Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #131589 in Books
• Published on: 1995-12-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Customer Reviews

A MUST ! ...for all music lovers and history students.
For every music lover, its history is part of the pleasure. As we'll enter soon in the 21st Century, one must absolutely read the story of the man who, with The Beatles, changed the second half of the 20th century in helping them composed the most important opus of its time. This is a book about music, about people making music, this is a book about Sir George Martin, a humble man, a musician who was able to recognize that those youngs guys from Liverpool would, with a little help, change the course of music history and rise popular music to a higher livel, equal to the one normally reserved to the so-called "serious music". His life, his love, his work... Our pleasure.

And my greatest honour was to have my personal copy of this book autographed by Sir George Martin himself at EMI Abbey Road Studios in London...

Interesting and enjoyable
Great. I initially only bought this because I was having an argument about who played the piccolo trumpet solo in "Penny Lane" (it was David Mason!) but having dealt with that I went on to read and enjoy the whole thing. There are a few daft mistakes (frets on a violin??) but a lot of great content. The stuff about the early days is absolutely riveting. Martin writes modestly and pleasantly about some very interesting musical events. It could do with an update maybe now - what about Air Monserrat and Air Lyndhurst??

among my favorite autobiographies
This is one of my favorite autobiographies because its author doesn't tell about just himself, he teaches you about orchestration, recording, and the history of the British recording business. (There are some amusing Beatle anecdotes as well. I particularly enjoyed John Lennon's trouble with saxophone notation.) My only quibble: It should called itself "All You Need ARE Ears", not just because verbs must agree with their subjects, but also--mostly--because a title that distances itself from its allusion is more graceful.

Also recommended: PENTATONIC SCALES FOR THE JAZZ-ROCK KEYBOARDIST by Jeff Burns.