Every time I go through Drayton Park I think of George Martin, and what every child can be.

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Permalink Reply by Angela on March 9, 2016 at 18:28

Many many years ago I was a bridesmaid and one of my presents from the bride and groom was a hand me down copy of 'With The Beatles'. That track was one of my favourites - I used to listen to it on the record player my mother was given on her 21st birthday!

The recording is brilliant; you could even hear McCartney's hand moving down the fret bars. I've still got the LP, albeit without the original cover.

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Permalink Reply by matthew cuthbert on March 15, 2016 at 23:14

If you listen to any of the albums referenced below, you will be touched by the chrysalis of sound transformed as a painting; strawberry fields forever. Mastery of the highest production available, he allowed creativity to take hold and flourish. Pitch perfect himself, he was more than a producer.

Paul McCartney said, "he doesn't write the songs or play them, (though he forgot that George did, on occasions and composed classical accompaniment,) - he doesn't fly the plane - but he is in charge and that, tied in with his music, made him the perfect producer for the Beatles."

For 40 years from 1965, Highbury New Park was home to Wessex Studios.

Created by Beatles producer Sir George Martin (who grew up on Drayton Park in Highbury), the studios saw the recording of some of Britain's best-known albums created by bands including Queen, Genesis, the Rolling Stones, the Sex Pistols and the Clash, through EMI.

Sadly that industry that existed has gone, the building is now a block of residential apartments called "The Recording Studio" and located at 106, Highbury New Park. I did hear this mentioned by George Martin, speaking on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, and noted again by Mark Espiner mentioned in the The Independent, 3 November 2004. The documentary, "Queen – Days of our Lives" screened by BBC4 in April 2012.)

George Martin was proud of designing and building three studios since then - of which Air Lyndhurst is the only one still operational.

The former two Air studios (Associated Independent Recording,) saw the making of : Dire Straits' Brothers In Arms, Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder's Ebony And Ivory, and the Police's Synchronicity were all recorded at the studio he built on the Carribbean island of Montserrat.

At George Martins first studio, on Oxford Circus in London, Duran Duran made Rio.

Madonna and Michael Jackson have recorded at Air Lyndhurst, and Radiohead went there for some of 1997's OK Computer.

Historically the context of other studios operating at Highbury were, Highbury Studios, a film/ TV/recording studio further along the same street, at 65A Highbury New Park; these studios had a training school next door, in a disused church hall.
Built initially as a music conservatoire in 1890, the site became a recording studio in 1926 for the Piccadilly label.
In 1933, they became the Highbury (film) Studios and in 1945 they were acquired by the Rank Organisation.
Due to economic difficulties, Rank closed the studios down and they were demolished in 1960. Athenaeum Court,
again a block of flats, now occupies the site.

Exerts from Mark Espiner's article: covering Sir George Martins early life.
His cultured voice, elegance and establishment air belie Martin's humble background.

Born in 1926, he spent his early years in a two-bedroom flat without a bathroom or kitchen (his mother cooked on a stove in the landing) in Drayton Park, in Highbury, north London. When the depression hit in the early 1930s, his father, who had until then worked as a carpenter, was forced to sell newspapers in Cheapside. He was anxious his son should never be insecure in his job and tried to encourage him out of music, where he thought you could never make a living, and into the civil service, despite the boy displaying musical talent on the piano and possessing the rare gift of perfect pitch.

EMI marked half century of George Martin's Career- albeit a year late - with a six-CD.

His back catalogue includes: 30 number ones, containing the best-selling single of all time - 37m copies - Elton John's Candle in the Wind '97; nine film scores, one of them - the recently re-released A Hard Day's Night - Oscar nominated for his musical direction.

He has worked with the great classical conductors Sir Thomas Beecham and Sir Malcolm Sargent, recorded the comedy of Goons Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers as well as the eccentric Ivor Cutler, and has recorded musicians from Ella Fitzgerald to Jeff Beck. In those early days he used EMI's famous Abbey Road recording studios.

At 15 George Martin had never heard a symphony orchestra before. "You hear a sound from time to time and you think, 'wow, what is that?' and that was a moment like that. I thought, 'this is painting. This guy has this fantastic colour coming through'." He rushed to the library, found the score and studied it to learn how such sounds could be created. At the time he was also experimenting with another kind of music as the piano-playing bandleader of his own jive-pop group, the Four Tune Tellers.

Full article, 'Sounds and Vision,' by Mark Espiner article, Saturday 30 June 2001
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/jun/30/books.guardianreview1

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