Grammy Award-winning audio engineer Geoff Emerick , who worked on several of the Beatles ' most important albums died on Tuesday from a heart attack at the age of 72.
His manager William Zabaleta confirmed the news, saying, "today, at around 2 o'clock, I was making my way back from Arizona to Los Angeles to go pick up Geoff so we could transport some gold records and platinum plaques to our show in Tucson," Zabaleta said in a statement online.
"While on the phone with Geoff Emerick, he had complications, dropped the phone. At that point I called 911, but by the time they got there it was too late. So Geoff suffered from heart problems for a long time. He had a pacemaker and, you know, when it's your time, it's your time. We lost a legend and a best friend to me and a mentor" he said.
Emerick is credited as being an innovator, willing to do anything to help his demanding clients craft their sound. When John Lennon said he wanted to sound like the "Dalai Lama singing on a mountain" for the 1966 song "Tomorrow Never Knows," Emerick and other sound engineers fed his voice through rotating speakers to distort it.