Interview: Geoff Emerick pt. 2

The legendary Beatles engineer discusses the process of creating some of the greatest moments in pop music history.

Producer: Mike Errico
Interviewer: Alan Light
Video: Brian Berkowitz

http://www.errico.com

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Mike Errico
• Tallboy 7
• Brian Berkowitz
• Beatles
• Geoff Emerick
• George Martin
• Alan Light
• Paul McCartney
• John Lennon
• George Harrison
• Ringo Starr
• Abbey Road
• rock
• music
• pop music
• producer
• engineer

[Rightsideup]

Of all of the books I have read about the Fabs, Emerick's seems to be the one that allows the reader to feel they are right there in the studio! His book is a MUST READ for all Beatles fans. What he and everyone else had to work with was so primitive that it really had to be a guy like him with a real knack and knowledge of how sound is recorded, to make them sound as well as they did. Major hats off to Emerick, cannot say enough how cool this man is!!

[LuciaBBG]

Amazing book, amazing man!

Love you, Geoff!

[usrphil77]

@sagnyc At the end of the song where they are repeating the "love is all you need" phrase, Paul is playing a "1-5" repetitive line (root/5) and then plays wrong note, stops, let's out a "whoa" and then picks up the 1-5 cadence/riff at the start of the next measure. If you focus on the bass during that section of the song, you can hear it pretty clearly. I really loved the book up until that point and just wondered how many of Geoff's other recollections were incorrect.

[sagnyc]

@usrphil77

Where's Paul's mistake? I'm curious.



[usrphil77]

Loved the book until I got to his discussion of "All You Need Is Love" where he says that John and George made some mistakes during the live recording but Paul played flawlessly. Paul makes a very obvious mistake at the end of the song (actually losing his place and stopping for half a bar)....that coupled with Geoff's continual pro-McCartney commentary made me wonder how much of his recollections were accurate. Very disappointing to me.

[myrtlebox]

@ChiroQuacker Uhhh, he was there. His opinion and experience count a LOT.

[metalupyourass9]

hey, great video. Id liuke to cite this as a refernce for my essay. where is this taken from?? thanks

[jrichview]

@Rightsideup I completely agree. I was fascinated with his book and I'd kill to tip a few pints at the local with this guy.

[flugtager]

@powerleg Maybe but a lot of the records they were comparing were motown stuff, also there was a limit to the amount of low frequency they could put on a record because the label was concerned with records skipping after some 250,000 singles they pressed skipped due to excessive low frequency.

[ChiroQuacker]

@Rightsideup

i read his book..i liked it...BUT..he favored paul way to much...now paul is still recording and uses geoff still....as he did during the wings period as well

so that may have some reason as to him favoring him...

he also took a bit too much credit...and slighted george martin as well as he did john, george and ringo

[LanceATL]

@dumont1957 - Those are his recollections. Maybe those were the circumstances with George. The thing is, he was there, so why wouldn't his words have credit? Most of the history of the Beatles' sessions were written by historians after the fact, who weren't there. I think to underestimate his credibility would be a mistake, and a little disrespectful. After all, he got the gig! And I think the fact that George didn't play the solo on "Taxman" says something.