“They (the Beatles) would have signed for nothing and I signed them to a recording contract for peanuts,” Sir George Martin revealed during
last night’s Special Presentation of “The Making of Sgt. Pepper” given at the University of Southern California by the Grammy Foundation.

For nearly 2 hours, Sir George Martin kept the packed audience spellbound with his fabulous stories about how he got into the business of making music starting back in 1950 with EMI’s Parlophone label at
Abbey Road Studios, and then produced albums ranging from Peter Sellars comedy, to Scottish Dance music, and also childrens’ records.
This diverse background helped prepare him immensely to keep an open mind when it came to evaluating and finding new talent such as the
Beatles. Martin admits that he has been blessed with being at the right place at the right time and that “Good timing is essential for good luck.”

“I was lucky in that I recognized talent in them,” despite Brian having originally played songs in early February 1962 from Decca’s audition tapes that he told Brian he wasn’t interested in, but “gave him a
lifeline” because Brian had so much faith about the Beatles and offered Brian to further evaluate them, by having play some songs in the studio. It wasn’t until early June of 1962 that George saw the Beatles
audition and that’s when he “fell for their cheeky charm.” He also admits that if he had known that three other producers at EMI had already turned Brian down along with every other major recording label in London, he would have turned Brian down as well.

After going through the history of how several of the songs on the Sergeant Pepper album was made, he spent time discussing how instrumental Beatles Manager Brian Epstein was and claims that if Brian
hadn’t come along to manage them, they would never have had the success they had as the Beatles. “Individually they may have written and published a few songs” and be known as a very popular Liverpool local band in England, but wouldn’t have gotten the worldwide fame they achieved. He claims that Brian’s faith that the Beatles would be more popular than Elvis never wavered, but Brian’s early death in August 1967 has resulted in Brian being forgotten.

The making of the album Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heartclub Band “heralded a new way of making music and the beginning of of a new adventure” that has forever changed how music is produced.

He also discussed his work with Cirque de Soleil’s production of LOVE currently playing at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, and revealed for the first time that he was contacted back in 2000/2002 and then
secretly spent three years, from 2003 to 2006, at Abbey Road Studios with his son Giles, to archive and transfer from tape to digital all of the Beatles recordings that were originally produced on tape. From the digital format, he says that it was much easier to rework, remix and remaster the Beatles music for the LOVE production.

Sir George Martin mentioned that a multi-episode documentary is in the works regarding his recording career and his work with the Beatles, but
didn’t mention when this will be aired. Several pre-recorded video clips filmed at Abbey Road Studios in London were shown during the 2
hour presentation in which Martin demonstrated his work with several songs from Sergeant Pepper’s album.