Death of a legend, and his part in my life

Beatles producer George Martin was largely responsible for the Fab Four's sound, which was, and is, popular in China

His life was gentle, and the elements / So mixed in him, that nature might stand up / And say to all the world, this was a man.

William Shakespeare wrote those words 400 years ago about Julius Caesar, but he may as well have been writing about George Martin, the musical genius behind the Beatles, who recently died at the venerable age of 90.

For most post-World War II kids growing up in Britain, the Beatles formed the soundtrack of our lives as society moved from the drab, depressing gray world of food rationing and utility furniture, into the swinging '60s, a time when youth found its voice and was determined not to become clones of our parents.

What made the Beatles - or the Fab Four, as they were known - such icons?

Well, up until then popular music was typified by songs from often middle-aged men dressed in either suits or tuxedos, or blonde, beautiful women dressed in glamorous evening gowns, all utterly unattainable for youngsters struggling to buy a cheap suit for work on credit. And that was just the boys.

So when the Beatles first erupted on the world stage, it was for most of us a revelation.

Here were four young working-class lads, with impossibly strong Liverpool accents and a bit of an attitude problem, singing songs about teenage love, and the angst that goes with it.

They literally took the world, including the United States, by storm. They called it Beatlemania.

A popular tabloid newspaper asked its readers, who would you let your daughter marry, a Beatle or a Rolling Stone? The Rolling Stones, the Beatles' great rivals, had an aggressive, sleazy image based on old American blues music. Most parents wanted their daughters to marry the cleaner-cut Beatles, with their emphasis on teenage romance (that changed in later years).

But the Beatles wouldn't have been anybody if it weren't for a talented, classically trained musician called George Martin, who worked for EMI as a record producer, arranger, composer, conductor, audio engineer and musician, and reigned supreme at their studios in Abbey Road, northwest London.

He took the raw talent that was the Beatles in the 1960s and honed them into a group capable of harmony, exuberance and invention.

Take the first No 1 hit, Please Please Me; listen to it now and you can feel Martin's discipline and musical ability shining through. The harmonies are brilliant.

The Beatles loved him. Untrained musically, they knew that if they asked for a particular sound - strings, a trumpet, a piccolo, you name it - Martin came up with it.

He soon became known as the Fifth Beatle, once memorably described by Paul McCartney as: "Just like a comfortable old pair of shoes. You just slip them on."

Polished and suave though he was, Martin himself came from a fairly ordinary background, and during his years with the Beatles the flamboyant, alternative lifestyle that they embraced never rubbed off on him.

Not for him the exotic chemical substances, the Maharishi or the batik scarves. He remained very much himself.

So what's the China connection, I hear you ask? Well, I learned just today that while China never succumbed to Beatlemania, Lennon-McCartney songs were, and remain, a strong part of music in China.

Michelle, Hey Jude and countless others have all been translated into Mandarin.

Now for a little anecdote involving my Chinese colleagues here in London. (Don't worry, I won't name names.)

For reasons too complicated to explain, a group of us ended up in Liverpool attending an event China Daily was co-promoting.

Late in the afternoon, I was amazed by a demand that we all go and visit the Cavern Club, the sweaty dive bar and cellar where the Beatles were famously spotted by the man who would become their manager, music store owner Brian Epstein.

I was fairly sure my colleagues hadn't a clue what they were in for. I knew, because as a teenager I'd gone there in the '60s and endured the crowds in the smoke-filled, dingy cellar.

Now the Cavern Club, an underground vaulted series of rooms, is open 24 hours a day, and a series of singers and groups play nonstop Beatles and '60s music.

It's the Beatles classics that get everyone dancing, young and not so young. All I will say to my colleagues is, you know who you are. It's on video, living proof of the potency of Beatles music.

So thank you for the music, George. I feel a burst of Hey Jude coming on.

The author is managing editor of China Daily Europe, based in London.

Contact the writer at chris@mail.chinadailyuk.com