Judd Judd

Alsatian wunderkind Mark Wirtz led many successful pop music projects during the 1960s and 70s, especially during his long tenure at Abbey Road. A gifted painter, musician and actor, Wirtz’s college band was signed to EMI as Mark Rogers and the Marksmen, while Wirtz was still attending the RADA in London; by 1965 he was producing music independently and became an in-house producer at Abbey Road in 1967, working with Keith West & Tomorrow and fronting the Mark Wirtz Orchestra, AKA The Mood Mosaic. The blues and soul-tinged Judd album, issued in 1970 on Larry Page’s Penny Farthing label, featured Wirtz on keyboards and rhythm guitar, fronting a studio band with bassist Roger Flavell, guitarist Roger McKew and drummer Tat Meager (who had played on Siren’s eponymous, John Peel-produced debut LP); backing vocalists such as Madeleine Bell, Doris Troy and sisters Yvonne and Heather Wheatman, AKA Sonny and Sue, gave a more rounded sound. Much of the material was co-written by Kris Ife, who had worked with McKew in The Quiet Five, though there is also an individual cover of Credence Clearwater Revival’s “Down On The Corner,” made livelier by Wirtz’s piano chords.