Syd Barrett

For musicians, Syd Barrett needs no introduction as you will understand if you keep on reading. His real name is Roger Keith Barrett, but he got his nickname from a local jazz double bassist named Sid Barrett. Barrett played the guitar, sang and wrote lyrics from 1964 – 1974. Despite he left Pink Floyd in 1968 only four years after he founded the band, and he managed to release two albums and mark the beginning for a new genre; Psychedelic rock.

But his creativity didn’t come from nowhere. He frequently used LSD which made him creative, but drugging himself had its negative effects. Somebody believed he was a schizophrenic since he acted weirder and weirder. On stage Barrett became so unpredictable, that there was need for someone to take his place during performances. That someone got to be David Gilmour, an old friend of Barrett.

In the beginning, after he had been replaced as a live performer, he just wandered around on stage until the rest of the band just suddenly decided not to bring him with them. An episode that really annoyed the other band members was when Barrett kept on changing the arrangement on a song he called “Have you got it yet?”

His struggles with the other band members and LSD made him go back to Cambridge to his mother. He died of cancer as a result of diabetes the 7^th July 2006, only 60 years old.