Geoff Emerick Discusses the Guitar "Battle"
From
Norbert K@21:1/5 to
All on Thu Mar 10 09:41:03 2022
Geoff Emerick explains that, once John, Paul and George had agreed upon trading solos on "The End," Lennon for once asked Yoko to stay behind while he entered the studio with the others. Yoko looked stunned and hurt. Emerick continues:
It was almost as if [John] knew that she would put a damper on things and spoil the atmosphere if she were in the studio with them. Something inside told John that to get this to work, he needed to be doing it with just Paul and George, that it
would be better for Yoko to not be at his side this one time. Maybe that was the reason, or perhaps it was because on some unconscious level they had decided to suspend their egos for the sake of the music, but for the hour or so that it took them to
play those solos, all the bad blood, all the fighting, all the crap that had gone down between the three former friends was forgotten. John, Paul and George looked like they had gone back in time, like they were kids again, playing together for the
sheer enjoyment of it. More than anything, they reminded me of gunslingers, with their guitars strapped on, looks of steely-eyed resolve, determined to outdo one another. Yet there was no animosity, no tension at all -- you could tell that they were
simply having fun.
While they were practicing, I took great care to craft a different, distinctive sound for each Beatle, so that it would be apparent that it was three individuals playing and not just one person playing an extended solo. They were each playing a
different model guitar through a different type of amplifier, so it wasn't all that difficult to achieve. I had Mal [Evans] line the three amps up in a row -- there was no need for a great deal of separation because they were all going to be recorded on
a single track. Because there was little overlap between each two-bar solo, I knew that I could balance the levels afterward simply by moving one fader.
Incredibly, after just a brief period of rehearsal, they nailed it in a single take. When it was over, there was no backslapping or hugging -- the Beatles rarely expressed themselves physically like that -- but there were lots of broad grins. It
was a heartwarming moment -- one of the rare times I could say that in recent months -- and I made a point of congradulating each of them when they came into the control room to have a listen. I was so blown away by Harrison's playing in particular that
I made a point of saying "That was really brilliant" when he walked through the door. George looked a bit surprised, but he gave me a nod and a gracious thank-you. It was one of the few times that I felt I had connected on a personal level with him.
-- from Emerick's book Here, There, and Everywhere
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