Norman Smith

Norman Smith aka Hurricane Smith (22 February 1923 – 3 March 2008) was an English musician and record producer. Smith was born in Edmonton, North London and served as a RAF glider pilot during World War II. After an unsuccessful career as a jazz musician, Smith joined EMI as an apprentice sound engineer in 1959. He was the engineer on all of the EMI studio recordings by The Beatles until 1965 when EMI promoted him from engineer to producer. The l... more

Norman Smith aka Hurricane Smith (22 February 1923 – 3 March 2008) was an English musician and record producer. Smith was born in Edmonton, North London and served as a RAF glider pilot during World War II. After an unsuccessful career as a jazz musician, Smith joined EMI as an apprentice sound engineer in 1959. He was the engineer on all of the EMI studio recordings by The Beatles until 1965 when EMI promoted him from engineer to producer. The last Beatles album he recorded was Rubber Soul, and Smith engineered the sound for slightly fewer than 100 Beatles songs in total. While working with The Beatles on 17 June 1965, he was offered £15,000 by the band's music publishing company, Dick James Music, to buy outright a song he had written. In early 1967, he began working with a new group, Pink Floyd, producing their first, second, and fourth studio albums The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, A Saucerful of Secrets, and Ummagumma. During the sessions for the song, "Remember a Day", drummer... less