The Beatles were a team of charismatic, zany misfits and cultural creatives, loved by radio disc jockeys, retailers, and a community of devoted fans, vinyl collectors, and seekers.
We never owned the Beatles, but thankfully, we could take them out on loan and hear the possibility of tomorrow in our time zones.
With the early October 2026 release of The Beatles’ landmark 1965 album Rubber Soul, newly remixed by producer Giles Martin and engineer Sam Okell, we get to hear and experience the collection in new stereo and Dolby mixes, coupled with the original mono mix and original Capitol Records album version, alongside previously unreleased session recordings and home demos and the contemporary double A-side single, Day Tripper / We Can Work It Out.
Cirque du Soleil and Apple Corps Ltd. announced that The Beatles™ LOVE™ , the groundbreaking production celebrating the music and legacy of The Beatles through the artistry of Cirque du Soleil, concluded its historic Las Vegas run at The Mirage on July 7, 2024, as the resort began its transformation into the Hard Rock Las Vegas.
From the Cirque du Soleil press announcement.
“The Beatles LOVE soundtrack, produced and mixed by the Beatles’ original producer George Martin and his son Giles Martin, is Cirque du Soleil’s first and only GRAMMY®-winning soundtrack. George and Giles Martin worked with the entire archive of Beatles recordings to create the soundscape for LOVE, utilizing 130 songs to create the 26-track soundtrack.”
With the 2026 edition of Rubber Soul, The Beatles’ catalog and LOVE are having another retail renaissance.
Multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and record producer Giles Martin was born in 1969 in England, on October 9th, John Winston Lennon’s birthday. “John said to my dad, [Sir George Martin] ‘Now you know what an ass hole he’s gonna turn out to be,’” Giles joked.
“At age 14 I decided this is what I wanted to do, to the shock of my parents. 1984, and my dad didn’t have much great work going on. He had finished the McCartney albums, and in the ‘80s I think he thought, or he didn’t know, what kind of future I would have,” Martin continued
“So, I went out on a limb and learned guitar without my parents knowing. They had brought me a ukulele for Christmas that I asked for. The same fingering with the bottom four strings. I played the French horn at school and wanted to go to a music college, and my parents said, ‘How are you going to feed yourself?’
So, I ended up going to Manchester University, majoring in American Politics and Literature. At University, I wrote petrol (gas) advertisements, and looking back on it, I wish I had more formal training in some ways. I feel as though there are huge holes in my knowledge, and at the same time, it makes life much more interesting because people think that you know more than you know and therefore you have to learn it,” he concluded.
Martin has independently earned a reputation as a successful producer, songwriter and composer far away from the spotlight of his father’s audio legacy. Giles’ first notable credit came as musical director and producer, developing and inking the multi-million-selling UK band Kula Shaker.
LOVE is the latest in a long history of father-son collaborations between Giles and Sir George. Under this partnership of destiny, Giles has co-produced a multitude of major label albums including The Beatles Anthology, The Glory of Gershwin and Sir George's last project In My Life, a compilation of Beatles songs performed by an all-star ensemble of pop recording artists.
In the last twenty years, Giles’ production and mixing credits list collaborations with Kate Bush, Elvis Costello, Jeff Beck, INXS and Celine Dion. He produced in 2004 Hayley Westenra's multi-platinum Pure, a uge UK classical album.
Martin subsequently helmed her Odyssey disc.
Giles has been the central figure on a variety of Beatles-centric endeavors. He was the producer overseeing the 50th anniversary Beatles remix/deluxe editions of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (2017), the White Album (2018), Abbey Road (2019), Let It Be 2021, Revolver 2022, 1962-1966 (The Red Album) (2023) and 1967-1970 (The Blue Album) (2023). In addition, he served as the music supervisor for the documentary series The Beatles: Get Back, as well as music mixer along with collaborator Sam Okell, and won an Emmy Award for The Beatles: Get Back.
In 2018, Giles Martin was appointed by Universal Music Group as the Head of Audio and Sound. He is based at UMG’s Abbey Road Studios.
Martin did the Atmos mix editions of both Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
GILES MARTIN: ON THE SOUND OF LOVE
“Our first mission was to try and achieve the same intimacy we get when listening to the master tapes at Abbey Road Studios," Giles said. "The songs sound so alive it’s incredible to think that the material is forty years old. The last thing we wanted to create was a retrospective or a tribute show. With the manipulation of the tracks and the huge number of speakers in the theatre, the audience will feel as though they are actually in the room with the boys. A lot of people listen to the Beatles in a conventional way but never in such a sophisticated space. There’s a real sense of drama with the music in the theatre space.”
In 2007, I interviewed Giles Martin about LOVE, the Beatles’ influential recording catalogue, collaborating with his father, as well as his then-current music productions.
Portions of my interview with Giles Martin appeared on Waves Audio in 2007
Giles, before LOVE was formally in motion, I heard you and your dad I heard were going to do something with Yellow Submarine, using Sir George’s instrumental compositions.
Cirque went away, and they had ideas about updating the Beatles music, what they did with Elvis (Presley), “A Little Less Conversation.” And this appalled the Beatles. And so then, Neil Aspinall from Apple phoned up my dad, and at the same time, I just had success of my own with a classical thing in the UK and Neil phoned my dad, and when Jonathan Clyde from Apple came to see me, my dad said, “I’d like Giles to really get involved in this.”
I was then interviewed by Apple, and I sat down with Neil, and we talked about how he’d like the show to get across, like a Beatles’ performance, since he was the road manager of the Beatles since they were at school. He told me, “I remember they would start with ‘Long Tall Sally’ and we’d finish.” And I said, “Perhaps I can create a live performance of a gig that never happened, starting off with drums, the band tuning up, just out of their tapes. Maybe I can try that.” And he said, “Have a go.” So, I said to my dad, “How ‘bout this? And the rule from the Beatles was that you have to use everything on tape.” And that suited us down to ground. And, basically, the way it worked
It’s one of those things. With the Beatles, and rightfully so, there are rules and regulations, and it’s difficult for someone outside the circle to come in and really say something about it.
And I think part of making records or doing anything is trying to get across the humanity of things.
Can we discuss the working relationship and father and son dynamics between you and dad on the LOVE album?
That’s a complex question, but the key is we are father and son. It’s a big thing. And what that means, it doesn’t matter what is said, we have a bond with each other, and I have enormous respect for him and he has pride in what I do. So, that’s a good starting point. And, in the Beatles projects, really the roles were… I was trying to impress him. He’s done it. It’s the ultimate thing for someone who made the most successful recordings of all time. And, it one of those things with the way he works.
Even at age 37, I was trying to prove to him I could do it, and that was a great challenge. And the way that we would work, I would do something, play it to him, and then we would discuss it. And it was a fun thing
“He was my brain to a certain extent. It was that thing where I would get carried away, and he would rein me back in and say things. He’s a very intelligent man, despite his deficiencies in hearing, which he has now, at age 81, that’s fine. He has a great brain, a great musical brain, and he’d be able to say to me, “Maybe we should try this,” or “What are you doing? I don’t think that works.”
In the choice of archiving all the material, we listened to everything together. I would log and build a database of everything. I would find things and it reminded him of their genius.
You had involvement with Paul and Ringo, and Olivia Harrison and Yoko Ono as the recording developed and was produced.
The Beatles were very encouraging. After the initial demo thing, they made me feel part of the process. And that sounds like a stupid thing to say, but it’s difficult being there working with a legacy that is 40 years old, and having to make creative decisions. And they allowed me to do that, snd they were incredibly kind. And enthusiastic about hearing stuff. That was the thing.
When they came around to the studio, I was always very nervous. ‘Cause a lot of work goes into each thing. Their attitude was that they were really looking forward to hearing it. OK. It wasn’t like an A&R guy coming down. It was really with bare-faced enthusiasm for their own music. So that enthusiasm brushed off. Like, Paul, “Cool. What’s this?” “That’s great.” I remember sitting down at the theater actually listening to the Waves mixes with Paul and he’d go, “My voice in ‘Lady Madonna’ is less middly. It’s different.”
The thing about them is that they are all very bright, it’s not like they’re kind of hippies going “Cool. Let’s go to the pub.” (laughs). They know their stuff.
The same with Yoko (Ono). She came to Vegas a few times. I would go to New York. It was always one-on- ones and I spent a lot of time flying with drives in my pocket. I had a secure drive that had a key, and I’d go and see Yoko, or Olivia would come to Abbey Road. Paul came to Las Vegas, and he came to Abbey Road. And Ringo came to both as well. So, it was really a question of being one-on-one. There was never a CD approval.
With both Ringo and Paul, my main memory, my biggest fondest moment, of the whole thing, was nothing to do with me. Both Paul and Ringo said to me that I had been so sensitive with our material and really taken it in, and that means a great deal, but the thing that struck me was when we were at Abbey Road, listening to “Come Together” with them both and individually, they weren’t together at the time, they said, “God, we were really good on this day. I remember this day. We really nailed this.”
For them to appreciate their own craft, without any of the politics, or any of the hyperbole, or the other stuff that goes on, it’s four guys in the room listening by two mates themselves, and really just remembering what a great time they had.
Harvey Kubernik is the author of 20 books, including 2009’s Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic And The Music Of Laurel Canyon, 2014’s Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In Los Angeles 1956-1972, 2015's Every Body Knows: Leonard Cohen, 2016's Heart of Gold Neil Young and 2017's 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love.
Sterling/Barnes and Noble in 2018 published Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik’s The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz. In2021 they wrote Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child for Sterling/Barnes and Noble. Otherworld Cottage Industries in 2020 published Harvey’s Docs That Rock, Music That Matters.
His writings are in several book anthologies, most notably The Rolling Stone Book Of The Beats and Drinking With Bukowski. Harvey wrote the liner notes to the CD re-releases of Carole King’s Tapestry, The Essential Carole King, Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish, Elvis Presley The ’68 Comeback Special, The Ramones’ End of the Century and Big Brother & the Holding Company Captured Live at The Monterey International Pop Festival.
During 2006, he spoke at the special hearings initiated by The Library of Congress held in Hollywood, California, discussing archiving practices and audiotape preservation. In 2017 Kubernik appeared at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, as part of their Distinguished Speakers Series. Since 2012, Harvey has been the Editorial Director of Record Collector News Magazine.
