George Martin: the man who changed pop forever (with a little help from his friends)

The music came from the Beatles – but it was George Martin’s willingness to step outside the boundaries of what was acceptable that helped make them special

There is a theory that George Martin was a man who got incredibly lucky the day he met the Beatles. It’s a theory that was sometimes posited by the Beatles themselves, in their less gracious moments. “When people ask me questions about ‘What did George Martin really do for you?’ I have only one answer. ‘What does he do now?’” wrote John Lennon in 1971. “It’s not a putdown, it’s the truth.”

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