Peter John Sinfield (27 December 1943 – 14 November 2024) was an English poet and songwriter. He was best known as a co-founder and lyricist of King Crimson. Their debut album In the Court of the Crimson King is considered one of the first and most influential progressive rock albums ever released.
Born in Fulham, south-west London, Peter was the son of Deirdre and Alan Sinfield. After his parents divorced he lived with his eccentric mother. She ran a hair salon and a burger bar, and Peter was often cared for by their German housekeeper, Maria Wallenda, who was a member of the Wallenda family of high-wire walkers and acrobats. At the age of eight Peter was sent off to Danes Hill boarding school in Oxshott, Surrey, where, with the encouragement of a teacher, John Mawson, he developed an enthusiasm for literature, especially the poetry of William Blake, Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud.
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| Robert Fripp, Michael Giles, Greg Lake, Ian MacDonald, Peter Sinfield |
Back in Britain in 1967, he formed the Creation (not the same Creation who had a Top 40 hit with Painter Man in 1966). The group featured his future King Crimson comrade Ian McDonald. In 1968 McDonald joined the brothers Michael and Peter Giles on drums and bass and Fripp on guitar in Giles, Giles and Fripp. Later that year Peter Giles left, Sinfield and Lake joined, and King Crimson was born.
When King Crimson’s debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King, was released in October 1969, it was greeted with amazement and disbelief, with the Who’s Pete Townshend hailing it as “an uncanny masterpiece. Sinfield’s lyrics were an integral part of its success, and they teemed with imagery by turns savage, mystical or melancholy. He recruited his friend Barry Godber to create the album’s fascinatingly grotesque sleeve artwork. Godber died shortly after the album’s release.
Perhaps it was too good, since King Crimson could never quite equal it thereafter, but Sinfield’s role in the group continued to expand over their next three albums, In the Wake of Poseidon, Lizard, and Islands. He co-produced the first two of these. While he did not play an instrument with the band, as well as writing all the lyrics he ran the light show during their concerts and used a VCS3 synthesiser to add sonic effects. However, Sinfield found himself increasingly at odds with the band’s dominant character, Robert Fripp, about their artistic direction, and in early 1972 he moved on.
His skills were in demand, however. He was tasked by EG Management, who managed King Crimson, to work with their new act Roxy Music. He produced their first single, Virginia Plain, and their eponymous debut album, and both were sizeable hits. On a solo album, Still, Sinfield played 12-string guitar and synthesiser. He had production assistance from Greg Lake, also an ex-member of King Crimson. This led to Sinfield being recruited by Lake’s new outfit, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, to write lyrics for them. He featured on the albums Brain Salad Surgery (1973), Works Volume 1 & Volume 2 (1977) and Love Beach (1978), the band’s last album before they split up. They would make a belated comeback in the 1990s.
In the late 70s Sinfield moved to Ibiza with his first wife, Stephanie Ruben, and for a time lived the life of a tax exile. In 1979 he narrated Robert Sheckley’s In a Land of Clear Colors, an audio sci-fi story with music by Brian Eno. He returned to London in 1980 with his second wife, a Spanish model, and was introduced by his music publisher to Andy Hill, a songwriter. This launched a new chapter of his career, as he combined with Hill to write a string of big pop hits, including Have You Ever Been In Love by Leo Sayer (which won them an Ivor Novello award), and Celine Dion’s Think Twice, which topped charts around the world and won another Novello.
Sinfield underwent heart surgery in 2005. After a period of convalescence Sinfield wrote an increasing number of poems and after his appearance at the Genoa Poetry Festival at the Ducal Palace in June 2010, he turned his creative energies more towards poetry. A keen cook and gardener, living on the Suffolk coast in the town of Aldeburgh, famed for its international music festival, Peter, had been suffering from declining health for several years. He contracted sepsis and died in hospital on 14 November 2024, at the age of 80. (Edited from The Guardian, Wikipedia & DGM Live)
Here's Peter Sinfield performing The Song of The Seagoat on The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1973.