"There were four of them and I said
'Who are they?
What are they ?"
He doesn't know
it, but producer George Martin has just come across The Beatles.
This is the anecdote told by the "
fifth beatle
" to his granddaughter a few years ago, before his death in 2016. A moment immortalized in a video that his son finally published on Twitter on Wednesday.
George Martin says he first ticked on the name of the group, a portmanteau between beetle (scarab in VF) and beat (the rhythm).
“
Okay, that's a silly name.
Who would want to listen to a band called the Beatles?
asks the producer to the group.
Read alsoGeorge Martin, the teacher of the Beatles
Then comes the music.
“
When I listened to what they were doing, it was OK, but not extraordinary.
If the music doesn't convince him, it's ultimately the personality of the four trendy boys that makes him want to accompany them.
“
The magic worked when I got to know them, because they were very good people.
»
A kindness that apparently was enough to convince the producer of the talent of these young musicians.
"
They were funny and very intelligent, they all said charming things, they were the kind of people you like to be with
," recalls the producer.
“
I thought if I felt that, other people would feel it too.
(...) That's why they should become quite popular.
»
The turning point of February 13, 1962
The meeting between the man who directed Parlophone at the time and the Beatles dates back to February 13, 1962. They were not yet the Fab Four, but since 1957 they have been performing concerts of random quality.
George Martin makes them pass a course, it is an understatement to say.
He is the one who fires Pete Best and replaces him with Ringo Starr.
It is above all he who produced the first successes of the group and participated in making it a phenomenon of society, on both sides of the Atlantic.
Read alsoThe Beatles: the last secrets of the separation of the legendary group
He later follows the group in its psychedelic period and the experiments of Lennon and McCartney with the new possibilities offered by the recording studios.
Only
Let It Be
, the last Beatles album released a few weeks after their separation in 1970, does not bear the mark of the producer, but that of Phil Spector.
The producer's son summarizes in his Twitter post the birth of this story of friendship that forever changed the history of music.
“Ordinary people do extraordinary things.
Big decisions are made for the simplest reasons,”
he writes.