RIP Sir George Martin (1926-2016)
This 1979 autobiography was written by GEORGE MARTIN with Jeremy Hornsby. It’s the tale of Martin’s life, growing up in post-WWI England, joining the Royal Navy, attending music school (to learn piano and oboe), going to work for the BBC and then EMI, a British company that had a number of record labels, including Columbia and Parlophone. Martin worked his way up at the latter label and eventually started producing records, including comedy records by The Goons (featuring Peter Sellers). In 1962 he stuck his neck out to check out Liverpool’s finest, finally signed them to the label, and you know the rest.
All You Need Is Ears is interesting for the stories in it, though they’re not told with the most exciting of prose. Still, I enjoyed hearing the anecdotes from Martin’s own mouth. At this point in my life I’ve read more books on The Beatles than probably everything else in the world combined, so Martin’s own opinions about some of the happenings are appreciated. Granted, though, that at the time he wrote this all four Beatles were still alive so there was likely a good helping of diplomacy added to the narration. Either way, if you can find this book online or in your local library it’s a good, quick read.
We will probably never know a phenomenon like The Beatles again, and we wouldn’t have gotten the chance to in the first place if it wasn’t for a small number of people like George Martin who had the ears to hear it.
3/5 (St. Martin’s Press, USA, 1979)
NuDisc 