Biography
Mark Wirtz devised Philwit & Pegasus not as a functioning band but as an eccentric, one-time studio creation during the late 1960s. Wirtz had already built his name chiefly by crafting albums of mood music that fused rock touches with easy listening, and by producing the British psychedelic pop group Tomorrow. He co-wrote and produced that band’s major British hit of 1967, “Excerpt from a Teenage Opera,” which prompted talk of an expansive concept album or rock opera that was never finished. Still, he obtained a platform to shape a comparable conceptual work in 1970 when Chapter One Records issued the self-titled Philwit & Pegasus album.
Wirtz intended the LP to function as a movie on vinyl and shaped its song cycle with his girlfriend at the time, Maria Feltham. The collection contained no actual plot or narrative, although Wirtz later described its theme in the CD reissue liner notes as “struggle, fear, and fantasized happiness.” Neither Wirtz nor Feltham performed on the sessions. Lead vocals were supplied by noted songwriter John Carter, Peter Lee Stirling, Chas Mills, Guy Fletcher, and Roger Greenaway, another songwriter responsible for numerous British pop hits. Among the session players were guitarists Chris Spedding, listed in the credits as Chris Bedding, and Joe Moretti, plus drummers Clem Cattini and Terry Cox of the folk-rock group Pentangle.
The project’s underlying ideas and scope proved more compelling than the finished record itself. Its tracks amounted to unremarkable pop songs that blended easy listening and rock, yet the arrangements remained rich and eclectic, sometimes drawing on folk-rock harmonies, sometimes on the dramatic crooning style associated with Tom Jones, and at other moments on theatrical musicals and the Beach Boys. The album failed to find an audience, after which Wirtz relocated to Hollywood the next year. Philwit & Pegasus resurfaced on CD in 2003, augmented by a non-LP single and a pair of previously unreleased demos.
Wirtz intended the LP to function as a movie on vinyl and shaped its song cycle with his girlfriend at the time, Maria Feltham. The collection contained no actual plot or narrative, although Wirtz later described its theme in the CD reissue liner notes as “struggle, fear, and fantasized happiness.” Neither Wirtz nor Feltham performed on the sessions. Lead vocals were supplied by noted songwriter John Carter, Peter Lee Stirling, Chas Mills, Guy Fletcher, and Roger Greenaway, another songwriter responsible for numerous British pop hits. Among the session players were guitarists Chris Spedding, listed in the credits as Chris Bedding, and Joe Moretti, plus drummers Clem Cattini and Terry Cox of the folk-rock group Pentangle.
The project’s underlying ideas and scope proved more compelling than the finished record itself. Its tracks amounted to unremarkable pop songs that blended easy listening and rock, yet the arrangements remained rich and eclectic, sometimes drawing on folk-rock harmonies, sometimes on the dramatic crooning style associated with Tom Jones, and at other moments on theatrical musicals and the Beach Boys. The album failed to find an audience, after which Wirtz relocated to Hollywood the next year. Philwit & Pegasus resurfaced on CD in 2003, augmented by a non-LP single and a pair of previously unreleased demos.
Albums