First broadcast by the BBC in 2011 but tricked-out herein with 50 minutes of bonus interview material, Produced By George Martin is as discreetly impressive as the man himself. A sprightly 85-year-old at the time of filming, Sir George’s recall is absolute.
Martin honed his production craft in the 50s at Abbey Road in the service of The Goons, Jimmy Shand, Humphrey Lyttelton and Flanders & Swann. (Rolf Harris: “George Martin was the man they sent all the weirdies to.”) So leisurely is the chronology that 36 minutes elapse before The Beatles enter the picture. In Martin’s shoes, we’d beat our chests like King Kong with Katie Price implants about our role in the creation of The Single Most Influential Body Of Recorded Work – but Martin remains matter-of-fact. The score for Yesterday? “I did that in an afternoon.” Sgt Pepper’s? “It was a bit like a Peter Sellers record, making a picture in sound.”
Macca, Ringo and Martin’s producer son Giles are among the worthies prompting the great man’s reminiscences, while footage of old EMI studio gear in situ is straight-up audiophile porn. Shame there’s no mention of, say, Shadows And Reflections by The Action, or the magisterial psych of Martin’s 1967 composition Theme One…
