<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Dressed in a plaid shirt, beige chinos, and high-top olive Converse, Geoff was casual \u2013 kind and unassuming. When I introduced my husband and myself to him, he shook my hand and said, “Geoff Emerick.” (As if we wouldn\u2019t know!) He was honest (saying “I don\u2019t remember” or “I can\u2019t recall” when he didn\u2019t). He was funny and articulate. And, he was very generous with his time, giving the intimate audience of less than 50 people two full hours of his time and memories\u2026and then spending a great deal of time off stage signing autographs, answering questions one-on-one, and taking photos.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It was an incredible evening, and I thought you might enjoy hearing a few of the wonderful quips and quotes that he imparted to those who gathered to share “An Evening with Geoff Emerick.” <\/p>\n On John Lennon:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n “He was the most aggressive of the four Beatles, but when he sang his voice held the most emotion. Tender. I always guessed he was thinking about his childhood.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n On Ringo Starr:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n “He drummed his heart out in the studio! When the evening ended, there were broken pieces of drum sticks all over the floor.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n On recording the final guitar solos for “The End”:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n “Yoko went literally everywhere with John. I mean, she sat on the floor outside the bathroom when he went in. But when he entered the studio to play his solo on ‘The End,’ he put up both hands and stopped her. ‘Not this time, luv,’ he said. And when they played those solos, they were sixteen again.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n On Mal Evans:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n “The boys used to get rather aggravated with Mal if he didn\u2019t have the things they needed. So he kept a roadie bag of just about everything: bandages, biscuits, elastic, tea, sugar, guitar strings, fuses\u2026”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n On George Harrison\u2019s Indian music:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n “Paul and John shared a nod \u2019n\u2019a wink when George was recording his ‘new sound.’ I could tell they were thinking, ‘It\u2019s all very nice, but it isn\u2019t The Beatles, is it?’ But they went along.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n On The Beatles after Rishikesh:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n “After India, they came back different\u2026people we hardly knew. Dressed differently, they acted differently. Niggling at me. They weren\u2019t the same people, and it wasn\u2019t a change for the better.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n On Click Tracks:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n “The only time we used a click track was in making ‘Eleanor Rigby.’ There was one playing in George Martin\u2019s headset as he conducted the octet. Otherwise, we didn\u2019t use them. They made the music too\u2026 artificial.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n On his knack with music:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n “When I was a little boy, I had a toy gramophone on which I played 78\u2019s. After I heard a song, I could sit down at the piano and play back what exactly I had heard. I didn\u2019t have to plunk around for the correct notes. I knew where the next one would be.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n On recording:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n “I see it as painting a picture with tonalities.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n On mono vs. stereo recordings:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n “The mono mixes were made with The Beatles there, giving their input. They were never around for the stereo mixes. That was George Martin\u2019s interpretation of what they\u2019d want\u2026and my interpretation. So, the mono recordings are the definitive mix.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n On Revolver:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n “The role of the engineer changed with ‘Tomorrow Never Knows.’ No longer was I there just to capture sound. I was now creating sound.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n As you can see, it was a fantastic evening. Geoff would talk about a track, and then we\u2019d play it and listen together. How exciting was that?!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Many of the aspects of being an author are less than glamorous: standing for eight to ten hours in a booth and stopping strangers with “Have you heard about the book?” just to get your work into the hands of readers is next-to-awful. But having the rare opportunity to chat with Geoff Emerick (or Bill Harry or Bob Wooler or Rod Murray) makes it all worth it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When Geoff Emerick was invited by George Martin to become the Engineer on Revolver, he was fondly known to The Beatles as “Golden Ears.” And one can see why. However, after this past Saturday night, I\u2019ll always think of him as “Magic Man.” His expertise, ground-breaking recording techniques and invention of new equipment (such as the Automatic Double Tracking device) astound me. But even more impressive is Geoff\u2019s in-depth understanding of what The Beatles\u2019 vision was for their music and his innate ability to give that vision life.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Geoff helped deliver the magic that became Revolver, Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Abbey Road. Winning Grammys for these three LPs was, of course, incredibly well-deserved. But he won much more, didn\u2019t he? Our hearts.<\/p>\n Jude Southerland Kessler is the author of the John Lennon Series:\u00a0www.johnlennonseries.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Jude is represented by 910 Public Relations —\u00a0@910PubRel<\/a>\u00a0on Twitter and\u00a0910 Public Relations<\/a>\u00a0on Facebook.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “What kind of life am I living?” That\u2019s the question I\u2019ve asked myself many times over the past 31 years as I\u2019ve been extremely privileged to meet and interview many of John Lennon\u2019s childhood friends, early band members, family […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":6374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[116,98,117,30],"class_list":["post-6373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-baby-boomer-beatles-blog","tag-geoff-emerick","tag-jude-southerland-kessler","tag-the-beatles","tag-the-fest-for-beatles-fans"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6373"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6385,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6373\/revisions\/6385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.thefest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Jude.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n