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Taken from this year’s Bank Holiday broadcast in the UK, Misterclaudel presents the entire George Martin “Producer’s Show” that was broadcast over the airwaves by the BBC Radio 2 on the weekend of August 28th – August 31, 2009, profiling “The Fifth Beatle”.

Hosted by Richard Allison and Steve Levine, it profiles George Martin’s work with the Beatles as a producer; through his words, and music taken from the master tapes at Abbey Road. These tapes showcase Martin’s efforts to record the Beatles from the early beginnings in mono, to the wishes of the Beatles experimental artistic whims (on multi-track), where the Beatles progressed and thrived. The most important aspect of this show is George Martin. It’s nice to hear him talk about himself, his achievements and interpreting the Beatle’s ideas and visions onto vinyl.

This show also showcased the work (recently) at Abbey Road to clean up and fix the album masters for re-release to the public. We learn about the new software (Retouch) that was used to fix dropouts and how they can now separate audio from a track that had many instruments and or vocals bounced down, to one track, where now isolating certain instrumental parts for the first time is possible– such as the example given separating “Paperback Writer”. Cool isn’t cool enough of adjective to describe this technology.

For me, one of the highlights of this show comes at the end where we get to hear Lennon’s guide vocal for “Come Together” (previously unreleased) including the demonstration of how the master was built up and layered. A once seemingly simple backing track, had more thought and diversity than I ever imagined.

This is probably the best radio show about the Beatles in the studio that I can remember ever hearing. It makes a nice audio complement to the Beatles on Record show broadcast on TV in the UK and US. The sound is superb on this disc. This CD has a picture of a Rickenbacker guitar and is issued with a regular jewel case and insert advertising some Misterclaudel’s other most recent releases.

Some may have already downloaded the audio after it was broadcast, and some may want to include this release in your permanent CD collection. It comes highly recommended and a good time is guaranteed for all.

Misterclaudel – MCDD 148
Reviewer: Howard Fox (aka Beatle Bob)