On this day in 2012, the new issue of SHORE magazine came out. It featured my piece about my brush with Beatles producer George Martin. (If you look closely at the cover above, the last notation is about this piece). On the tenth anniversary of the magazine, I'm posting it here again.
Sir George Martin is an
icon in the music business. If he had done nothing else in his career, the fact
that he was the producer of every Beatles album except “Let it Be” would have
been enough to cement his place in rock and roll history. He was their mentor, and they were my
heroes.
When I received a phone call in December of 1995
alerting me to George Martin’s availability for radio interviews to promote the
Beatles Anthology project, I was speechless for a moment. I cleared my throat,
booked the interview, and bounced off the walls for twenty minutes or so before
I told the host of the show—John Landecker. I wasn’t prepared for John’s
reaction.
“You should
interview him,” he said.
“Why me?” I asked. “It’s your show.”
“Because you’re the Beatles fanatic,” he said.
“I want you to do it.”
I didn’t know it at the time, but John had a
master plan. He figured his normally unflappable German producer would turn
into a stuttering, stammering fool if he was forced to interview one of his
heroes. In John's mind, that had much more potential than a straight interview.
When he started promoting the interview a few
days later, he laid it on pretty thick to make me even more nervous.
“Don’t blow this Rick,” he said. “There are
millions of Beatles fans in Chicago, and since we’re the only station that gets
to interview him, you have to speak for all of them.”
Gulp.
Outwardly I wasn’t showing it, but it was
getting to me. I called all of my Beatles friends across the country and asked
them to submit questions to me. I carefully considered each of them, crossed
off the ones that seemed “too inside” or “too geeky,” and prepared diligently.
I knew we only had ten minutes with him, so I couldn’t waste a moment with
frivolous questions.
The morning of the interview I came to the
studio with a list of questions in my cold sweaty hands. When the hot-line rang to alert us
that Mr. Martin was standing by at his microphone in London, the color left my
face.
“Look at Rick,” John joked. “He’s white as a
ghost.”
“Am not,” I said. My voice cracked.
John couldn’t stop laughing. “Maybe I better
start the interview,” he said. “Sir George…are you with us?”
We couldn’t hear anything for a moment and then
there he was. His lovely British accent responded: “Hello, John. How are you this
morning?”
“I’m great,” John said. “I hope you don’t mind,
but we’re going to do something a little different this morning. My producer
Rick is a gigantic Beatles fan, and he badgered me to let him do this
interview, so I’m turning it over to him now. This will be fun--Producer
interviewing Producer. Sir George Martin, this is Rick.”
He was silent for a moment again before
answering politely: “Hello Rick.”
I almost fainted. I realize how pathetic this
sounds in retrospect, but I don’t think I can find the proper words to explain
how excited and nervous I was to be speaking with this man.
George Martin was the producer of the Beatles!
He had been sitting across the glass from John Lennon when he sang “Strawberry
Fields Forever.” Hell, he pieced that song together for Lennon, and made
suggestions, and…oh my God…I could barely breathe.
It didn’t help that John Landecker was rolling
on the floor laughing at me, but I ventured on. I knew I would impress Sir
George with my knowledge of the Beatles. I knew he would warm to me instantly
when he heard my insightful questions. So I launched right into them.
That’s the last thing I remember.
No, actually, that’s not entirely true. I do
remember his response to my first question—even though I don’t remember the
question itself.
Total silence.
That’s when I started flop-sweating. I lost all
my confidence instantly. If I had my wits about me I would have realized that
his silence was caused by the slight satellite delay, but I was too far gone by
then. I was sure he was rolling his eyes at me from across the pond. He eventually
answered me, but I didn’t even listen to his answer. After my second or third
question, Landecker was forced to jump in to rescue me. I completely and
utterly failed.
John loved every second of
the experience. I needed an IV to replenish my fluids.
That happened seventeen years ago, and I can
finally laugh about it now. It’s not easy coming to grips with the fact that
you’re the Bill Buckner of Beatles interviewers.
