Post by briank on Mar 5, 2008 12:01:02 GMT
Last night, Norman Smith passed away. I think it significant to point out he engineered the first HALF of the Beatles career, some cracking GREAT records. If you take the time to go listen to them, you'll find them exciting and musically sensitive work; try to imagine someone bettering these recordings. They are exceptional pop records.
Compared to the DULL pop records of the day - the early Beatles have a beautiful reality of "a band in the room", and his mid-period work created that dry/isolated sound that continued and progressed after his "Rubber Soul" work into their later days.
I know the later Beatles records are noted for being more "experimental" but at the same time as Sgt. Pepper, Norman had signed and produced his own new band - (The) Pink Floyd, and their first album is MORE experimental than the Beatles of the era. It sounds AMAZING, if you've heard recent CD versions. He was not fuddy-duddy old guy - he was as hip as any producer in that period.
Later, he even had his own success (here in America too!) with his song "Oh Babe, What Would You Say", performing on The Tonight Show etc.
It was probably one of our biggest honors to meet him and spend time with him before and after our Beatles' recording book came out. We talked about this a lot - as he is certainly "a big one" in that world, and all the engineers talk about how great he was; and they loved him as a guy. I understood now how he had this fun personal charm and charisma - very dashing style and classy-but-fun personality. The Beatles definitely did NOT want him to leave, but he was replacing George Martin as a producer and A&R man at EMI - a big step up. So, as an engineer - amazing. As a producer - equal, and underrated. Here's to Norman...
Compared to the DULL pop records of the day - the early Beatles have a beautiful reality of "a band in the room", and his mid-period work created that dry/isolated sound that continued and progressed after his "Rubber Soul" work into their later days.
I know the later Beatles records are noted for being more "experimental" but at the same time as Sgt. Pepper, Norman had signed and produced his own new band - (The) Pink Floyd, and their first album is MORE experimental than the Beatles of the era. It sounds AMAZING, if you've heard recent CD versions. He was not fuddy-duddy old guy - he was as hip as any producer in that period.
Later, he even had his own success (here in America too!) with his song "Oh Babe, What Would You Say", performing on The Tonight Show etc.
It was probably one of our biggest honors to meet him and spend time with him before and after our Beatles' recording book came out. We talked about this a lot - as he is certainly "a big one" in that world, and all the engineers talk about how great he was; and they loved him as a guy. I understood now how he had this fun personal charm and charisma - very dashing style and classy-but-fun personality. The Beatles definitely did NOT want him to leave, but he was replacing George Martin as a producer and A&R man at EMI - a big step up. So, as an engineer - amazing. As a producer - equal, and underrated. Here's to Norman...