In 1962, at the tender age of 15, Geoff Emerick found himself in the studio with what soon and very meteorically would become the world's most famous rock 'n' roll band. The musically inclined youth was hired at EMI Studios in London. "Two days after I started, The Beatles were recording 'Love Me Do,' " Emerick said matter-of-factly a half-century after the fact. It was the Fab Four's first single and the first recording session with a newly installed drummer named Ringo Starr.
Heady days, indeed, Emerick recalled in an interview from his Los Angeles home last week. The Beatles were a new phenomenon in a postwar, anti-establishment young society that finally had money in its pockets "and the young kids just latched onto them," he said in a classic understatement.
Emerick, working under legendary Beatles music producer George Martin, was a guy at the controls trying to get The Beatles to sound just right. In 1966, still not out of his teens, Emerick was named The Beatles' senior recording engineer in time for the "Revolver" sessions. His first of many tall orders was to get John Lennon to sound like the Dalai Lama — singing from on high.
