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 ...

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'' 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 ...

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 Englis ...

, 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 seco ...

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.

References

External links

Simon Jeffes
at 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 publish ...

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 {{UK-guitarist-stub

Life and death

See also

References

External links