VOA慢速英语--披头士制作人乔治·马丁去世

AS IT IS 2016-03-10 Beatles Producer George Martin Dies 披头士制作人乔治·马丁去世

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English record producer George Martin is credited with helping¹ The Beatles become famous.

He is the only producer that would offer them a recording² contract after they had been rejected by many others.

He helped John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr produce 20 No. 1 songs during the 1960s.

Martin died on March 8. The news came out on the morning of March 9. He was 90 years old.

According to an obituary³ in the Washington Post, Martin studied piano while he was a boy in London before World War II. He entered the Navy during the war, then studied music and oboe.

He started his career with the British Broadcasting Corporation, working in the music library.

In 1950, he went to work for the record company EMI. Twelve years later, he met The Beatles. And a short time after, he helped them create their first big hit, called “Please Please Me,” in early 1963.

McCartney and Starr used Twitter to send messages expressing their respect for Martin and their sadness about his death.

McCartney said: “The world has lost a truly great man,” and “he was like a second father to me.” He posted a photo of the two of them from a recording session and referred people to a longer blog post on his website.

Starr posted a message saying, “Thank you for all your love and kindness, George, Peace and Love...” It also included a photo of The Beatles with Martin when they were just getting started.

Martin produced the famous “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album. Other songs that Martin recorded with The Beatles were “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “Yesterday,” Hey Jude,” “Penny Lane” and “Eleanor Rigby.”

Lots of people expressed their feelings about Martin and The Beatles after hearing the news.

Martin was the top trending topic on Twitter, with almost 300,000 mentions.

British Prime Minister David Cameron called Martin, “a giant of music.”

John Lennon’s son, Sean, said “I’m so gutted⁴. I don’t have many words.” Gutted is a British English slang⁵ word meaning sad and disappointed.

American record producer Quincy Jones, famous for working with Michael Jackson, called Martin his “musical brother.”

Mark Ronson, another British music producer who earned his fame more recently by working with Amy Winehouse and Bruno Mars⁶, said “we will never stop living in the world you helped create.”

Words in This Story

producer – n. someone who supervises⁷ the recording (or production) of a performer's music.

contract – n. a legal agreement between people and businesses to produce work for pay

hit – n. something that is very successful, like a song, movie or book

slang – n. words and expressions that are considered informal in speech

gutted – adj. sad or depressed⁸

obituary – n. a report in a newspaper about the life of someone who has died recently

1 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

2 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

3 obituary   

n.讣告，死亡公告；adj.死亡的

参考例句：

• The obituary records the whole life of the deceased.讣文记述了这位死者的生平。
• Five days after the letter came,he found Andersen s obituary in the morning paper.收到那封信五天后，他在早报上发现了安德森的讣告。

4 gutted   

adj.容易消化的v.毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的过去式和过去分词 )；取出…的内脏

参考例句：

• Disappointed? I was gutted! 失望？我是伤心透了！
• The invaders gutted the historic building. 侵略者们将那幢历史上有名的建筑洗劫一空。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

5 slang   

n.俚语，行话；vt.使用俚语，辱骂；vi.辱骂

参考例句：

• The phrase is labelled as slang in the dictionary.这个短语在这本字典里被注为俚语。
• Slang often goes in and out of fashion quickly.俚语往往很快风行起来又很快不再风行了。

6 Mars   

n.火星，战争

参考例句：

• As of now we don't know much about Mars.目前我们对火星还知之甚少。
• He contended that there must be life on Mars.他坚信火星上面一定有生物。

7 supervises   

v.监督，管理( supervise的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The group leader supervises a dozen workers. 组长管十二个工人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He makes the wines and supervises the vineyards. 他酿酒并管理葡萄园。 来自辞典例句

8 depressed   

adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的

参考例句：

• When he was depressed,he felt utterly divorced from reality.他心情沮丧时就感到完全脱离了现实。
• His mother was depressed by the sad news.这个坏消息使他的母亲意志消沉。