SYD BARRETTFew stars in rock’s galaxy burned as brightly or fleetingly as Syd Barrett who died on 7 July, 2006 aged 60.A founder member of legendary rock group, Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett was only on the music scene for seven years before a drug-induced breakdown forced him into a reclusive retirement.During this brief period, he was the band’s main songwriter and creative influence, the architect of their trademark psychedelic sound - but his creativity came at a cost and with the band on the cusp of superstardom, Mr Barrett suffered a breakdown and spent the rest of his life in suburban anonymity. In his will, published on 23 May, 2007, he left £1.7m, split between his two brothers and two sisters.Roger Keith Barrett was born on 6 January, 1946 in Cambridge. His father, Arthur Max Barrett, was a prominent pathologist who died when Barrett was 12 years old.He attended Cambridge High School for Boys where one of his contemporaries was future fellow band member Roger Waters. As a teenager, he began to teach himself guitar and acquired the nickname “Syd”.A talented artist, he won a scholarship to the Camberwell School of Art in London in 1965 where Waters (who had also moved to London to study) invited him to join his embryonic R&B band.The band went through various line-up and name changes before Mr Barrett, who had become its’ leader, came up with “The Pink Floyd Sound” after two American bluesmen Pink Anderson and Floyd Council.At first the band restricted themselves to blues covers before experimenting with improvised jazz and psychedelia and when London’s premier underground club, UFO opened its doors in 1966, the now shortened “Pink Floyd” were its house band.Their first independentl-produce d single, Arnold Layne, reached number 20 in the British charts and brought them to the attention of EMI who signed them to a one-album deal. A second single, See Emily Play, reached number 6 in the charts.Mr Barrett wrote most of the songs on the ground-breaking album Piper at the Gates of Dawn which reached number 6 in the album charts in 1967. But the pressures of stardom were beginning to take their toll on their charismatic front man.His experimentation with LSD led to increasingly erratic interludes and his influence in the band began to decline. He left Pink Floyd in March 1968.From 1972 until his death, Mr Barrett lived as a virtual recluse in the basement of his mother’s house in Cambridge.Mr Barrett made two solo albums after leaving Pink Floyd – The Madcap Laughs and Barrett – but he was never to re-capture the song-writing genius of earlier years.On their 1975 album Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd recorded a tribute to him entitled Shine on You Crazy Diamond. In a bizarre twist of fate, Mr Barrett turned up unannounced during the recording session.His creative genius and quintessentially English whimsy influenced a generation of artists from David Bowie to Babyshambles. Elbow’s Guy Garveysaid of him: “I wonder what music would be like if he’d never lived.”Another founder member of Pink Floyd, Richard Wright, died of cancer on 15 September 2008.
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