Giles Martin opens up about the Beatles' archive and future projects
Giles Martin is the son of the Beatles producer Sir George Martin
Giles Martin, son of the highly acclaimed Beatles producer Sir George Martin, joined Ken Bruce on Greatest Hits Radio to talk about the release of the Beatles Anthology music collections, which he has remastered. Giles also spoke about future projects around the Beatles, including the Sam Mendes films he is working on.
Over the past few weeks, the work of The Beatles has been celebrated with the release of the Beatles Anthology book, music collections and now a docu-series on Disney+, including a brand new ninth episode.
'Anthology 4'
Speaking to Ken, Giles opened up about the decision to release the new albums, telling him: "The first anthology was 30 years ago. It was the first time I'd ever really worked with my dad, (George Martin) at Abbey Road. I came in (to the studio) and it's the first time I'd ever seen him press play on a tape machine and out come the Beatles.
"With Peter Jackson, the film director, we did Get Back, it was our lockdown project, which was a kind of fun lockdown project. And he decided, he said: 'You know, I could restore anthology' (the films) and we decided, ok, well, there's so much amazing material we've discovered since then, working on the material that we decided to put an 'Anthology 4’ the album out as well.
"The beauty of it and the sort of anodyne world we live in, with teams of songwriters around the world, you know, collaborating, just have the purity of these four amazing musicians going to a room and just playing a song, and it's immediate."
'In My Life'
He continued: "It's like you take one of ‘In My Life’ is just that, it's John's song, the band's playing it, and it's beautiful. And there's an immediacy to it, and a sort of rawness to it, which I think is really appealing."
Giles went on to reveal that the version included on 'Anthology 4' is the first take. "You can hear how John changed the phrasing later on if you listen to it," he explained.
"But it's just still valid. It's still... It's such a, it is such a beautiful song. In fact, it's a song that was my dad's... my father's favourite lyric of John's and actually, I read it out at his funeral... It's that ability to touch you in a way, without even knowing it. So that's what the Beatles do."
The Beatles archive
During the interview, Ken also asked if there was any more music in the archive that fans might get to see. But disappointingly, Giles admitted there isn't much we haven't already heard.
He explained: "Well, I would say 'no', and I don't think there is. I think that, and then things appear. It's like ‘Now And Then’, I produced ‘Now and Then’ with Paul (McCartney) and you think, 'well, this has got to be it'... Fans always want more and more things.
"There's a track called ‘Carnival Light’, it was the 'great missing Beatles song', which was essentially something they did for a light installation in Roundhouse, which is kind of, it makes ‘Revolution 9’ from the ‘White’ album sound like ‘Penny Lane’.
"It's very much experimental work, I would say. I think that would probably be more of an experiential thing. There are bits and pieces, but it's not as though we go with some sort of great marketing campaign and go, we need to hold this back for another date."
Sam Mendes films
Finally during the interview, Ken asked Giles about future projects he has involving the Beatles and the biggest one is the Sam Mendes films. The films see each member of the Beatles being the subject of their own film, as the stories intertwine between the four movies.
Although he couldn't reveal much about the project, Giles did say that he has been on set every day. "My next two years or maybe more, is working with Sam Mendes on these films we're doing," Giles explained.
"I'm taking time out today by doing this, I'm there on set every day and it's amazing.
"So yes, that's going to be impactful and all I can talk about is that the level of attention to detail we're doing, it's quite incredible."
The Beatles Anthology is now out as a book, music collections and docu-series on Disney+.
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