Mark Opitz was born in Melbourne in 1952.[2][3] His mother Shirley, his father and an older sibling had moved from Darwin in the early 1950s to suburban Upwey and then Croydon.[2] During childhood his parents separated, he remained with his mother, living in Burwood. She worked as a nurse.[2] His neighbour and best friend was Kym Gyngell.[2] The family relocated to Brisbane when his parents were briefly reconciled.[2][3] After the couple separated again Opitz and his sibling were cared for by various people before being placed in the Margaret Marr Memorial Home for Boys in Wynnum – run by the Methodists.[2] While there he was subjected to emotional and physical abuse by the staff and bullying by fellow boarders.[2] After leaving the boys home he relocated to Sydney in the early 1970s. He has four children from his two marriages.[2] As from 2012 Opitz was married to Natalie (his second wife): they met in November 1998 at the Mushroom 25 Concert.[4]
Career
Opitz started his career at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's ABC TV in Sydney in 1971 as a studio trainee working on children's TV show Mr. Squiggle and rock music series GTK.[3] Initially he aspired to be a programme director, "I started as a cameraman. I worked on music shows."[4] He became an audio engineer.[5] In order to become a record producer he transferred to EMI in 1974 working in the mastering department.[4] By 1976 he was label manager for EMI's Australian division of Capitol Records.[4][6] He worked as assistant producer for EMI's in-house productions.[4]
Opitz was based primarily in the United States and Europe during the 1990s while working with international artists. However, he produced more INXS studio albums Welcome to Wherever You Are (1992) and Full Moon, Dirty Hearts (1993).[7] He had accompanied the group on their international tour, which resulted in the live album, Live Baby Live (1991), as well as Live at Wembley Stadium 1991 from their performance at Wembley Stadium. In the late 1990s Michael Gudinski of Mushroom Records invited Opitz to join his executive team and oversee Australian music recording projects in readiness for the sale of Gudinski's label to News Limited. Opitz worked in various facets of Mushroom Records' business interests and produced the Mushroom 25th Anniversary series of concerts, albums and TV/VHS specials in 1998.
Opitz is included in Billboard's All Time Top "Producer Encyclopaedia", which covers all genres of music. He worked with Bob Dylan on latter's Academy Award ceremony performance of "Things Have Changed" from the movie The Wonder Boys and on Kiss and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's recording Kiss Symphony: Alive IV (2003). He has also worked with Lenny Kravitz, Ray Charles and the Beach Boys. Opitz' company The Best Seat in the House produced the INXS DVD/TV special I'm Only Looking for international release through Warner Music in the US and Universal Music for the rest of the world. This project included many interviews, mini-documentaries as well as music videos and live performance footage. He also produced the music for Kiss' US TV special/DVD release Rock the Nation in 2006 and Paul Stanley's solo project in 2007. He produced albums for Rose Tattoo, Jeff Lang, and Monique Brumby.
As of 2011 Opitz was a full voting member in all categories of both ARIA Awards in Australia and Grammy Awards in the US. He developed music programmes by merging various music genres for rock group Bad//Dreems from Adelaide.[14] In 2016, the Australian National University (ANU) spent $12 million to establish their School of Music with Opitz as a Visiting Fellow of that department.[15] In August 2017 he was listed as one of The 7 Most Influential Music Producers of All Time by Mixdown Magazine's David Tomisch and Will Brewster.[10]
Bibliography
Wallis, Luke; Jenkins, Jeff; Opitz, Mark (2012), Sophisto-Punk: the Story of Mark Opitz and Oz Rock, North Sydney, NSW: Penguin Random House Australia, ISBN978-1-74275-794-0
The ARIA Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony that recognises excellence, innovation, and achievement across all genres of Australian music. They commenced in 1987.
Countdown was an Australian pop music TV series on national broadcaster ABC-TV from 1974–1987, it presented music awards from 1979–1987, initially in conjunction with magazine TV Week. The TV Week / Countdown Awards were a combination of popular-voted and peer-voted awards.[11]
^ abcdefghWallis, Luke; Jenkins, Jeff; Opitz, Mark (2012), Sophisto-Punk: the Story of Mark Opitz and Oz Rock, North Sydney, NSW: Penguin Random House Australia, ISBN978-1-74275-794-0
^"17th Annual ARIA Awards". Australian Recording Industry Association. Archived from the original on 22 February 2004. Retrieved 5 November 2016. Note: User may be required to access archived information by selecting 'The History', then 'By Award', 'Producer of the Year' and 'Option Show Nominations'.
^"Bad//Dreems – Ivy League". Ivy League Records. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 24 October 2022 – via National Library of Australia. {{cite web}}: External link in |title= (help)
^St Peeters, John (18 July 1977). "Summer of Love" (label sticker). Sydney, NSW: EMI (Australia). 11480B. Note:"Summer of Love" is the B-side of "Shiny Side Up".
^Lindsay, Reg; Coe, Rod (1977), Silence on the Line, EMI (Australia), retrieved 22 October 2022
^ abLade, Neil (22 April 1985). "Canberra Living". The Canberra Times. Vol. 59, no. 18, 102. p. 16. Retrieved 23 October 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
Winners: ARIA (1987). "Winners by Year 1987". Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). Archived from the original on 26 September 2007. Retrieved 2 December 2021.
Winners and nominees: ARIA (1987). "ARIA Awards 1987.mov". YouTube. ARIA Official YouTube Account (Australian Recording Industry Association). Retrieved 2 December 2021.
