Emerick, Geoff 1946-

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EMERICK, Geoff 1946-

PERSONAL:

Born 1946, in London, England.

ADDRESSES:

CAREER:

Recording studio audio engineer. EMI Records and Apple Records, London, England, audio engineer, beginning 1962. Has worked on albums for singers and groups, including the Beatles, Paul McCartney and Wings, Elvis Costello, Zombies, Badfinger, Supertramp, Tim Hardin, America, Robin Trower, Jeff Beck, and Nellie McKay.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Four Grammy awards, including lifetime achievement award; inductee, TEC Hall of Fame, 2002.

WRITINGS:

(With Howard Massey) Here, There, and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles, Gotham Books (New York, NY), 2006.

ADAPTATIONS:

Here, There, and Everywhere was adapted to audio cassette, Penguin Audio, 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Working with Howard Massey, Geoff Emerick detailed his career as an audio engineer for the Beatles in Here, There, and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles. Emerick made a name for himself working on such albums as Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Abbey Road. As Maureen Droney noted on ProSoundWeb.com:"The superb songwriting of [John] Lennon and [Paul] McCartney and the brilliant polish of producer George Martin were, of course, essential elements, but without the courage, vision, and determination of Emerick, these recordings would have been lesser accomplishments." Droney further remarked: "He pushed the boundaries of recording, doing things that others had either never thought of, or never dared to try.… Simply put, Geoff Emerick brought record engineering into the modern era." One example of such innovative techniques, as explained in the memoir, was Emerick's solution for Lennon's request on one song that his voice "sound like the Dalai Lama chanting from a mountaintop." Emerick, as Todd Leopold explained in a CNN article, "ran the Beatle's voice through a Leslie, an amp with two spinning speakers" to achieve the effect on the song that became "Tomorrow Never Knows." In their book, Emerick and Massey concentrate on Emerick's life in the studio, where he worked all-night sessions to create exactly the kinds of sounds that Lennon or McCartney were aiming for on songs that have since become classics.

Reviewing Here, There, and Everywhere in Booklist, June Sawyers felt that music aficionados "ought to love this as-told-to insider's account of working with the world's most famous band." Further praise came from a Kirkus Reviews critic who called the book "admirably evenhanded," and an "an illuminating chronicle." David Loftus further observed in the California Literary Review: "This is not a tell-all insider's account. There are only a few passing, casual references to drug use and virtually no sex. Emerick is mostly kind, fair, and almost gentlemanly in his judgments." For Kliatt writer Francine Levitov, the work provides an "unusual perspective on the evolving dynamics of the Fab Four."