When he made his way back to Brisbane, Mark managed to talk his way into a producer’s job at a recording studio run by Bruce Window in West End, on the south side of the Brisbane River. The core business there was cutting commercial jingles, with nary a band to be seen.

But one Tuesday afternoon a drummer and bass player turned up in their transit van and said, “We’d like to make a record.” When their guitarist plugged in, Mark decided that his amplifier wasn’t up to the task (“too clean”). So he loaned Ed Keupper his Fender Super 10, which he turned up to 10. The 16-track studio had a concrete hallway, which made the recording sound even angrier and louder. The Saints blasted away, with Moffatt deftly capturing vocalist Chris Bailey’s sneer and guitarist Ed Kuepper’s layers of distortion.

Today the gritty and urgent (I’m) Stranded by the Saints, released on their own Fatal Records imprint, has “become this seminal record that’s in the National Film and Sound Archive’s Sounds of Australia registry,” Moffatt gently boasted. Certainly he was the right man, in the right place at the right time.

“I’d seen the New York Dolls and I’d been around the early British pub rock scene with Ducks Deluxe and Brinsley Schwarz. It all made sense to me, which is why I didn’t dismiss these guys as just a bunch of noise.”

A copy found its way to England. where rock paper Sounds declared it Single of This and Every Week. “You like Quo or the Ramones?” the reviewer asked. “This pounds them into the dirt. Hear it once, and you’ll never forget it.”

As one chronicler has said “It captured a moment when Australia was in the vanguard of a style and attitude which changed the face of popular music” and as Ed Kuepper would note, “The Saints were lucky that Mark Moffatt was in the producer’s chair that night and not some drone.”

“It just keeps coming up, it never seems to go away” said Moffett, “Which is interesting because it’s one of those things that wasn’t planned or thought through in any way. It just happened one night. I’m really thankful that I had one of those in my life. The stars aligned, and I’m glad it was in Brisbane.”

The whole two-hour session cost $170. After the success of The Saints, EMI asked Moffatt if he’d go to Melbourne to produce the outlaw country band Saltbush. He landed at TCS Studios, where the manager, Barry Coburn, offered him a job. One track, Fiddler Man, stayed in his mind. He would later take Slim Dusty into the studio to make his first and only “dance track”.

After a stint at TCS, Moffatt was fired for working on his own projects out of hours and relocated to Sydney, where he became Festival Record’s in-house producer and also worked on some of the biggest Australian records of the era. It all really started with what would become his first platinum album, Chemistry by Mondo Rock, and included pivotal albums by Tim Finn, Jenny Morris, Swanee, Stephen Cummings, Neil Murray, Shane Howard, Anne Kirkpatrick, Mental As Anything and Keith Urban & The Ranch.

His ears were always attuned to the demands of radio and the hits just rolled. He produced Bop Girl for Pat Wilson, Ross’s wife, which reached #2. The group Split Enz was not unfamiliar with hit singles, but when founder Tim Finn opted to record a solo album, Escapade, “I felt a bit of antipathy from the rest of the Enz. I think they felt it broke the band up. But it was a very inspiring and stimulating time for Tim. There was stuff happening.” Of the 15 songs recorded, Fraction Too Much Friction and Made My Day soared up the charts.

By this time, Mark had teamed up with South African drummer Ricky Fataar from the Beach Boys and the Rutles, in a writing and production partnership. He also joined The Monitors, a studio group which Moffatt had cooked up with advertising professional Terry McCarthy; a Buggles-type outfit that had impressed radio with a couple of irresistible pop creations, Nobody Told Me and (What Will We Be) and Singing In The 80s ”

Punk, blues, seamless adult pop, techno, troubadour, powerpop and all blends of country and roots, were all within Moffatt’s grasp. There weren’t many idioms left but a couple remained.

“As a producer I always had ideas” he once explained. “In 1994 I decided to do a techno-yodelling track with Australia’s internationally famous yodeller Mary Schneider, who now recalls “He asked me to write a yodelling number and my daughter Melinda and I wrote a rap called Tighten Up Your Pants, which Mark released under the name Audio Murphy. She was about 18 years old and it was her first time on the charts.”

Moffatt formed a close relationship Roland, the Japanese company that made synthesisers and instruments. They took him to Hamamatsu, where he assisted with research. After leaving Festival Moffat set up The Vault, his own 24 track studio in Balmain.

The stars aligned a second time. When Yothu Yindi leader Mandawuy Yunupingu heard Shane Howard’s album River he decided that he wanted “the guy who produced that record”.

Midnight Oil’s Jim Moginie, one of the players on those sessions, has said “he was always an incredibly supportive person who taught me the important art of being selfless.”

As Mark would explain, “This was life-changing, really. I spent time with the band and learned their tribal beliefs. The didgeridoo player, Milkay Mununggurr, was unbelievable. He was the master.”

Treaty raced up the charts and rewrote the rules of Australian rock. It even had them on Countdown. “I remember I was with the band at Tullamarine airport and these white schoolkids came running up to these Aboriginal guys to ask for their autographs. That was a very special moment.”

When Mark decided to move base to Nashville in 1996, it was initially to do with songwriting. As a writer he had, apart from his Australian success, two top ten UK & European singles, and would compose scores for seven major films and TV series.

He had penned Long Way Home with Troy Cassar-Daley, which later became the title track to one of his albums. The relocation was again at the suggestion of old friend Barry Coburn. “He and his wife Jewel had established a thriving publishing and management business and had signed Keith Urban to a publishing contract. I was mainly employed to work with their writers and artists, Keith among them.”

In Nashville Mark installed an elaborate home recording studio. He became a leader in the emerging independent sector of the Nashville industry.

Mark Moffatt, who died in Nashville aged 74 on September 6 after battling pancreatic cancer for a year, was a devoted family man. He is survived by his wife Lindsey, his son Geordie, stepdaughter Dana and two granddaughters.