Martin, a one-time quality surveyor and former Brit Naval officer, slipped off in his sleep at the ripe old age of 90, but not before producing over 30 number-one hit singles and played such an influential role in the production and arrangement of the Beatles’ canon as to be hailed as its fifth member.
At the time, Lane took to the net to laudMartin’s mastery, noting that he’d inspired him (and continued to do so) in ways both obvious and some less so. Now, Lane’s formally paying his respects by uniting a pack of Australia’s musical luminaries and fellow Beatles’ fanatics to pay tribute to Martin’s genius work with the Fab Four. Ash Naylor’s helping Lane pull it together, and everyone from the honeyed-piped Linda Bull to the ’Gurge’s Kram are onboard.
The show, which Lane describes as a “labour of love”, traverses the Beatles’ back catalogue, putting a spotlight on two sets worth of the tunes upon which Martin made a mark. Expect everything from the psychedelic genius of I Am The Walrus to the dirty blues babble of Come Together.
Going back to the issue of influence, overtly you can pick where Lane’s been steered by the Beatles or Martin: just take a gander at Lane’s lid for a start, and when interviewed for ABC TV’s show Secret Record Collection, the Beatles were the second band out of the bag. The Who took out pole position, after all, Lane acknowledges that it was The Who’s walking-windmill Pete Townshend that inspired him to pick up the guitar, but it was the Beatles that shaped his songwriting skills.
“Martin’s work with the Beatles inspired me from a very early age to get interested in recorded sound and what you could do with it,” Lane says. “When records like Revolver came out, it was the first time anyone had heard things like tape phasing and, not to get too anorak-y about it, but that inspired me to want to make music myself.
“For me, it was hearing at an early age records like Revolver and ’Pepper. Even though I’d been really into music as a youngster, my dad was always playing records at home, it was the first time that music had inspired a sense of wonder and had an amazing sense of imagination to it. It made me want to figure out how they made sounds like that.”
Once Yoko broke the Beatles, or whatever it was that caused the band’s demise, Lennon sledged Martin for a period, stating that he’d over played his influence on the band. Realistically though, Lennon was at peak peevishness vis-a-vis everything at that point and Martin’s steadying hand in the band’s evolution is incontrovertible. “Even though the Beatles always had a pretty clear vision of what they wanted, George Martin was the guy who articulated Lennon’s garbled directions, saying, ‘I want this to sound like an orange,’ or something,” Lane says. “George Martin was a pretty intuitive and articulate guy, so he could translate that into a recorded sound for them.”
So, what did Lane learn when it came to Martin’s more surreptitious influences? “To always keep your shirt starched and keep a tub of Brylcreem handy at all times.”
By Meg Crawford
