Tag Archives: Geoff Emerick

Vale Geoff Emerick – Audio Engineer Extraordinaire

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Very sad to learn that Geoff Emerick, the sound engineer who worked on so many legendary Beatle and McCartney recordings, has passed away. He suffered a heart attack at the age of 72.

Paul McCartney pays tribute on his official site, and recalls Geoff being central to the recording of his classic Band On The Run LP from 1973.

Rolling Stone magazine says he was a crucial collaborator who helped The Beatles re-invent music.

When reviewing his 2006 book Here,There and Everywhere: My Life Recording The Beatles, the magazine said “Emerick was integral to the sounds of Revolver and Sgt. Pepper – he is, in his way, as responsible for McCartney’s bass tone at the time as the bassist himself – and the band’s sonic palette was never richer.”

As we said in our own review of his memoir: we wouldn’t have the Beatle canon without him.

Here, There and Everywhere – Geoff Emerick

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We recently purchased a nice, used hardback copy of Geoff Emerick’s fantastic Beatle book Here, There and Everywhere – My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles.

Not having read it before it’s currently our favourite, especially given the release in the last week of the The Beatles In Mono vinyl LPs as a boxed set (and also as individual albums).Here, There 1 Here, There 2Geoff Emerick was George Martin’s right-hand man in the control room at EMI’s Abbey Road studios in London. At the age of 15 (on just his second day at EMI) he was present – as an assistant recording engineer – when a scruffy-looking quartet from Liverpool came in for their very first studio session. Emerick progressed from that recording (“Love Me Do” in 1962), to being directly involved with the majority of the band’s classic albums. He confirms on a number of occasions in his book that a lot more time was spent getting the mono mixes correct as compared to the time taken over stereo.

With his ability to interpret the sounds that John, Paul, George and Ringo had in their heads as they worked at getting their songs down on tape, Emerick made a huge contribution to their records. He wanted as much as they did to experiment – to take the recording process into new and un-charted waters. Here, There and Everywhere takes us into the famous Studio’s One and Two at Abbey Road as history was literally being made.

Amongst other things we read about the antiquated attitudes, policies and equipment at EMI Records during the 1960s. Given their strict and old-fashioned rules it’s incredible that the greatness of the Beatles was ever captured at all. EMI management back in the day seemed stuck in the 1940s and 50s. As an organisation it frequently stood in the way of creativity rather than fostering it. It was Geoff Emerick who was willing to go out on a limb and flaunt the studio rules at Abbey Road to capture the sounds we have today.

One of the other big surprises in the book is Emerick’s low opinion of George Harrison. There are frequent mentions of how stand-offish and surly Emerick found him to be, not to mention that he regarded George as a pretty lacklustre lead guitarist….

Here, There and Everywhere was published way back in 2006, but it is highly recommended if you are at all interested in the Beatles and their music. The copy we have is a signed copy. It’s not dedicated to us because this one is second-hand – but that doesn’t matter. There is the signature of Geoff Emerick (and his co-author Howard Massey), a man who had a significant impact on the Beatles legacy.

We wouldn’t have the Beatle canon without him.Here, There 3

Beatles Engineer Geoff Emerick Interview

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ABC Radio in Australia has done a lengthy interview with the man often referred to as “the sixth Beatle” –  studio engineer extraordinaire Geoff Emerick. As a 21 year-old he was George Martin’s right-hand man in the control room on albums such as “Revolver”, “Sgt Pepper”, “The Beatles (White Album)” and “Abbey Road”.

702 ABC Sydney Evening Show presenter Robbie Buck spoke to Geoff for over twenty minutes about his career recording the greatest band in the world. Visit the 702 ABC Sydney site to read about the interview. You can play it from that site – or you can listen here:

Geoff Emerick will be in Australia this week to attend “Integrate 2011“, a sound, music and light industry convention where he’ll give a special presentation that is being billed as a “world first”.  Geoff will be interviewed live on stage with another legend from the industry, Australian Richard Lush, who also worked extensively with the Beatles in the 1960’s. And they’ll play examples of how they came up with some of the unique and ground-breaking sounds we hear on the Beatles recordings.