Beatles Without George Martin?

That's why he often called "the fifth Beatle".

Still, the lads could do some things for themselves. When Pete Best was dropped from the band, George Martin arranged a studio drummer for the recording of "Love Me Do", not knowing whether this Ringo guy that the group had lined up would be any good. That's why there are two versions of the song. They sound quite different with the different drummers. Turned out that Ringo wasn't so bad after all so George Martin went along with their choice.

martin was great(when paired with the beatles). his career outside of the beatles music(check his discography without the band)was 'slight' at best. martin didn't write those songs..the boys did. would history have been different if the fab four had been paired with another top record producer of that time> i don't think so. the beatles collective talent was going to happen, and those great lyrics and melodies were in their souls. the beatles were 'students' in the studio for sure, but allowing lennon, mccartney. harrison, and starr to express themselves was martin's greatest accomplishment. martin was an influence for sure, but so were little richard, carl perkins, elvis, cliff richard, meridith wilson, and all the great songwriters and performers that led up to birth of the beatles. pushing the envelope was what the boys set out to do, and they obviously did it.

"his career outside of the beatles music(check his discography without the band)was 'slight' at best" Jaybo - so wrong!

Those great sounding America tracks were produced by George Martin. Sister Golden Hair, Ventura Highway, Horse With No Name, ....

Regarding the argument that he wasn't very successful outside of the Beatles, the same argument could be made for the Beatles as individual artists. None of them were nearly successful as the band itself. This is one of "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts" deals.

Martin wrote and arranged most of the strings for the Beatles.

He also played piano in many of the recordings. His Baroque style piano solo in the middle of "In My Life" is simply beautiful.

It's easy to underestimate his role in the Beatles success until you read many of the books about them.