George Martin

George Henry Martin was born on Jan. 3, 1926, in London. He began playing the family piano at age 6, later taking what he called “a handful of lessons,” but primarily teaching himself. Following his service in the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy during World War II, his veteran’s grant enabled him to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. Upon graduating in 1950, Martin worked briefly for the BBC in its music library before being hired by Parlophone. In 1955, Oscar Preuss retired, and Martin became the head of Parlophone — one of the youngest heads of a record company in the country. Martin spent the reset of the decade looking for some way to make the label stand out. He found the answer in producing comedy records, working with British talents like Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and the Beyond the Fringe comedy troupe. Comedy records utilized greater experimentation, in trying to conjure up visual imagery for the listener, something would serve Martin in good stead in the years ahead. Martin agreed to let the group record its own material from the beginning. He also helped The Beatles achieve the band’s first chart success by suggesting they boost the tempo of the song “Please Please Me.” Martin has said he was happy to move on when The Beatles broke up in 1970; now he no longer had to deal with the pressure of trying to get a hit with each release. The hits kept coming, though, most notably through Martin’s work with the band America. Martin has gone on to work with innumerable artists: Jeff Beck, Ultravox, Kenny Rogers, Cheap Trick, Dire Straits, Aerosmith and Jimmy Webb, to name a few. He produced the original cast album of 1993 production of “The Who’s Tommy,” and Elton John’s memorial single for Princess Diana, “Candle in the Wind,” which is the biggest selling single of all time. But Martin never really stopped working for The Beatles, either, even when The Fab Four set out on solo paths. Martin produced Ringo Starr’s debut album, “Sentimental Journey.” But the former Beatle he’s worked with most often has been McCartney, working on “Live and Let Die,” “Tug of War,” “Pipes of Peace,” “Give My Regards to Broad Street,” “Press To Play,” “Flowers in the Dirt” and “Flaming Pie.” He also suggested McCartney work with producer Nigel Godrich on “Chaos and Creation in the Back Yard” (released in 2005), one of McCartney’s best albums. Martin took some heat for producing the soundtrack album of the legendary flop film “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” — although the 1978 album did produce hit singles for Earth, Wind & Fire (“Got To Get You Into My Life”) and Aerosmith (“Come Together”). But he redeemed himself with his work on “The Beatles Anthology.” Though Martin didn’t work on the “new” Beatles singles created for the 1994-1995 project (“Free As A Bird” and “Real Love”), he did produce all three of the albums. Martin then announced that his last new project would be the 1998 album “In My Life,” a collection of Beatles covers, in part because his years of working in the studio have resulted in significant hearing loss. Thankfully, he returned to work on another Beatles-related project in 2006, working with his son, Giles, on remixing The Beatles’ music for Cirque du Soleil’s “Love” show; the album won two Grammy awards, and the show continues to run in Las Vegas. It’s likely to be Martin’s last album. In 1966, not long after he established AIR, Mr. Martin married Judy Lockhart-Smith, who had been his secretary at Parlophone. They had two children, Lucie and Giles. He also had two children, Alexis and Gregory, from an earlier marriage, to Sheena Chisolm, which ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife and children, as well as several grandchildren.