A few of my favorite stories from Sir George:
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"I needed the sound of bugles, but I didn't want to use trumpets, so I rang the Guards... 'Send me four buglers who can read.'...They turned up on the day accompanied by a sergeant...I distributed the parts, then noticed the sergeant beginning to wriggle in a quite unmilitary way.... 'I'm afraid my buglers cannot read your music.'...'I specifically asked you for four buglers who could read.' 'Oh, yes, sir, they can read, all right. But they can't read music.' In the end, I had to teach them the part by singing it to them." * * * This story refers to Automatic Double Tracking, (or ADT) a sound first heard on Revolver. This was invented by Ken Townsend of EMI, to alleviate the need for the Beatles to double-track their vocals, done by using three tape machines. It led to a number of effects heard on later records: "The original device was quite a lash-up...[John] was no technical genius and he made just one attempt to find out how it worked. I knew he'd never understand it, so I said very earnestly, 'Well, John, we take the original [track] and run it through a double-vibrocated sploshing flange using double negative feedback.' ['You're 'aving me on...pull the other one!'] 'Well, let's flange it again and see...' From that point on, whenever he wanted ADT he would ask for his voice to be 'flanged', or call out for 'Ken's flanger.' " * * * There were two versions of Strawberry Fields Forever. The first version is heard for the first minute of the song; the remainder is the second: "...I wasn't too surprised when John rang me up and said...'I like [the first version of Strawberry Fields], I really do. But the [second version] has got something too. 'Yes...but aren't we starting to split hairs?' Perhaps I shouldn't have used the word 'split', for John said, 'Why don't you [edit them together]?' 'There are two things against it. One is that they're in different keys. The other is that they're in different tempos. Apart from that, fine. 'Yeah, but you can fix it George. I know you can.' he said, then hung up...they were originally a semitone different." * * * "John came up to me in rehearsal and said, 'I like what you've done there, but I think it would be a good idea if the saxes did such-and-such...and he played me the notes...I wrote them out, and said, 'OK, chaps, these are the notes...' 'But they're not those notes; they're these, look'...and he proceeded to play them to me all over again. I said, 'I know, but this is an E flat saxophone, and this one is in B flat...so I've got to change the notes to compensate for that. Don't you see?' 'That's...silly, isn't it?' 'Yes, I suppose it is.' " * * * After a "wee tot" of Scotch: "Hallo, Mishter MacRobertsch...I'm afraid EMI have overpaid you...you won't be sheeing any royaltiesh for the next five yearsh... Thankfully, the Temperance Seven were not the most important of our artists. Had they been, I might not have remained long at EMI. And I might never have signed up the Beatles."
