You may have a mental image of them shaking their moptops on "The Ed Sullivan Show" or getting screamed at in Shea Stadium, but the Beatles gave their best performances not on stage but behind the closed doors of Abbey Road Studios.
Generally, the audience at those session would include only a few intimates--roadies, producer George Martin and a recording engineer or two. And from the Beatles' first session to their last, that engineer (or assistant engineer, early in his career) was nearly always Geoff Emerick.
George Martin often gets thought of as the Beatles' chief collaborator. And it's true, he provided orchestrations, led them through rehearsals of intricate harmonies, let them experiment and made loads of good suggestions. But Emerick's vital role is somewhat overlooked. He's the guy who, after the Beatles or Martin told him what sort of sound they were after, had to get it down on tape.
When John Lennon explained he wanted to sound like the Dalai Llama chanting on a mountaintop on "Tomorrow Never Knows," Emerick's the one who strained his brain before landing on the idea of running Lennon's vocal through a revolving Lesley speaker to give it that wild faraway-getting-closer effect.
He's the one who edited two, differently-keyed versions of "Strawberry Fields" together. And he's the guy the surviving Beatles called in when they regrouped in the late 1990s to record the technically tricky "Free as a Bird," comprised of the "Threetles" adding fresh instrumental tracks to a Lennon vocal off a crappy sounding cassette.
And that's not mentioning some of Emerick's other contributions, which include engineering Paul McCartney's "Band on the Run," producing Elvis Costello's "Imperial Ballroom" and various projects by Squeeze, Split Enz and more.
So, you get the idea...This isn't the memoir of some simple hanger-on but a person who was there as a participant, with some unique insights to share.
And that's what Emerick does thoughout in this entertaining book co-written with veteran music journalist Howard Massey.
Emerick modestly lays out his contributions to the Beatles' sound. He's clear that he was an employee not an artist. He merely was doing his best to help the band and Martin reach the sounds they were after. But he doesn't shortchange himself, either, outlining in detail his own creative contributions.
He doesn't dish dirt, but shares his honest impressions about working with the band. He's an unabashed McCartney guy: Paul is the one he felt was most musical and the Beatle who was friendliest to him. John, as you might imagine, was tougher to work for, with moods that could range from charming to indifferent to downright nasty. George wasn't so much the quiet one as the unfriendly one who took forever getting his guitar solos right. Ringo, somewhat surprisingly, is depicted as standoffish, quiet and not much fun.
Over the pages we get a sense of how the Beatles worked creating their music and the role Emerick, the techie at the controls, played in getting it all on tape. It's one of the most enjoyable Beatles-related memoirs I've read.
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