Talk:Geoff Emerick

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Controversy?[edit]

Nothing about the controversy caused by his memoir? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.76.145.60 (talk) 15:45, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Beatles RfC[edit]

You are invited to participate in an RfC at Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/The Beatles on the issue of capitalising the definite article when mentioning that band's name in running prose. This long-standing dispute is the subject of an open mediation case and we are requesting your help with determining the current community consensus. Thank you for your time. For the mediators. ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 23:51, 22 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Photo?[edit]

This article really needs a photo. Has anyone got one that can pass the requirements? Jusdafax 07:17, 23 May 2014 (UTC) The photo of him with pink eye is not very good, someone should post a different picture. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.241.65.140 (talk) 04:31, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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Memoir controversy[edit]

Geoff's memoir "Here, There and Everywhere" needs to be discussed in detail for its factual errors and fabricated fantasyland stories, dismissal of George, John and Ringo, bias towards Paul and especially concerning sessions or events that didn't involve him as follows:

  • Making an unsubstantiated claim that George played bass and Paul played piano on "Rock and Roll Music", but it's highly unlikely, because there are two guitars, bass and drums on the song and furthermore, it had been in their live set, so it's improbable that any instrument swaps would've occurred.
  • Unfairly maligning George for his guitar playing, talents and moods, bashing John and Ringo for no real reason and being biased towards Paul as if he could do no wrong at all in the studio, but in truth, all four Beatles were/are human beings with their flaws and it's just a part of life and all four are or were capable of mistakes or playing wrong notes, as evidenced by takes to songs being discarded as a result of wrong notes being played - again it's just life and they wouldn't have been playing wrong notes on purpose.
  • Saying that nobody was prepared to spend any time on George's songs, compared to those written by John or Paul, but neither the session logs nor session tapes can verify that claim, because there were brass, wind and/or string players on "Savoy Truffle", "Piggies", "It's All Too Much", "Here Comes the Sun" and furthermore, John and Paul would never have allowed George or Ringo to contribute any songs to the records if they didn't think they were good enough to be released. Let's face it: George wouldn't have had Yoko singing, let alone endlessly screaming, on any of his songs and neither would Paul, but rather it's more than likely that if John wanted screaming on his songs that were beyond his vocal range, then he very likely would've called on Yoko to do it.
  • In addition to maligning George, Geoff makes some claims about John that I consider quite insulting, such as saying that he refused to play on any songs for the "Abbey Road" sessions not written by him and calling him recalcitrant, but in reality, he was absent from "Here Comes the Sun" due to being involved in a near-fatal car crash with Yoko in Scotland, he played guitar and sang backing vocals on "You Never Give Me Your Money", "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" and "The End", guitar on "Octopus's Garden", backing vocals on "Carry That Weight", piano on "Something" (his favourite track on the album and it was written by George) and piano and backing vocals on "Oh! Darling" and "Her Majesty" was written and clearly recorded by Paul alone. Geoff also denigrates John's keyboard abilities on the "I am the Walrus" sessions by calling him not a great keyboardist in the best of times - listen to "Imagine", "You Like Me Too Much", "Oh! Darling", "God", "Mother", "Something", "Baby You're a Rich Man", "Flying", etc. and these can prove that John was a more than capable of playing keyboards.
  • When talking about "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", he says that Mal Evans was striking the anvil and he personally oversaw a bass overdub from Paul, supposedly to replace George's bassline, but that is ridiculous for him to say such statements, because a) he wasn't even present at the sessions for "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and b) he didn't return to working with the band until the 21st of July 1969, so how would he know what went during the recording of the song?

Geoff admitted in a 1979 interview that he couldn't remember much due to an unreliable memory, but he suddenly claimed to remember all of these baseless stories. What? I have read that the sessions weren't tracked or documented prior to 1965, but if so, then why are all the studio locations, recording dates, producers, balance engineers and tape ops/second engineers as well as takes, mixes, reduction mixes, editing and splicing so well-documented? I don't know whether the factual errors were intentionally or inadvertently fabricated in the book for obtaining publicity or out of jealousy over not being part of The Fab Four's inner circle, but why would he be in their inner circle? He wasn't personally employed by The Beatles the way Robert Freeman was employed as their photographer, but rather Geoff was an employee at EMI, and whilst George Martin was their producer, he went on a skiing holiday with John and Cynthia to Switzerland.

A few things to remember: you must never take somebody's personal viewpoint, opinions or feelings as fact and sometimes, we can say things that we either don't mean or are false based on our moods, not facts. Trust me, I learned that the hard way.

In regards to the Amazon reviews about the book or elsewhere, I'm very offended by comments suggesting that Paul did a lot of the guitar solos and John didn't even turn up whenever they were recording a song that George wrote, possibly because of all the myths, gossip and the manuscript from the book, but the truth is this: George did most, but not all, of the guitar solos since he was the lead guitarist and John's absences from George's songs, especially in the final years, didn't happen as often as has been reported or written, since he was present on the following:

  • "Don't Bother Me" - electric guitar, tambourine
  • "You Know What to Do" - tambourine
  • "I Need You" - snare drum, backing vocals
  • "You Like Me Too Much" - electric piano, tambourine
  • "Think for Yourself" - organ/electric piano, backing vocals
  • "If I Needed Someone" - electric guitar, backing vocals
  • "Taxman" - tambourine?, electric guitar (according to John C. Winn), backing vocals
  • "I Want to Tell You" - tambourine, backing vocals
  • "Blue Jay Way" - organ, backing vocals
  • "The Inner Light" - backing vocals
  • "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" - tremolo electric guitar, possible organ
  • "Piggies" - tape loops, backing vocals
  • "Not Guilty" - harpsichord?, electric piano?
  • "Only a Northern Song" - piano, tape effects
  • "It's All Too Much" - electric guitar, backing vocals
  • "Old Brown Shoe" - backing vocals, organ (according to George Martin's production notes)
  • "Something" - piano
  • "For You Blue" - lap steel

John was only absent from "Long, Long, Long", "Savoy Truffle", "Here Comes the Sun" (due to the aforementioned car crash) and "I Me Mine" (due to holidaying in Denmark with Yoko) and as I said before, it wasn't very often that he was absent, but "Love You To" and "Within You Without You" don't count, because George recorded them largely, if not completely, by himself.

Another thing that offends me is the suggestion in the Amazon reviews is Paul being uber-tight about credits, but it has to be noted that it was probably EMI policy that they didn't always credit recording engineers on the sleeves to records until at least 1969. It's only my guess, so it may not be 100% right or accurate.

61.69.217.3 (talk) 01:05, 19 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'd failed to see this thread before now, probably because it was posted up at the top of the page. But I recently added text (and sources) discussing the controversy surrounding Emerick's book. You raise some interesting points; there's no doubt that Here There and Everywhere – just like McCartney/Miles' Many Years from Now, Lennon's recollections in Lennon Remembers, Peter Brown's in The Love You Make, and many other Beatles-related memoirs – should not be taken as fact, since, in various ways, they're all extremely biased and self-serving. The thing that has concerned me over the last few years is the extent to which Wikipedia articles, particularly in a Featured Article such as Sgt. Pepper (although I've since cut much of the Emerick commentary from there), use Emerick's book, and Miles' Many Years, as a wholly reliable source regarding Beatles history, i.e. on things that are supposedly fact. Their respective authors dictate that the memoirs simply can't be fact – they're personal recollections, written decades after the event. Beatles history-telling has got so complicated over the years, thanks to personal agendas, and I'm relieved to see that this is an issue that more enlightened biographers such as Peter Doggett and Steve Turner navigate through with some skill, whereas Ian MacDonald and Bob Spitz do/did not.
Will post more on this when I've got some time. But I think the controversy surrounding Emerick's autobiography is fairly well covered now in the article. JG66 (talk) 05:51, 6 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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psychomodo[edit]

is the attribution of this cockney rebel album to stealers wheel some sort of meta-joke on emerick's poor memory? the album emerick actually worked on briefly before resigning was stealers wheel's eponymous debut. he served as one of the engineers on the cockney rebel album too, but the text presently conflates the two employments misleadingly.

duncanrmi (talk) 14:04, 5 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"... some sort of meta-joke on emerick's poor memory" – nice one. No, it was my mistake when trying to juggle paragraphs into some sort of logical or chronological order. In my haste, I obviously got the two '70s acts mixed up. Feel free to remove the mention of Psychomodo, or I will. Thanks, JG66 (talk) 14:13, 5 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

starting work[edit]

It says: "On 4 September 1962, his second day at work". 4 June 1962 was a Monday. He started work on a Sunday? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.58.134.28 (talk) 23:27, 5 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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