He foresaw the great musical potential of the Beatles and signed them to EMI. From their first hit "Love Me Do," he produced the Beatles and turned their ideas into recordings at the legendary Abbey Road Studios. Sir George Martin is rightly regarded today as the "fifth Beatle," as he became the band's arranger and idea man. It was also his decision to remove drummer Pete Best from the band. Other record companies like Decca, Philips, and even the EMI subsidiary Columbia had already rejected the Liverpool band. Nevertheless, George Martin listened to the Decca recordings: "Pretty lousy, poorly balanced, no good songs from a very unpolished group. But something sounded interesting," Martin recalls in his book. On June 6, 1962, he signed the long-awaited record contract with Parlophone, a subsidiary of EMI, for the Beatles.