Pink Floyd co-founder Syd Barrett dead at 60

Posted:
Jul 11, 2006

Syd Barrett, a founding member of British progressive rock group Pink Floyd, has died at 60 after living as a virtual recluse for 30 years.

Barrett died Friday, said a source close to the band, who asked not to be named. Complications from diabetes were the cause of death, media reports said.

Numerous songs written by Barrett and performed by Pink Floyd were part of the soundtrack of the 1999 Brazilian animated feature film O Flautista nos Portais do Amanhecer(The Piper at the Gates of Dawn).

The 1982 British feature film Pink Floyd: The Wall, which combined animation and live action, was based on Pink Floyd's hit album and is considered by many to retell Barrett's life story. The rock musical featured Pink, a burned-out rock star tortured by his past, slowly going out of control and descending into madness. His breakdown was represented by live-action and animated sequences.

"The band are naturally very upset and sad to learn of Syd Barrett's death. Syd was the guiding light of the early band line-up and leaves a legacy which continues to inspire," Pink Floyd said in a statement Tuesday.

"He died very peacefully a couple of days ago. There will be a private family funeral," said a spokeswoman for Pink Floyd.

Syd Barrett was born Roger Keith Barrett on January 6, 1946 in Cambridge, in eastern England. He led Pink Floyd from its founding in 1965 until 1968 when he began a solo career.

He had been living reclusively in his late mother's house in Cambridge. In recent years, he returned to his birth name and to his love of painting.

The son of a well-known pathologist, Barrett became known as "Syd" during his teens. The monicker refered to local jazz drummer Sid Barrett.

While a student at London's Camberwell School of Art, Barrett was a guitarist and vocalist with a band called Tea Set, whose other members were Roger Waters and Bob Klose on guitars, Rick Wright on wind instruments and drummer Nick Mason. Barrett renamed the group The Pink Floyd Sound. It's believed that Barrett named Pink Floyd after obscure bluesmen Pink Anderson and Floyd Council, whose recordings were in his collection.

Barrett became a superstar by age 21. But his addiction to LSD was so strong that he could hardly perform with the band. "He took drugs by the shovelful," his friend Dave Gilmour, drafted as a guitarist by the band to replace him, once said.

Pink Floyd decided not to pick Barrett up for gigs. However, Barrett recorded three solo albums: The Madcap Laughs, Barrett and Opel.

When the band's appearance was taped on the Pat Boone show in 1967, Barrett was so stoned that he was unable to lip-sync his own vocals or mime his own guitar playing. Waters eventually lip-synced his vocals.

He walked offstage four songs into a "comeback" concert in June 1970.

At the 2005 Live 8 concert in London's Hyde Park, Pink Floyd's Roger Waters introduced the band's classic song "Wish You Were Here." Said Waters: "This is for the people who can't be here -- especially Syd."

In spite of diabetes and continuing mental problems, Barrett was described by friends in recent years as a happy man who left his famous past behind him. He was an avid gardener and was assisted in later years by regular royalty payments.

"I think he had trouble talking to people and was very happy with his own company," Barrett's biographer, Tim Willis, told Reuters. "The painful experience of protracted nervous breakdown meant he did not want to know about that bit of his life."

Artists from David Bowie to REM, as well as such newer acts as Phish and Pearl Jam, have cited Barrett as influences.

"I can't tell you how sad I feel," said rock star David Bowie. "Syd was a major inspiration for me. He was so charismatic and such a startlingly original songwriter.... His impact on my thinking was enormous. A major regret is that I never got to know him. A diamond indeed."