Los Angeles: Geoff Emerick, the Beatles’ chief recording engineer who worked on some of the bands most seminal albums, is dead. He was 72.
He suffered a heart attack, reports variety.com.
His manager William Zabaleta said in a statement: “Today at around 2’o’clock, I was making my way back from Arizona to Los Angeles to pick up Geoff, so we could transport some gold records and platinum plaques to our show in Tucson. While on the phone, he had complications and dropped the phone.
“I called 911, but by the time they got there, it was too late. Geoff suffered from heart problems for a long time and had a pacemaker… When it’s your time it’s your time. We lost a legend and a best friend to me and a mentor.”
Emerick began working as an assistant engineer at Abbey Road at just 15 years old and just a few months in, was face-to-face with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr in the London studio.
He apprenticed and later worked on such early Beatles’ recordings as “Love Me Do”, “I Want To Hold Your Hand”, “She Loves You” and “A Hard Day’s Night”. Later becoming the band’s chief engineer, he helmed “Revolver”, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, “The White Album” and “Abbey Road” as well as the dual-sided single “Penny Lane”, “Strawberry Fields Forever.”
Other than George Martin, Emerick was the behind-the-scenes brains that helped shape the Beatles sound. When John Lennon asked Emerick to make him sound like “the Dalai Lama singing on a mountain” for “Tomorrow Never Knows”.
Emerick was a Grammy Award winner for his work on “Sgt. Pepper’s” and “Abbey Road” as well as Paul McCartney and Wings’ “Band on the Run”.
Denny Laine, who was a member of Paul McCartney and Wings, tweeted upon hearing the news: “Geoff was a brilliant engineer and a fine man.”
