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Mark Wirtz

Born 3 September 1943 in Strasbourg, Alsace (France); died 7 August 2020. Wirtz will always be remembered as the creator of the infamous [i]Teenage Opera[/i] which catapulted Keith West into momentary fame. Prior to this, he was a successful producer at EMI principally for his work on the stereo-only [i]Studio 2[/i] series. Wirtz was already producing the (pre [a=Tomorrow (2)]) [i]In Crowd,[/i] had used [a=Steve Howe] as a session guitarist on various projects, and subsequently asked Keith West to assist him on the “Teenage Opera”. Although the relative failure of [i]Sam,[/i] the second single, doomed its progress, he used Abbey Road down-time to assemble more “Opera” material, notably the highly complex [i](He’s Our) Dear Old Weatherman.[/i] It bore all of the producer’s distinctive trademarks—swirling strings, child singers and a sumptuous melody—and the result was an artistic masterpiece. Sadly, it was not a commercial success and all remaining Opera music was shelved. Wirtz remained very active in the music world, recording a variety of albums and singles during the seventies.