Geoff Emerick, the man who was recording engineer on some of the Beatles most revered albums, has died. He was 72 and believed to have suffered a heart attack according to his manager William Zabaleta.

His work for The Beatles included the albums Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles and Abbey Road. During his career Emerick won four Grammy awards.

Emerick first started working at EMI at the age of 15 as an assistant engineer, on his second day he was to assist on the first recording session of The Beatles. The song was Love Me Do.

At the request of George Martin Emerick took over as first engineer for The Beatles and his work helped to create many of the sounds of those early hits.

His website says this of his early work;

“Working closely with producer George Martin, Emerick manned the board for the Beatles’ most adventurous forays: Revolver (1966), Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), and Abbey Road (1969), as well as much of Magical Mystery Tour (1967) and the White Album (1968). Additionally, Emerick engineered the live worldwide television broadcast of “All You Need Is Love” in June 1967 (the first time such a feat was ever attempted) and what many call the greatest double-sided single ever released: “Penny Lane” / “Strawberry Fields Forever” (1967). His groundbreaking approach to studio engineering earned him four Grammy Awards: “Best Engineer” for Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Band On The Run, and Abbey Road, and the 2003 Technical Grammy for “pushing the boundaries of studio recording techniques to new frontiers of creativity and imagination”.”

Emerick worked with many acts after The Beatles including America, Jeff Beck, Elvis Costello, Supertramp, Art Garfunkel and countless others, he received a Technical Grammy in 2003.

Giles Martin, George’s son has said on Twitter…

RIP @GeoffEmerick one of finest and most innovative engineers to have graced a recording studio. I grew up with him as he worked so much with my father. We have all been touched by the sounds he helped create on the greatest music ever recorded.

More recently Emerick travelled and shared his knowledge with thousands of engineers around the world speaking at Universities and conferences.