Simon May

Simon May (born 15 August 1944) is a British composer. He has composed many British television theme tunes, including EastEnders and Howards' Way, and the music for the 1988 film The Dawning. Born in Devizes and a pupil of Dauntsey's School, May was a choral scholar at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a degree in modern languages in 1965. While teaching languages and music at Kingston Grammar School, he co-wrote a musical named Smike with a colleague, history teacher Clive Barnett and songwriting partner, Roger Holman. Following the publicity Smike attracted, May was contacted by the BBC, who televised the play in 1973, starring Beryl Reid and Andrew Keir. It also featured DJ Neil Fox, a pupil at Kingston Grammar, as one of the schoolboys. The show has subsequently been staged many times by youth drama groups.

While working at ATV, he was asked to compose some music for Crossroads. Stephanie de Sykes got to number 2 in the UK Singles Chart in 1974 with the subsequent "Born With a Smile on My Face", which was used within a storyline on the show. Kate Robbins performed another of May's songs for Crossroads: "More Than in Love," which was co-written by Barry Leng and got to number 2 in the UK in 1981.He was one of the members of the vocal harmony group Rain, together with de Sykes, Alex Keenan and Chas Mill. The group recorded the theme song "Golden Day", penned by Lynsey de Paul and Barry Blue, for the TV programme "The Golden Shot" to co-incide with the return of Bob Monkhouse as its host. They also released an album produced by Len Beadle, with the title "Rain Featuring Stephanie De-Sykes" in 1974.May himself performed "The Summer of My Life", which reached number seven in the UK Singles Chart in October 1976. The song originally appeared in Crossroads, in a scene between Meg and Hugh. It was one of the best selling singles of the year, and was one of few songs to spend three weeks in a row at number seven in the UK Singles Chart. His follow-up single, "We'll Gather Lilacs - All My Loving (Medley)", flopped, reaching number 49 in May 1977. In 1986, he released an album called Simon's Way, which included his themes to EastEnders and Howards' Way, which peaked at number 59 in the UK Albums Chart. In the same year, his 'Holiday Suite' theme was used for the BBC Programme 'Holiday', and was released as a single. The theme has also been used by Video 125 for three of its railway drivers-eye-view productions.

He worked on his first feature film in 1988 - The Dawning. Music from the film, together with various other TV themes (including The Olympic Track and People like You) was released in 1989 on the Simon May Orchestra album Themes.

He co-produced Amii Stewart's "Knock on Wood", which reached number-one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart in April 1979.