uh a good thing, sometimes it's not. And you've also diversified into recording films? Yes, we uh record the music, the pictures. Most of the film writing that I've done I've recorded in my own studio.

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Now you have a branch studio, as it were, on a small island in the Caribbean.

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Now, what's the idea of that? Uh who's going three thousand miles to make a record? A lot of people do, you know.

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In fact, we have probably the best artists in the world going out there, because it is a fantastically good studio, and of course it's in a very comfortable environment. What's the name of the island? Montserrat. It's a British colony. And the reason I I chose that particular place was that um it was quite near America so it only takes four hours to get there from New York and I record a lot of American people anyway and my idea was to record them on our soil rather than theirs. So it's marvellous. I mean you can have a break from the studio and go straight in the sea. Absolutely. We have a fifty foot pool outside the control room so for people who aren't working particularly hard they can go and dive in when they want to.

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How different from the home life of the B B C Let's have record number seven.

Presenter26:15

Yes. Well, record number seven is my choice of John Lennon.

Presenter26:20

And this is one of the earlier songs also in my life, in which the lyrics are particularly poignant. It reminds me very much of the early times when John and his wife went on holiday with Judy, my wife, and myself, and we used to sit in the evenings and talk about life and the friendships that he valued so much.

Speaker 326:40

Oh, I know I'll never lose affection.

Speaker 326:45

But people and things that went before I know I'll often stop and think about them.

George Martin26:50

No I

Speaker 326:54

My lies, I love you more.

Presenter27:07

John Lennon in My Life

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Now, George, you spend a lot of time on a small tropical island.

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Have you picked up enough skills to be able to live on a smaller island alone? Well, it would be a very daunting prospect. Actually, Montserrat is not a desert island.

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But it is a tropical island.

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I think so. I think I'm pretty handy. One of the curses of my life is that I've been fairly versatile. I haven't been particularly brilliant at any one thing, but fairly averagely good at a lot of things. You would be averagely good at putting up some kind of shelter. I think so. My father was a carpenter, and I learnt a lot from him. I like making things anyway. Oh, that's a great help. The only problem is I wouldn't have any tools, would I? No, you wouldn't. You have to make your own. Oh, well, that would be difficult, but I'd try. Would you try to escape? What about small craft?

Presenter27:55

I love sailing, but of course one wouldn't have a boat, so I'd have to try and make one. I don't think I would venture into the ocean unless I knew that there was land within reasonable distance, but I'd certainly have a go. I'd certainly build a boat for fishing around the shore. I think you're going to enjoy this. I'm rather looking forward to it.

Presenter28:12

And we've got your last record. Well, I don't think any sort of desert island collection will be complete without Mr. Bach, the greatest designer of music there's ever been.

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There's so much to choose from his music, but I think one of my favourite pieces is the Saint Matthew Passion.

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And this is music in a grand scale, with a fantastic sense of architecture.

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The opening of Bach's Saint Matthew Passion, conducted by Herbert von Carrier.

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If you could take only one disc of the H you played us, which would it be?

Presenter29:43

It would have to be that one. I think if I'm going to be stuck on a desert island for the rest of my life, I think I've got to have something that um I could live with forever, and that certainly would be Bach.

Presenter29:53

And you're allowed to take one luxury, any one object, to look at, to touch, but n nothing of any practical use.

Presenter30:00

Oh dear. Hmm. I mean I would like that set of tools we talked about, but still look.

George Martin30:05

Yeah.

Presenter30:07

I don't think I want all the sort of luxuries of um good living, like wines and things, because they'd soon go off. But could I have a a musical instrument? Of course. I'd like a clavichord, I think, because a piano would be rather difficult to look after, and a clavichord I could tune myself.

Presenter30:25

And so I think that's what I have. Right, and we'll give you a cover to keep the sand out.

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and one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare which are already on the island.

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I think I'd like a reference book, which of course would be a bit useful, but it would be fascinating reading too. I'd like to be able to read about hydrodynamics, aerodynamics. I'd like to have a book on shipbuilding, and maybe aircraft construction as well. Yes. I might even try and build myself a glider, or possibly a a boat. Well, good luck.

Presenter30:56

And thank you, George Martin, for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you, Roy.

Presenter31:02

Goodbye, everyone.

George Martin31:11

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.