Three hours ago, the Beatles drummer posted the below on twitter announcing the death of 90-year-old George Martin, in typical Ringo Starr fashion.

He followed this with a touching photo featuring the four piece with the producer.

Martin was born in London in 1926, he served in World War II as a part of the Royal Navy, before working for the Classical Musical department in the Beeb and then EMI. His career spanned 5 decades and he reportedly produced in the region of 700 records. He met the Beatles in 1962 before they had a record deal.

According to Rolling Stone: "The group's manager, Brian Epstein, approached the producer, who worked for EMI records, and got him to agree to give their demo tape a listen. 'The recording, to put it kindly, was by no means a knockout,' Martin wrote in his 1979 memoir, All You Need Is Ears. 'I could well understand that people had turned it down. But there was an unusual quality of sound, a certain roughness that I hadn't encountered before. There was also the fact that more than one person was singing'." He also added that they were "not very in tune. They weren't very good."

Despite this, Martin organised the Beatles' first recording session at Abbey Road in June of 1962. It was at this point that Martin suggested that "suggested that drummer Pete Best wasn't cutting it, they agreed to fire him."

The BBC reports that: "For the next eight years Martin guided the Fab Four from the frothy pop sound of I Want To Hold Your Hand to the ambitious experimentation of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road." He also wrote and conducted the backing sections to Eleanor Rigby and I Am The Walrus.

Prior to working with the Beatles, he "worked with artists such as Shirley Bassey, Matt Munro and the jazz bands of Johnny Dankworth and Humphrey Lyttleton. Martin also produced catchy, comic numbers, and enjoyed such successes as Right Said Fred with Bernard Cribbins, and Goodness Gracious Me with Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren."

Martin has also worked with Brian Wilson, Dire Straits, The Rolling Stones, Elton John, Sting, Jose Carreras, Celine Dion, to name but a few. In addition to this, he helped Lennon and McCartney on their solo projects. More recently he worked with Jeff Beck, Ultravox and more.

R.I.P.

Via The BBC / Rolling Stone