Depending on which biography of the band you read there are several candidates to choose from when it comes to claiming the title of The Fifth Beatle . Stuart Sutcliffe, Brian Epstein, Pete Best and God help us! New York disc jockey and self-publicist supreme Murray The K have all been in the frame at one time or another. But were you to place a warm gun to the head of most Fabs fans there s little doubt that the man who d emerge triumphant would be George Martin.
Without Martin s studio skills and arranging expertise the latent talent of John Lennon and Paul McCartney may never have flourished to the extent that it did, for it was his technical know-how which enabled the band s increasingly ambitious musical experiments to emerge on record. Now, at 73 years of age, Martin is set to present an evening of Beatles music in Dublin.
George will be doing this in different cities throughout the world this year, says Pat Fitzpatrick, Musical Director for the three Dublin shows and a keyboard player who s seen service with The Blades, Katmandu, Something Happens, Aslan and Van Morrison to name but a few.
The basic idea is that there ll be a 65/70-piece orchestra, a full band, a selection of singers and George conducts the whole thing. The orchestra will obviously be working off sheet music so my job is to assemble and rehearse the band and sort out who ll be singing what.
Musicians already confirmed for the band include guitarists Conor Brady (Deaf Actor, The Blades, The Partisans, The Revenants, Brian, The Sofas and The Corrs) and Ray Harman (Something Happens) but the line-up as regards singers is still somewhat on the flexible side.
With something on this scale you re obviously trying to get the right people and they have to sort things out schedule-wise, explains Pat. At the moment Lisa Stansfield is looking pretty good, she sang on the Gershwin album that George produced but we won t really have a finished line-up until the middle of August or so. I don t think there s a singer who wouldn t jump at the idea, but it s all down to availability. We re working on it!
The last time the names George Martin and The Beatles appeared in close proximity was on last year s tribute album In My Life, a collection which saw Martin supervise versions of Lennon/McCartney songs performed by the likes of Sean Connery, Billy Connolly, Celine Dion, Phil Collins and Robin Williams. In short, it was a fucking disgrace.
It wasn t that great, no, concedes Fitzy diplomatically, but the brief I ve been given for this series of concerts is way different. There ll be no actors, cabaret stars or comedians. It s got to be done properly. The band will be a proper rock band and it ll give people the opportunity to hear arrangements the way they were on the records, which means using the different colours of the orchestra to work together with a band playing full belt. It s not going to be an evening of orchestral Beatles music for the blue-rinse set.
Pat is adamant that songs from the Revolver-era onwards will come to life in this setting in a way that Irish audiences won t have experienced before, even given the plethora of tribute acts doing the rounds these days.
I ve seen The Bootleg Beatles and they sounded amazing, he says, but, good as they are, you re not going to get the full effect of, say, the final sequence of A Day In The Life unless you ve heard a full orchestra playing it in front of you. No backing tape, however sophisticated, can make the same sound. That s the kind of thing we re aiming for.
I ve no problem at all with tribute bands but this is actually a true tribute, in the strictest sense of the word. It ll be paying respect to great songwriters and the man who was responsible for them being heard all over the world will be there himself. Personally, I can t wait!
Well, the rest of us will have to wait another two months for the experience but in the meantime you can be sure that speculation will be rife regarding just who ll comprise the final line-up of singers. Bono? Van Morrison? Andrea Corr? Elvis Costello? Paul McCartney? I m sure there s a bookies near you. n
George Martin plus band, orchestra and guest singers appears in the National Concert Hall on October 24th, 25th and 26th.