Martin Birch: Tribute paid to producer of heavy metal music

Tribute was paid to Martin Birch, the British music producer known for his work with such bands as Deep Purple, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath.

“Martin has been an enormous part of my life,” Whitesnake’s David Coverdale tweeted.

Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath said he was a “brilliant producer”, while Wendy Dio said he had been “Birch”a very friendof her late ex-husband Ronnie.

Birch, who died on Sunday at the age of 71, began in the late 1960s as an engineer for Fleetwood Mac and others.

He spent 11 years working with Iron Maiden, producing such classic records as Number of the Beast and Somwhere In Time.

Known as ‘The Headmaster’, he also produced and produced albums for Rainbow, Blue Oyster Cult and many others.

He retired in 1992 after producing Fear of the Dark, the last of the 10 Iron Maiden records on which he worked.

Birch was known for his long collaborations with such bands as Whitesnake, with whom he worked from their debut EP Snakebite to their 1984 album Slide It In.

“The fact that I’m used to the bands I’ve worked with helps me to immediately know what they want, or even what they can achieve, even if they do not even realize it clearly,” he once said.

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