Shine On You Crazy Diamond

One of Mick Rock's iconic photos of the late, great Syd Barrett.

It's with a heavy heart that I must report the passing of former Pink Floyd frontman Syd Barrett at the age of 60. His death was announced by the band today. He died on Friday, and although no specific cause of death has been confirmed yet, it's believed he died of complications from diabetes.

Syd (real name Roger Keith Barrett) was of course a founding member of Pink Floyd along with Roger Waters, Rick Wright and Nick Mason. It was Syd who came up with the group's name (originally The Pink Floyd Sound) by combining the first names of two little known blues artists, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. In the early days of the band Pink Floyd were basically just another R&B group performing amped up covers of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley tunes. The extended jamming that began to pepper their live sets was originally just a way of filling in the gaps of their rather limited repetoire. But it was those increasingly spaced out improvs that London's emerging underground seized upon. The band added a psychedelic light show to the mix sometime in 1966 and from that point on would be known as much for the visuals of their concerts as the audio. By then they were gigging regularly and were fast becoming the darlings of London's avant garde underworld.

On March 11, 1967 Floyd released their debut single, the Syd-penned "Arnold Layne". It managed to crack the top twenty and their second single, "See Emily Play", got all the way to number five. These two songs showed what a truly multi-faceted talent Syd really was, equally adept at composing three minute pop gems as he was coaxing unheard of sounds out of his trusty Fender Esquire (played through an Echoplex) as he led the band through twenty minute long (or longer) psychedelic workouts onstage. Around this time Floyd got to work on their debut LP at Abbey Road Studios. The sessions were produced by Norman Smith who had worked with The Beatles up until "Rubber Soul". Also holed up in Abbey Road at that time was The Beatles themselves, working on the album that became "Sgt. Pepper".

Floyd's debut LP, "Piper At The Gates Of Dawn" was released in August '67. All but one of the eleven tracks were penned by Syd. Highlights included "Astronomy Domine", "Lucifer Sam" and an abbreviated version of the instrumental that inspired much of Floyd's onstage freak-outs, "Interstellar Overdrive". The combination of Syd's whimsical songwriting and Smith's technical know how had created one of the definitive LP's of that era (the other being the mighty "Pepper"). But all was not well in the Floyd camp. During the sessions for "Piper" Syd had become increasingly uncommunicative and was generally starting to show signs of the mental illness that would eventually lead to his departure from the band. After the sessions were wrapped the band hit the road and things only got worse. Syd was by now using copious amounts of LSD and much has been made over whether the drug actually caused his breakdown. I for one have always felt that Syd was probably heading for a breakdown anyway and the acid just exacerbated the situation. After all, there was many other musicians of that time who were taking lots of acid that didn't go the way Syd did. Perhaps his psyche was just too fragile to handle the constant tripping....

It was during Floyd's first tour of the US that Syd really began to unravel. There's all sorts of legendary stories about his onstage behavior around this time. Stories of him standing motionless with his guitar around his neck, not playing a note. Or stories of him playing the same note for twenty minutes regardless of what the band was playing behind him. The US tour was cut short and the band headed back to England. From there they went out on a package tour headlined by Jimi Hendrix and things only got worse. Eventually it was decided to bring in Roger and Syd's old friend from Cambridge, David Gilmour. At first the band thought that they could have Syd continue to compose for them while Gilmour filled in for him onstage (which is precisely what The Beach Boys did with Glen Campbell and then Bruce Johnston when their leader, Brian Wilson, suffered a breakdown of his own). Floyd even performed as a quintent for awhile. But it became increasingly clear that something had to be done about Syd and the group effectively booted him out in February of '68.

Syd went on to make two fractured yet positively enchanting solo albums, "The Madcap Laughs" and "Barrett", both produced by none other than David Gilmour. There's an eerie, haunting beauty to songs like "Golden Hair" and "Long Gone". The sound of a brilliant young man falling to pieces. By all accounts the sessions were difficult, to say the least. At some point in the early seventies Syd moved back to his hometown of Cambridge to live with his mum. He spent the next thirty five years living a quiet, hermit like existence. His main passions for the remainder of his life were painting and gardening.

We all know what ended up happening to the rest of Pink Floyd. Their 1973 masterpiece "Dark Side Of The Moon" became one of the biggest selling albums ever. Some of Roger Waters' insanity themed lyrics no doubt inspired by Syd. Syd continued to be an inspiration to the band on "Wish You Were Here" and "The Wall", most notably on the epic "Wish You Were Here" track "Shine On You Crazy Diamond". And of course there's that famous story about an overweight, unrecognizable Syd stopping by the sessions for that album in June of '75. It was the first time any of the band members had seen him in years and in all likelihood it was the last. However, the band members were in contact with Syd's family and always made sure he got his royalties. It's been said that it was Syd who didn't want to see them. And according to those who've encountered him over the years he refused to even speak about his past with Floyd.

Really, it was Roger Keith Barrett who died on Friday. Syd Barret died long ago (he stopped answering to that name decades ago). But what an amazing talent he was. A great singer, a first rate songwriter, a truly innovative guitar player and a HUGE influence on everybody from David Bowie and Marc Bolan to The Flaming Lips and untold scores of others.... As Bowie himself put it today, "a diamond indeed".