Trevor Horn, the music producer, has paid tribute to his “inspirational” wife and business partner Jill Sinclair, who has died eight years after suffering brain damage in a shooting accident.
Sinclair, 61, passed away “peacefully” on Saturday at the family home in London. She had been suffering from cancer.
The mother-of-four, who had been married to Horn since 1980, had been unable to move or communicate since June 2006 when she was accidentally shot by her son Aaron, who was target-shooting with his air rifle at the family home.
A pellet hit her in the neck, severing an artery and causing extensive brain damage from oxygen starvation to the brain. She spent more than three years in a coma, and despite eventually coming out of the coma Horn said in a 2012 interview that “she cannot speak, move or smile. The only expression she can show is of discomfort”.
Horn said: “Jill was an inspiration in every aspect of her life, as my wife and as the mother of our children.
“She had an adventurous, maverick spirit and built up music businesses – and made her way through life – successfully and independently, and always on her own terms. She will be sorely missed.”
Sinclair’s funeral was held on Monday, in accordance with her Jewish faith.
Sinclair, a former teacher, was working in her brother’s recording studio in 1977 when she met Horn, and fell for him in the process of trying to sign him up. She became Horn’s business partner and in 1979 Horn shot to stardom when his group, The Buggles, had a worldwide hit with Video Killed The Radio Star, which was the first music video to be played on MTV.
Sinclair persuaded him to concentrate on producing, rather than performing, telling him he would never be the world’s greatest musician but he could be its greatest producer. Although bass guitarist Horn, 64, had later hits playing with the bands Yes and Art of Noise, it was his production credits that brought him his greatest success.
The couple co-founded the SPZ Group in 1984, which included the record label ZTT, and with Sinclair as the managing director of SPZ Horn produced bands including Frankie Goes To Hollywood, ABC, Grace Jones, Pet Shop Boys and Malcolm McLaren. They made such a distinctive mark on pop music that the music newspaper Stool Pigeon described Horn as “the man who invented the eighties”.
Although Sinclair was happy to stay in the background, it was she who arranged Horn’s first production jobs with Dollar and ABC, and it was she who signed Frankie Goes To Hollywood and the soloist Seal.
The couple’s Sarm studio was where Band Aid recorded Do They Know It’s Christmas? in 1984, the second-highest selling single of all time in Britain.
Horn recently said of his wife: “She protected me from all the businesspeople so I could stay in my fantasy world.”
The couple had four children, sons Aaron and William and daughters Gabriella and Alexandra, and lived on a 25-acre plot in Oxfordshire until the accident in 2006, when Horn sold up and moved with his wife to Primrose Hill in London.
Gary Kemp, the actor and former Spandau Ballet guitarist, said after hearing of Sinclair’s death that she was “one of the most successful people in the British music business”.
The music producer Jonathan Shalit, whose protégés include Charlotte Church, described Sinclair as “a truly great, legendary lady” and “one of the best deal negotiators ever”.
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