Syd Barrett (6 January 1946 – 7 July 2006), born Roger Keith Barrett, was an English singer, songwriter, guitarist and artist. He is most remembered as a founding member of psychedelic rock band Pink Floyd, providing major musical and stylistic direction in their early work, although he left the group in 1968 amidst speculations of mental illness as a consequence of, or exacerbated by, heavy drug use.
He was active as a rock musician for about seven years, recording two albums with Pink Floyd and two solo albums before going into self-imposed seclusion lasting more than thirty years. His post-rock band life was as an artist and a keen gardener, ending with his death in 2006. During his withdrawal from public life there were numerous works about him, most notably his former band Pink Floyd’s 1975 album Wish You Were Here. A number of biographies have been written about him since the 1980s.
Pink Floyd years (1964-68)
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”. 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.
PINK FLOYD — UFO NIGHTCLUB LONDON
By the end of 1966 Pink Floyd had gained a reliable management team in Andrew King and Peter Jenner (who went on to manage New Wave band Ian Dury & The Blockheads). The duo soon befriended American expatriate Joe Boyd, the promoter of the UFO Club, 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 Radio London) and the follow-up single, “See Emily Play”, had done even better, peaking at number 6.
Recently rediscovered ZBS foundation interview from August 1967
Their first three singles, including their third (“Apples and Oranges”), were all written by 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 eleven songs on The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Barrett wrote eight and co-wrote another two.
Pink Floyd in the late 60’s
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn was recorded intermittently between January and July 1967 in Studio 3 at Abbey Road Studios, and produced by former Beatles engineer Norman Smith. This was during same time at Abbey Road that The Beatles were recording Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in Studio 2 and the Pretty Things were recording S.F. Sorrow. When The Piper at the Gates of Dawn was released in August of that year it became a smash hit in the UK, hitting #6 on the British album charts (although it was not nearly so successful in the USA). However, as the band began to attract a large fan base, the mounting pressures on Barrett are thought to have contributed to his escalating psychological problems.
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn album cover
1966 London concert poster
Through late 1967 and early 1968 Barrett’s behavior became increasingly erratic and unpredictable, partly as a consequence of his reported heavy use of psychedelic drugs, notably LSD.[8] Many report having seen him on stage with the group, strumming on one chord through the entire concert, or not playing at all.[11] 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 reportedly crushed Mandrax tranquillizer tablets 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”.
Pink Floyd With Syd Barrett – Interstellar Overdrive Full Length Video – Part 1, London 1966
During their disastrous abridged tour of the United States, guitarist David O’List from The Nice was called in to substitute for Barrett on several occasions when he was unable to perform or failed to appear. On their return to the UK David Gilmour (a school friend of Barrett’s) was asked to join the band as a second guitarist to cover for Barrett, whose erratic behavior prevented him from performing. For a handful of shows David played and sang while Barrett wandered around on stage, occasionally deciding 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: one person in the car said, “Shall we pick Syd up?” and another said, “Let’s not bother” (Gilmour interview in Guitar World, January 1995). The band’s initial plan was to keep him in the group as a non-touring member — as Brian Wilson had for The Beach Boys , Barrett had, up until then, written the overwhelming bulk of their material — but this soon proved to be 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 band-mates, but it soon became impossibly difficult to learn and they eventually realized that while they were practicing it, Barrett kept changing the arrangement. He would then play it again, with the arbitrary changes, and sing “Have you got it yet?”. Eventually they realized they never would and that they were simply bearing the brunt of Barrett’s idiosyncratic sense of humor.
A Saucerful of Secrets album cover
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 The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, only one (“Jugband Blues”) made it to the band’s second album; one (“Apples and Oranges”) became a less-than-successful single, 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 first attempted during the The Piper at the Gates of Dawn sessions) and also played on “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun”.[15] 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 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.
Street Rock Records 