Legendary Rock Producer Martin Birch Has Passed

If you ever listened to a hard rock album from the 70s and 80s, chances are it was produced by Martin Birch. The producer had long running relationships with Iron Maiden (10 albums), Deep Purple (10 albums), Fleetwood Mac (9 albums), Whitesnake (9 albums), Rainbow (5 albums), and pairs of albums with both Blue Oyster Cult and Black Sabbath.

Birch was also an accomplished engineer who did of all the recording on the albums he produced. Among the artists that he worked in an engineering capacity include Jeff Beck, Faces, Wishbone Ash, Gary Moore, Michael Schenker Group and Canned Heat.

As evidenced by the fact that he worked with artists over a long period of time and many albums, Martin was the kind of person that musicians loved being around. Well-respected for his studio prowess, he was even better in getting the best out of an artist, something that they all appreciated.

Anyone who ever worked with him held him in the highest regard, and it was a shock to the the music business when he retired in 1992 at only 42 years old. He lived the rest of his life out of the spotlight and never gave an interview.

Martin Birch passed away quietly on August 9th at the age of 71, but he left us with a wealth of great music to remember him by. There are tributes all over the web, but here’s what Iron Maiden thought of the man.

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