“All You Need is Ears” by George Martin with Jeremy Hornsby

I feel like I’ve been trying to find a copy of this book for ages. George Martin is one of my heroes so when I saw that he had written a memoir, of course I wanted to read it. But it isn’t very popular since while The Beatles are very popular, not many people know who their producer was. I found it in the end though at a used bookstore, and I am very glad I did.

Martin takes you through his life, starting with his childhood and upbringing, getting into the music business, and his projects with The Beatles and after. I quite liked how this was clearly a book about Martin, not The Beatles. Obviously they factor heavily into the story, but they are not highlighted and in many ways Martin tries to make it clear that they were one of many artists he was recording.

My favorite aspect of the book is how Martin clearly explains sound recording techniques he used, as well as how he thought about arranging. It gives a really cool insight into the music industry of the 60s and his thought process when coming up with music. It is almost certainly all outdated, but it still is a neat snapshot of how things were done.

To be fair, the book is a bit jumbled. Martin sometimes seems more interested in going from topic to topic rather than chronologically. The result is we keep jumping around and I had to double check the years a couple times to see whether this was pre- or post-Beatles.

Regardless, I loved reading this book. Getting a peak into George Martin’s head was incredible and I would definitely recommend this to any Beatles fan, or to any music fan in general.