When The Beatles met producer George Martin, they were beginning to run out of hope. The group had already been turned down by most major London labels and options were looking slim. Martin is now credited with overseeing some of the Fab Four’s most famous recordings. However, the producer wasn’t on board from the start. His initial reaction when he was told about the group was, “Well that’s a silly name for a start. Who’d ever want a group with the name, ‘beetles’?”
George Martin’s son, Giles Martin shared some rare footage of his father on Twitter. In the video, George Martin is heard explaining his first encounter with the rock stars to his granddaughter (Giles’ daughter.) Giles explains in the caption of the video that he doesn’t typically share personal things on social media, but he wanted to share this cute footage of his father that includes some Beatles history. “Ordinary people do extraordinary things. Great decisions are made for the simplest reasons,” Giles wrote of his father’s decision to sign the band.
“There were four of them,” says Martin in the video. “And I said, ‘Who are they, what are they?’ And he [presumably the band’s manager, Brian Epstein] said ‘Well, they’re a group. We call them The Beatles.’ And I said, ‘Well that’s a silly name for a start. Who would ever want a group with the name ‘beetles’?’ And he said, ‘Well, it isn’t the beetles you think of. It’s “Beatles” with an “A” in it, like “Beat-les.”‘ So I listened to what he said and I said, Well, I’ll have to hear them first of all.”
George Martin Shares Story of Meeting The Beatles
“So he sent them down from Liverpool, which is quite a long way, and I met them in London. And when I listened to what they did, it was okay, but it wasn’t brilliant. It was okay. So I thought well, why should I be interested in this?”
“But the magic but came when I started to get to know them, because they were terribly good people to know. They were funny, they were very clever, they said all the lovely things. They were the kind of people that you like to be with. And so I thought, ‘Well, if I feel this way about them, other people will feel this way about them. So therefore they should be very popular.’ And I made records with them.”
George Martin passed away in 2016 at age 90. In addition to working with The Beatles, the producer also worked with some of Britain’s most well-known acts. For example, the producer also worked with artists like Cilla Black and Tom Jones.
In a biopic about The Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein, George Martin will be portrayed by “Dunkirk” star Charley Palmer Rothwell.
