Mark Savage
Music reporter

Image source, PA

Without George Martin, The Beatles would have been a very different band.

His calm demeanour and technical expertise allowed the Fab Four to experiment and indulge their wildest and most elaborate ideas.

On many occasions, Lennon and McCartney would entrust him with arranging their songs. The string quartet on Yesterday is all his work, while he plays the piano solo on Misery.

Famously, Martin walked out of the band's first recording session at Abbey Road, leaving his engineers to supervise the recording of Besame Mucho while he went to the canteen.

But when the group started playing Love Me Do, a tape operator was dispatched to fetch him. It was the start of the most productive producer-musician relationship in modern pop - though The Beatles weren't quite ready to accept this suave Londoner into their inner circle.

As the recording session finished, Martin asked if there was anything the band didn't like. "Well, for a start," replied George Harrison, "I don't like your tie."

Luckily he saw the funny side - and together the quintet rewrote the rule book on popular music.

After The Beatles disbanded, Martin wrote film scores and worked with artists as varied as Sting, Jose Carreras, Celine Dion and Stan Getz.

In 1997, he produced Sir Elton John's re-write of Candle in the Wind, which went on to become the biggest-selling single of all time.

Despite beginning his career as an oboist, the classically-trained producer never regretted making his name in the mass market.

"Rock and roll has the same function as classical music," he once said. "To make sounds that are appealing to a mass of people and are of some worth."

Gary Barlow was on Chris Evans' Radio 2 Breakfast show this morning to remember Sir George Martin.

The Take That star said he was "a complete legend" whose technical innovations set a benchmark for those who followed in his footsteps.

"We're all still copying his work, let's face it," he said.

Listen to an excerpt.

Sean Ono Lennon, the son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, said he didn't "have many words", external following the death of Sir George, adding that his thoughts were with the producer's family. 

Composer David Arnold - who, like Sir George, composed music for the James Bond films - has also tweeted a tribute.

Producer and DJ Mark Ronson has remembered Sir George Martin as "the greatest British record producer ever".

"Thank you for everything," he wrote on Instagram, external.

Sir George appeared on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs in 1996, where he talked about his first meeting with The Beatles ("tremendous charisma") and his career as an oboist ("I wasn't good enough for the London Symphony, that's for sure").

Among his castaway records were George Gershwin's Bess, You is My Woman Now and a comedy routine by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, whom Martin had recorded in Cambridge before they brought Beyond the Fringe to London.

Listen to the full programme.

US record producer Quincy Jones has paid tribute to Sir George on Twitter - saying the pair had been friends for more than half a century. 

Prime minister David Cameron has also paid tribute to a man he called "a giant of music".

Sir Roger Moore - whose first James Bond film, Live and Let Die, was scored by Sir George - is another to have paid homage.

Born in north London in January 1926, Sir George's parents wanted a "safe civil servant's job" for their son. 

Instead he went on to help define the sound of British popular music. 

His technical knowledge and love of experimentation saw him produce incredible sounds from equipment modern musicians would consider primitive. 

But his greatest success came with The Beatles - from the lovable mop-top recordings of the early 1960s, to the acid-drenched psychedelia of Sergeant Pepper.

Read his obituary.

What are your memories of Sir George Martin? 

We'd like to hear your tributes to the producer. 

Tweet @BBCNewsEnts, external or email us at entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.  

The first many knew of Sir George's death was a tweet sent by Beatles drummer Ringo Starr early this morning.  

He also posted a picture of the Fab Four with Sir George, known as the "fifth Beatle". 

Kev Geoghegan
Arts and entertainment reporter

Image source, Getty Images

We're starting today with sad news that one of the giants of British music, Beatles producer Sir George Martin, has died at the age of 90.

Sir George signed the band in 1962 and worked with them until they disbanded following their final album Let It Be in 1970.

In a career spanning five decades, he produced more than 700 records and worked with artists including Gerry and the Pacemakers, Dame Shirley Bassey and Cilla Black.

He was knighted in 1996.