What do folks think of
Love, Giles Martin's (George Martin's son) remix and mashup album of Beatles music released in 2006? The best part is Martin's 5.1 surround sound remastering which makes the music swirl around and jump back and forth between the front and back speakers when you play it on a surround sound stereo rig. Even on a conventional two speaker sound system there's a vast improvement in sound quality. Giles Martin's production work on
Love was done at the same Abbey Road facility where the Beatles record all of their studio albums. A short history of the studios at Abbey Road is worthwhile because George Martin crafted the Beatles distinctive studio sound at Abbey Road, one session at at time, over the entire span of the Beatle's seven year recording career.
The recording studios at 3 Abbey Road
Part of the reason nearly all the Beatles studio albums had such a wonderous and pristine sound was their use of the the EMI studios at 3 Abbey Road, a state of the art recording facility built in 1931 and was primarily used to record jazz and classical music prior to rise of the Beatles.
Sir George Martin began his association with EMI and the Abbey Road facility way back in 1950. Many Beatles fans mistakenly believe that the Beatles built the studios at 3 Abbey Road but the EMI studios at Abbey Road have a long and proud history prior to the entry of the Beatles in 1962 to begin their seven year relationship with producer George Martin.
In 1962 Decca Records had taken a pass on signing the Beatles, so manager Brian Epstien had the Beatle's demo tapes delivered to George Martin through a mutual friend. Martin had previously recorded a handful of pop artists without much success. Martin wasn't that impressed with musicianship of the band, especially the unimaginative drumming of Peter Best. Martin signed on as the Beatles producer because he saw a great potential in singing talents of John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
Peter Best was sacked as the Beatles drummer during the first recording session but the session engineers weren't that impressed with Ringo's drumming either. The studio engineers relegated Ringo to playing tamborine on
Love Me Do and doing nothing on
Please Please Me while session drummer Andy White played drums. At the time Ringo was the most accomplished professional musician of the Beatles and he wasn't happy with the situation. Despite this early sleight to his drum kit skills Ringo persevered and turned out to be the perfect drummer for the band.
Over his long career as a producer Martin has produced hundreds of albums by classical, jazz and pop artists and the Beatles catalog is only a small part of his illustrious career as a producer. With or without the Beatles, George Martin is arguably the greatest studio producer in the history of recorded music.
Martin was also a first tier composer, orchestra director and the master of multiple musical instruments including piano and several wind instruments, most notably the oboe which he studied under BBC Sympony Orchestra oboeist Margaret Eliot. Eliot was the mother of Jane and Peter Asher. Jane Asher went on to be a Paul McCartney's girlfriend and the "it girl" fashion model of swinging London in the early Sixties. Peter Asher was in the British invasion group Peter and Gordon. After an Abbey Road apprenticeship under Martin, Asher moved to southern Califormia and as a producer crafted his own trademark SoCal mellow sound of the 70s and produced most the great albums by Linda Ronstandt, James Taylor and Bonnie Raitt. Paul McCartney has maintained his early friendships with Peter & Jane Asher and George Martin which date back nearly 50 years.
The most notable technological advance that came out of the studios at Abbey Road was the development of multi-track recording during the sessions for
Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. Acutely aware of the limitations of 4 track recordings, Martin relied on engineer Ken Townsend to invent and build a system whereby two 4 track machines could be linked together. Martin used Towsend's schematic in short order to expand to 16 tracks and then 24 tracks and the age of multi-track recording began. The newly developed 24track recording equipment made Abbey Road the state-of-the-art studio that every rock band wanted to record in. Multi-track recordings revoluntionized rock music and following the Beatles break up, Pink Floyd replaced the Beatles as the house band at Abbey Road. The epic Pink Floyd albums of the Seventies were all products of the Abbey Road studio.
3 Abbey Road was originally a 9 bedroom residential townhouse built in the 1830s in St. Johns Wood, City of Westminister, London England. Abbey Road's name came from the road's close proximity to the Kilburn Abbey an ancient 47 acre monastic estate that dates back to medieval England. The Abbey Road studio is located in heart of St. John's Wood, a posh London neighborhood where Paul McCartney has maintained a home, since the 1960s along with other prominent St. John's Wood residents such as Kate Moss, Jude Law, Ewan McGregor and Lily Allen.
The EMI studio at 3 Abbey Road also has a set of apartments to house musicians who are recording in the studio. Between the apartments and the studio is a footpath that leads to the grounds of Kiburn Abbey which is now a large public green space in the City of Westminister.
In 2009 the Abbey Road studios faced closure at the hands of real estate developers but the studio was saved by an act of the Parliament declaring the EMI studios at 3 Abbey Road a national historic landmark.
The iconic crosswalk at Abbey Road & Grove End Road where the Beatles cover to the the Abbey Road album was photographed. The Abbey Road studios are the smaller two story building in the center of the photo. The crosswalk at Abbey & Grove End has been a London tourist destination for millions of Beatles fans over the years.
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