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Richard
Wright - Keyboards,
Organ, Piano, |
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Synth,
Acoustic Guitar,
Trombone, Vocals, |
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Guitar,
Fiddle, Harpsicord,
Saxophone, Cello |
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Syd
Barrett - Guitar,
Vocals, Bass, Slide |
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guitar, Ukelele,
Mandolin, Banjo |
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Album Art |
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Roger Keith "Syd" Barrett
(6 January 1946 – 7 July 2006) was an English
singer, songwriter, guitarist, and artist. He
is most remembered as a founding member of Pink
Floyd. He was active as a rock musician for about
ten years, before going into a self-imposed seclusion
that lasted over thirty years and ended with his
death in 2006.
Early Years
Barrett was born in Cambridge, England to a well-off
middle-class family. His father, Arthur Max Barrett,
was a prominent pathologist, and both he and his
wife, Winifred, encouraged the young Roger (as
he was known then) in his music. Barrett acquired
the nickname "Syd" at the age of 14,
a reference to an old local Cambridge drummer,
Sid Barrett. Syd Barrett changed the spelling
in order to differentiate himself from his namesake.
His father died of cancer on 11 December 1961,
less than a month before Barrett's 15th birthday.
He attended Cambridgeshire High School for Boys,
now known as Hills Road Sixth Form College in
Cambridge and enrolled in Camberwell art school
in South London in 1964 before forming his first
band in 1965. During this pre-Floyd time he wrote
such tunes as "Effervescing Elephant"
to play at local parties.
Pink Floyd years (1965–1968)
Starting in 1964, the band that would become Pink
Floyd underwent various line-up and name changes
such as "The Abdabs", "The Screaming
Abdabs", "Sigma 6" and "The
Meggadeaths" (not to be confused with Megadeth).
In 1965, Barrett joined them as "The Tea
Set", and when they found themselves playing
a concert with a band of the same name, Barrett
came up with the name "The Pink Floyd Sound"
(later "The Pink Floyd"). He devised
the name "Pink Floyd" by juxtaposing
the first names of Pink Anderson and Floyd Council
whom he had read about in a sleeve note by Paul
Oliver for a 1962 Blind Boy Fuller LP (Philips
BBL-7512): "Curley Weaver and Fred McMullen,
(...) Pink Anderson or Floyd Council—these
were a few amongst the many blues singers that
were to be heard in the rolling hills of the Piedmont,
or meandering with the streams through the wooded
valleys".
While Pink Floyd began by playing cover versions
of American R&B songs (in much the same vein
as contemporaries The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds
and The Kinks), by 1966 they had carved out their
own style of improvised rock and roll, which drew
as much from improvised jazz as it did from British
pop-rock, such as that championed by The Beatles.
In that year, a new rock concert venue, the UFO,
opened in London and quickly became a haven for
British psychedelic music. Pink Floyd, the house
band, was their most popular attraction, and,
after making appearances at the rival Roundhouse,
became the most popular musical group of the so-called
"London Underground" psychedelic music
scene.
By the end of 1966 Pink Floyd had gained a reliable
management team in Andrew King and Peter Jenner.
The duo soon befriended American expatriate Joe
Boyd, who was making a name for himself as one
of the more important entrepreneurs on the British
music scene. Boyd produced a recording session
for the group in January 1967 at Sound Techniques
in Chelsea, which resulted in a demo of the single
Arnold Layne. King and Jenner took the song to
the recording behemoth EMI, who were impressed
enough to offer the band a contract, under which
they would be allowed to record an album. The
band accepted. By the time the album was released,
Arnold Layne had reached number 20 on the British
singles charts (despite a ban by the BBC) and
a follow-up single, See Emily Play had done even
better, peaking at number 6.
These first two singles, as well as a third (Apples
and Oranges), were written by Syd Barrett, who
also was the principal visionary/author of their
critically acclaimed 1967 debut album, The Piper
at the Gates of Dawn. The album's title was taken
from the mystical "Pan" chapter of The
Wind in the Willows. Of the 11 songs on Piper,
Barrett wrote eight and co-wrote another two.
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn was recorded intermittently
between January and July 1967 in Studio 2 at Abbey
Road Studios. At that same time at Abbey Road
the Beatles were recording Sgt. Pepper's Lonely
Hearts Club Band in Studio 1 and the Pretty Things
were recording S.F. Sorrow. When Piper was released
in August of that year, it became a smash hit
in the UK, hitting #6 on the British album charts
(the album was not nearly so successful in the
USA). However, as the band began to attract a
large fanbase, the pressures on Barrett contributed
to his experiencing increasing psychiatric illness.
Barrett's behaviour became increasingly unpredictable,
partly as a consequence of frequent experimentation
with psychedelic drugs such as LSD. Many report
having seen him on stage with the group, strumming
on one chord through the entire concert, or not
playing at all. At a show at The Fillmore West
in San Francisco, during a performance of Interstellar
Overdrive, Barrett slowly detuned his guitar.
The audience seemed to enjoy such antics, unaware
of the rest of the band's consternation. Before
a performance in late 1967, Barrett apparently
crushed Mandrax and an entire tube of Brylcreem
into his hair, which subsequently melted down
his face under the heat of the stage lighting,
making him look like "a guttered candle".
Nick Mason later disputed the Mandrax portion
of this story, stating that "Syd would never
waste good mandies".
Following a disastrous abridged tour of the United
States, David Gilmour (a school friend of Barrett's)
was asked to join the band as a second guitarist
to cover for Barrett as Barrett's erratic behavior
prevented him from performing. For a handful of
shows David played and sang while Barrett wandered
around on stage, occasionally deigning to join
in playing. The other band members soon tired
of Barrett's antics and, in January 1968, on the
way to a show at Southampton University, the band
elected not to pick Barrett up. They attempted
to retain him in the group as a songwriter, much
as The Beach Boys had with Brian Wilson, but this
proved impractical.
There are many stories about Barrett's bizarre
and intermittently psychotic behavior — some
are known to be true. According to Roger Waters,
Barrett came into what was to be their last practice
session with a new song he had dubbed "Have
You Got It, Yet?". The song seemed simple
enough when he first presented it to his bandmates,
but it soon became impossibly difficult to learn:
while they were practising it, Barrett kept changing
the arrangement. He would then play it again,
with the arbitrary changes, and sing "Have
you got it yet?". After more than an hour
of trying to "get it", they realised
they never would and that they were simply bearing
the brunt of Barrett's rather obtuse sense of
humour.
Barrett did not contribute any material to the
band after A Saucerful of Secrets was released
in 1968. Of the songs he wrote for Pink Floyd
after Piper, only one ("Jugband Blues")
made it to the band's second album; one became
a less-than-successful single ("Apples and
Oranges"), and two others ("Scream Thy
Last Scream" and "Vegetable Man")
were never officially released. Barrett supposedly
spent some time outside the recording studio,
waiting to be invited in (he also showed up to
a few gigs and glared at Gilmour). Barrett played
slide guitar on "Remember a Day" (which
had been recorded during the Piper sessions) and
(according to a 1993 Guitar World interview with
Gilmour) also played on "Set the Controls
for the Heart of the Sun". His main contribution
to the album, "Jugband Blues," is often
seen by Pink Floyd fans as Barrett's admission
that his days in the band were probably numbered
("It's awfully considerate of you to think
of me here/And I'm most obliged to you for m-making
it clear/that I'm not here", the song opens).
In March 1968 it was officially announced that
he was no longer a member of Pink Floyd.
Solo years (1968–1972)
After leaving Pink Floyd, Barrett distanced himself
from the public eye. However, at the behest of
EMI and Harvest Records, he did have a brief solo
career, releasing two mercurial solo albums, The
Madcap Laughs and Barrett. Much of the material
on both albums dates from Barrett's most productive
period of songwriting, late 1966 to mid 1967,
and it is believed that he wrote few new songs
after he left Pink Floyd.
The first album, The Madcap Laughs, was recorded
in two distinct sessions, both at Abbey Road Studios:
a few tentative sessions took place between May
and June 1968 (produced by Peter Jenner), while
the bulk of the album was recorded between April
and July 1969. The record was produced first by
Malcolm Jones, a young EMI executive, and then
by David Gilmour and Roger Waters. In "The
Making of the Madcap Laughs" by Malcolm Jones,
he states "when Dave came to me and said
that Syd wanted him and Roger to do the remaining
parts of the album, I acquiesced." A few
tracks on the album feature overdubs by members
of the band Soft Machine. Barrett also played
guitar on the sessions for his close friend and
Soft Machine founder Kevin Ayers' debut LP Joy
of a Toy, although his performance on "Religious
Experience" was not released until the album
was reissued in 2003.
The second album, Barrett, was recorded more sporadically
than the first, with sessions taking place between
February and July 1970. This effort sounds more
polished than the first, but Barrett was arguably
in a worse state. The album was produced by David
Gilmour and featured Gilmour on bass guitar, Rick
Wright on keyboard and Humble Pie drummer Jerry
Shirley.
Despite the numerous recording dates for his two
solo albums, Barrett undertook very little musical
activity between 1968 and 1972 outside the studio.
On 24 February 1970, he appeared on John Peel's
BBC radio program Top Gear playing five songs
- only one of which had been previously released.
Three would be re-recorded for the Barrett album,
while the song Two of a Kind was a one-off performance
(the song appears on the 2001 compilation The
Best of Syd Barrett: Wouldn't You Miss Me?) with
the lyrics and composition having since been credited
to Richard Wright. Barrett was accompanied on
this session by David Gilmour and Jerry Shirley
who played bass and percussion, respectively.
Gilmour and Shirley also backed Barrett for his
one and only live concert during this period.
The gig took place on 6 June 1970 at the Olympia
Exhibition Hall, London, and was part of a "Music
and Fashion Festival". The trio performed
four songs, playing for less than half an hour,
and because of poor mixing, the vocals were inaudible
until part-way through the last number. At the
end of the fourth song, Barrett unexpectedly but
politely put down his guitar and walked off the
stage.
Barrett made one last appearance on BBC Radio,
recording three songs at their studios on 16 February
1971. All three came from the Barrett album, and
were presumably aired to encourage people to buy
the record. After this session, he would take
a hiatus from his music career that lasted more
than a year, although in an extensive interview
with Mick Rock and Rolling Stone in December,
he discussed himself at length, showed off his
new 12-string guitar, talked about his American
tour with Jimi Hendrix, and stated that he was
frustrated in terms of his musical work due to
his inability to find anyone good to play with.
Later years (1972–2006)
In 1972, Barrett formed a short-lived band called
Stars with ex-Pink Fairies member Twink on drums
and Jack Monck on bass. Though the band was initially
well received, one of their gigs at the Corn Exchange
in Cambridge proved to be disastrous (Monck describes
just how disastrous it was in a TV interview in
2001 for the BBC Omnibus series documentary 'Crazy
Diamond'). A few days after this final show, Twink
recalled that Barrett stopped him on the street,
showed him a scathing review of the gig they had
played, and quit on the spot.
In August 1974, Peter Jenner convinced Barrett
to return to Abbey Road Studios in hope of recording
another album. However, little became of the sessions,
which lasted three days and consisted of blues
rhythm tracks with tentative and disjointed guitar
overdubs (the only titled track is If You Go,
Don't Be Slow). Once again, Barrett withdrew from
the music industry. He sold the rights to his
solo albums back to the record label, moved into
a London hotel and when the money ran out he walked
back to Cambridge to live in his mother's basement.
Further attempts to bring him back (including
one endeavor by The Damned who wanted him to produce
their second album) were all fruitless. Until
his death, Barrett still received royalties from
his work with Pink Floyd from each compilation
and some of the live albums and singles that had
featured his songs; Gilmour has commented that
he (Gilmour) "[made] sure the money [got]
to him all right".
Barrett had one noted reunion with the members
of Pink Floyd in 1975 during the recording sessions
for Wish You Were Here. Barrett attended the Abbey
Road session unannounced, and watched the band
record "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"
— as it happened, a song about him. By that
time, Barrett had become quite overweight, had
shaved off all of his hair, including his eyebrows,
and his ex-bandmates did not at first recognise
him (one of the photographs in Nick Mason's book
Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd appears
to have been taken that day; it is captioned simply:
Syd Barrett, 5th June 1975). Eventually, they
realised who he was and Roger Waters was so distressed
that he was reduced to tears. A reference to this
reunion appears in the film Pink Floyd The Wall
(1982), where the character 'Pink,' played by
Bob Geldof, shaves off his eyebrows (and body
hair) after succumbing to the pressures of life
and fame.
In an interview for the 2001 BBC Omnibus documentary
'Syd Barrett: Crazy Diamond" (later released
on DVD as The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story),
the story is told in full. Rick Wright spoke about
the session, saying: "One thing that really
stands out in my mind, that I'll never forget;
I was going in to the "Shine On" sessions.
I went in the studio and I saw this guy sitting
at the back of the studio, he was only as far
away as you are from me. And I didn't recognise
him. I said, 'Who's that guy behind you?' 'That's
Syd'. And I just cracked up, I couldn't believe
it... he had shaven all his hair off... I mean,
his eyebrows, everything... he was jumping up
and down brushing his teeth, it was awful. And,
uh, I was in, I mean Roger was in tears, I think
I was; we were both in tears. It was very shocking...
seven years of no contact and then to walk in
while we're actually doing that particular track.
I don't know – coincidence, karma, fate,
who knows? But it was very, very, very powerful".
In the same documentary, Nick Mason stated: "When
I think about it, I can still see his eyes, but...
it was everything else that was different".
In that same interview, Roger Waters has said:
"I had no idea who he was for a very long
time". David Gilmour stated : "None
of us recognised him. Shaved...shaved bald head
and very plump". In the 2006 'definitive
edition' DVD release of The Pink Floyd and Syd
Barrett Story in the UK/Europe, director John
Edginton's interviews with Barrett's former Floyd
colleagues are included unedited, with far more
detail of their feelings and actions during Barrett's
breakdown and withdrawal from the band. This 2
DVD set is due for US (Region 1) in September
2007.
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Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
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