London born John Charles Fiddy was a guitarist and composer who inhabited the worlds of session work and library music from easy listening to cool library funk. He studied chemistry at Nottingham University during the late fifties and in the early sixties leading the Nottingham University Jazz Orchestra for a while. The Nottingham University Alumni reports his death on 24 December 2017. The two references I have to his life are from his linkedin page and a last.fm page both reprinted below. Discogs has some recorded works listed but as he will appear under other names so here is a better list of some of his music on youtube. For those who like the library funk sound here is a cool album to listen to, working alongside Francis Monkman and Alan Hawkshaw no less, called Bruton Music.

Here is a track he wrote with Peter Shelley (not to be confused with the Buzzcock’s Pete Shelley) for a 1973 single release on Philips. The group was called “Life” and the A side was called “Cats Eyes”. The B side was called “Death In The Family”. We might assume John was involved in the recording of the A side too and maybe other work by Peter Shelley.

From Last.FM
Born 1944 (age 77)
Born In London, England, United Kingdom
Kicking off his career as a session guitar and bass player, John Fiddy remains one of the leading figures in UK library music production to this very day, with his own John Fiddy Music controlling the Sonoton library catalogue, which has provided countless hours’ worth of background music for film and television, a good deal of which has been Fiddy’s own work. Pop and rock sessions were his major source of income in the late 60’s and early 70’s, featuring on hits for such stellar personalities as Lulu, Petula Clark and, erm, Dana before bass playing stints in bands like the Shadows and ‘acquired taste’ progsters Uriah Heap, and at the same time moving into the world of composition that would lead to his success in music publishing, taking time out only to produce Nottingham Forest’s novelty hit single in 1979 between delivering the themes for TV shows such as Mork & Mindy, and ‘professional-scouse’ non-comedy Bread.

From his linkedin page
John Fiddy
Owner of John Fiddy Productions
Great Hockham, England, United Kingdom

Education
Stationers’ Company’s School Graphic
Stationers’ Company’s School
Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.)ChemistryBad….0 1955 – 1962

Activities and Societies: Playing guitar, fronting the Nottingham University Jazz Orchestra and running the Inter-University Jazz Federation. Also women, tiddlywinks (the Nottingham University Tiddlywinks Society, NUTS), women, beer and women.