Simon Harry Piers Jeffes (19 February 1949 – 11 December 1997) was an
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
classically trained guitarist, composer and arranger. He formed, and was the primary performer of, the
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
The Penguin Cafe Orchestra (PCO) were an avant-pop band led by English guitarist Simon Jeffes. Co-founded with cellist Helen Liebmann, it toured extensively during the 1980s and 1990s. The band's sound is not easily categorized, having elemen ...
. He was the composer of the ballet ''
Still Life at the Penguin Cafe
''Still Life at the Penguin Cafe'' is a ballet choreographed by David Bintley and featuring music composed by Simon Jeffes, founder of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. It is also the title of the accompanying album. Geoffrey Richardson co-wrote o ...
''.
He is also known for assisting
Sex Pistols
The Sex Pistols were an English punk rock band formed in London in 1975. Although their initial career lasted just two and a half years, they were one of the most groundbreaking acts in the history of popular music. They were responsible for ...
producer
Bill Price with the string arrangement for the
Sid Vicious
John Simon Ritchie (10 May 1957 – 2 February 1979), better known by his stage name Sid Vicious, was an English musician, best known as the bassist for the punk rock band Sex Pistols. Despite dying in 1979 at age 21, he remains an icon of the ...
version of "
My Way
"My Way" is a song popularized in 1969 by Frank Sinatra set to the music of the French song "Comme d'habitude" composed by Jacques Revaux with lyrics by Gilles Thibaut and Claude François and first performed in 1967 by Claude François. Its E ...
" which reached #7 on the UK singles charts as part of ''
The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle
''The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle'' is a 1980 British mockumentary film directed by Julien Temple and produced by Don Boyd and Jeremy Thomas. It centres on the British punk rock band Sex Pistols and, most prominently, their manager Malcolm Mc ...
'' soundtrack.
Life and death
Jeffes was born at the Montalan Nursing Home,
Crawley
Crawley () is a large town and borough in West Sussex, England. It is south of London, north of Brighton and Hove, and north-east of the county town of Chichester. Crawley covers an area of and had a population of 106,597 at the time of th ...
,
Sussex
Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...
, on 19 February 1949, the son of James Henry Elliston Jeffes, a research chemist, and his wife, Anne Hope Madeline Jeffes (née Clutterbuck).
Jeffes died of an inoperable
brain tumor
A brain tumor occurs when abnormal cells form within the brain. There are two main types of tumors: malignant tumors and benign (non-cancerous) tumors. These can be further classified as primary tumors, which start within the brain, and seconda ...
on 11 December 1997 in
Taunton
Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England, with a 2011 population of 69,570. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century monastic foundation, Taunton Castle, which later became a priory. The Normans built a castle owned by the ...
, leading to the dissolution of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra.
See also
*''
Still Life at the Penguin Cafe
''Still Life at the Penguin Cafe'' is a ballet choreographed by David Bintley and featuring music composed by Simon Jeffes, founder of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. It is also the title of the accompanying album. Geoffrey Richardson co-wrote o ...
''
*
Penguin Cafe Orchestra
The Penguin Cafe Orchestra (PCO) were an avant-pop band led by English guitarist Simon Jeffes. Co-founded with cellist Helen Liebmann, it toured extensively during the 1980s and 1990s. The band's sound is not easily categorized, having elemen ...
References
External links
Simon Jeffesat the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
at Penguin Cafe Orchestra website
at
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
1949 births
1997 deaths
20th-century classical musicians
20th-century English composers
British ballet composers
Deaths from brain cancer in England
Neurological disease deaths in England
English classical guitarists
English male guitarists
English rock guitarists
People from Crawley
20th-century British guitarists
20th-century British male musicians
Penguin Cafe Orchestra members
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