1946-2006
Syd Barrett
1946-2006
Syd Barrett
In the early 60s Roger “Syd” Barrett, Roger Waters, and David Gilmour, talented teenage guitarists from academic backgrounds in Cambridge, came onto the London music scene. The three went on to meet Nick Mason, an experimental percussionist, and Rick Wright, a gifted keyboards player in 1965, the result was Pink Floyd who fifty years later has risen from massive to almost mythic standing in the world of rock.
Syd Barrett, the son of a university don, was the original creative force behind the band which he named after the Delta bluesman Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. He had a perfect vision for the times and led the band to its first precarious fame, damaging himself irreparably along the way. Even years later he was an inspiration to Tom Stoppard in his 2006 play Rock ‘n’ Roll Although the Barrett era only lasted three years, it always informed what Pink Floyd became.
Syd Barrett Photo
Barrett wrote loops, feedback, and echo delay, for the band, performing live, Pink Floyd played sonic freak-outs and featured light-shows and projections with Barrett’s spacey lead guitar over Waters’ trance-like bass and Wright’s and Mason’s soundscapes completing the effect. In the spring of 1966, they were spotted by their future managers Peter Jenner and Andrew King. A signing to EMI followed in early 1967. Barrett wrote many of the band’s first hits, including their single “See Emily Play”, which charted at Number 6, as well as the majority of the songs released on their first LP The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, which charted Top 10, including “Lucifer Sam”, “Flaming”, “The Scarecrow”, and more.
However Barrett’s erratic behavior, many believe from his abuse of psychedelic drugs, began to threaten to bring the band down with him. The remaining members of Pink Floyd asked David Gilmour to take over Syd’s role on stage, thinking he might become their off-stage songwriter. In the end, Pink Floyd decided they could do without Barrett and by March 1968 were in their second incarnation and under new management.
Barrett went back to Cambridge for the rest of his life and the other four acquired a new manager, Steve O’Rourke, and finished their second album, A Saucerful of Secrets begun the previous year. Roger Waters now wrote the lyrics, and apart from Barrett’s “Jugband Blues” the album’s standout moments included the title track and Waters’ “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun.”
After leaving Pink Floyd, Barrett was out of the public eye for a year. In 1969 he embarked on a solo career, releasing two solo albums, The Madcap Laughs and Barrett (both 1970), and a single, "Octopus". He became reclusive as his physical health declined, suffering from stomach ulcers and type 2 diabetes. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 as a member of Pink Floyd, and passed away at age 60 in his home on July 7, 2006, from pancreatic cancer.
