Sir George DVD.

Sir George Martin recently joined the celebration of "Love Me Do"'s 50th anniversary by taking part in an online chat.

Sir George Martin recently joined the celebration of "Love Me Do"'s 50th anniversary by taking part in an online chat via the Abbey Road Studios website. Some of his more interesting quotes:

• "My training at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama gave me a good, solid foundation for what was to come, and in the comedy field, working with artists like Peter Sellers, Bernard Cribbins, Rolf Harris, etc., I had to improvise a lot to build up pictures in sound."
• What made Martin fascinated by the then-unknown Beatles? "Their charisma. I simply fell for them as wonderfully engaging people."
• Asked which parts he played on Beatles recordings, he replied, "Lots of keyboards: ordinary piano, 'wound up' piano sounding like a harpsichord, Hammond organ, synthesisers, mellotron, etc. The most notable piece is of course the solo in 'In My Life.'”
• Martin never expected The Beatles' music to become "immortal... I'm grateful that people still like it of course, but immortality was never our aim. We worked hard and simply tried the best we could at the time."
• On what music besides The Beatles he'd want to be remembered for: "A toss-up between The Mahavishnu Orchestra - John McLaughlin - and the group America. Very different, but I loved working with both of them."
• Asked what his career might have been done had he not gone into the record business, Sir George said, "Designing aeroplanes. I had a competition with Jimmy Webb once, to see which one of us could build the best paper plane. Jimmy was a very experienced glider pilot and knew what to do, but I relished the challenge." He tells the story of what happened on the Produced by George Martin DVD.