Sound Pictures: The Life Of Beatles Producer George Martin

Kenneth Womack

Shining a light on The Beatles producer’s post-Fab Four work.

The somewhat cumbersome title reveals a lot about this useful book: a lot of words fighting to convey a great deal of information at once. Sound Pictures is, as most of its title tells us, a book about the later recording career of George Martin, producer of The Beatles and many others – but mostly The Beatles.

Its thoroughness is such that it begins in 1966, which most of us would hardly call a late point in Martin’s career, and continues out of The Beatles’ decade and into Martin’s own solo years. This saw him working with America, Kenny Rogers, Seatrain and Paul McCartney again, and the book ends with the swansong of The Beatles’ Love album.

This is not a light book. Womack’s prose is busy and constantly fighting to herd the information – mostly taken from other books – into place. Along the way, we learn much about Martin’s work and career, and there’s even space for a mention of the Big Train sketch.

What the book lacks, apart from primary-source interviews, is an author’s overview of Martin’s work; this is left to the reader. A useful guide, then, which doesn’t stint on non-Beatles material.