Oct. 2, 2018 marked the passing of audio engineering great Geoff Emerick at the age of 72. I remember when that age seemed old to me, but being that I am now only five years removed from that mark, 72 doesn’t feel quite as decrepit as I once thought it to be. In regards to Mr. Emerick, I can only marvel at his amazing career, which started for him at the age of 15 when he became the assistant engineer on The Beatle’s recording sessions for such early hits as “Love Me Do,” “She Loves You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” By the age of 20 in 1966, he was elevated to the position of recording engineer who put his mark on such iconic records as Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road, winning Grammy Awards for the latter two.
Mr. Emerick’s accomplishments were many, but it was his engineering work with The Beatles for which he will always be remembered, and rightly so. The Beatles were the big bang of contemporary pop music, and it was their genius that not only gave us great songs, harmonies and arrangements, but also shaped and influenced the music of their own generation as well as those that followed. I would be hard pressed to say that everyone who worked with The Beatles had the genius gene, but it would only follow that those closely associated with the creation of Beatle records would share the same spark as the Fab Four.
The Genius Club
Along with the “Fifth Beatle” George Martin, I would include Geoff Emerick in that genius category. It was he who created and captured on tape the enduring sonic environments on the band’s most seminal recordings. He pioneered the close-miking techniques of drums, which at the time was forbidden by EMI, as well as figuring out various ways to make recordings that have held up for 50 years. What makes this all the more impressive is that Mr. Emerick managed to hone his skill on the equipment that was available at the time — equipment that was very limited in accordance with contemporary standards. What makes his work genius is that there was no blueprint to work from and no chart to navigate his course. The Beatles wrote the brilliant songs, and Geoff Emerick wrote the book on how to record and capture them for posterity.
Needless to say, I am a huge Beatle fan. I have read Geoff Emerick’s book, as well as books by George Martin and Beatles manager Brian Epstein all in hope of gleaning an understanding of an amazing body of work and how it changed the world. Along with millions of other kids in the early 1960’s, I picked up a guitar and started learning Beatle songs. In 1962 and 1963, two occurrences changed my life forever — the first was hearing the Beatles; the second event was the Kennedy assassination. Even today — 55 years later — I remember where I was the first time I heard The Beatles, as well as where I was when I was informed of the Kennedy assassination. The first experience was accompanied by a great excitement and joy while the second event brought with it an overwhelming sense of horror and sadness and, with both instances having been indelibly imprinted in my brain, my teenage years began.
Winds of Change
In 1965, after what seemed like a lifetime of listening to the Beatles, their sound changed with their release of Rubber Soul. It took me a few times of listening to it before I got it, but when I did get it, I couldn’t get enough of it. Then, a mere nine months later in August of 1966, they released Revolver, which kept me enthralled until the June 1967 release of their masterpiece, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It’s been debated as to whether or not The Beatles were avatars of the hippie movement or just artists interpreting their environment, but while the debate has never been resolved, the release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band did see a migration of college students and teens from all over the country converging on the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco — an area now associated with the 1960’s counterculture.
In November of 1968, when the Beatles released the “White Album,” the peace and love movement — as well as the anti-war movement — was in full swing. It was also the year that Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated. In August of 1969, the Woodstock festival amazed the world and brought the peace and love movement to fruition. To top it off, in September of the same year, the Beatles released another masterpiece — their 11th studio album — entitled Abbey Road. It was a mere six months later, when the fabric of the counterculture unraveled as the Altamont Festival exposed the underside of the rock ‘n’ roll community. The final shock came when, in 1970, The Beatles formally disbanded with the release of the record Let It Be, thereby bringing an end to an era and leaving millions of people feeling as if another leader had been lost.
It was a tumultuous and manic decade in which to grow up. In the shadow of a real nuclear threat, three important leaders had been gunned down in plain sight, the civil rights movement had split the nation, and a contentious war was being waged in Vietnam. Women declared their rights, and many people in my generation followed the lead of psychedelic guru Tim Leary to tune in, turn on and drop out. The Grateful Dead — a San Francisco-based band — offered acid tests at their concerts, and LSD was driving people to express their inner light as articulated by The Beatles or their madness as expressed by Charles Manson. For those in the previous generations who did not join in the fun or hear the calling, it was truly a world gone mad.
All You Need is Conspiracies
It’s not surprising that in such an environment, conspiracy theories would be developed and analyzed, the first and foremost being the JFK assassination. Theories would evolve around the RFK and MLK murders as well and Vietnam, communists, the Black Panthers, The Weathermen, Students for a Democratic Society and The Woman’s Strike for Peace would also be enveloped in their own conspiracy theories.
The Beatles— being the biggest thing since sliced bread — also elicited their own conspiracy theories. One of them was that Paul had died and was replaced by a very persuasive double by the name of Billy Shears. Another theory, which was bandied about, was that clones replaced all the Beatles, but my favorite and most fun to read is how the Beatles, Stones and Grateful Dead were all an illuminati creation by the London-based Tavistock Institute for Human Relations. Written by a former M16 officer, it recounts how Tavistock and the CIA, by their manipulation of rock ‘n’ roll and the media, created the shock and awe of the 1960’s in pursuit of world domination. Of course, there is no real proof of the allegations, and the illuminati have yet to come forward to corroborate the story. However, it should clearly give one pause while listening to some of their favorite classic rock groups. By accident or design, The Beatles were catalysts of change and thus politically in the crosshairs of those whom they threatened. Yet despite all the external noise and hype, The Beatles were (and are) great on many levels — even the conspiracy level — and regardless of whether or not Geoff Emerick was a willing Tavistock agent or just an unwitting instrument of change, The Beatles recordings still hold up after 50 years, and a big part should be credited to Mr. Emerick’s genius.
Illustration by Andy Au
