Brian Cohen, L.A.
Beatles producer George Martin offered a fascinating look into the group’s creative process during a multimedia presentation for members of the National Recording Academy of Arts and Sciences Friday at Los Angeles’ Bovard Auditorium.

The event was part of a larger NARAS tribute to Martin the following evening, which featured performances by Burt Bacharach, America and Michael McDonald, and presentations by Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison.

Martin, 82, joked that he’s always been blessed with great timing. During World War II, he was just about to ship off to the South Pacific when the conflict ended. Moving on to EMI as a staff producer, he was initially unimpressed with the Beatles recordings played for him by the group’s manager, Brian Epstein, and he had no idea the band had been rejected by every other label.

But Martin had the band come in to audition, on the hopes they had something he could pick up live, and wound up signing them right away. He said he shudders to think about what another rejection would have meant for the Beatles’ future, much less pop culture in general.

Martin then traced his own evolution alongside the group, helping it incorporate string arrangements and other traditionally non-rock instrumentation into its music. Part of the accompanying DVD projection showed how similar Martin “Eleanor Rigby” score was to Bernard Herrmann’s famed music for Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho,” with Martin playfully jumping back and forth from playbacks of each.