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Pink Floyd Bio
Pink Floyd's roots go way back to the early
1960s, when Waters, Wright and Mason were in an
R&B band together while at art school in
Cambridge. After numerous lineup and name
changes, the group settled on the name Pink
Floyd (taken from the name two American blues
musicians, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council) and
featured Waters on bass, Wright on keyboards,
Mason on drums and a friend named Syd Barrett
on guitar and vocals. By 1966 Pink Floyd was a
popular band at underground clubs in Britain
and was playing original music - weird
psychedelic rock played at incredible volumes,
accompanied by a fancy light show. EMI released
a single by the group, "Arnold Layne," in March
of 1967, and it entered the U.K. charts at No.
2. A follow-up single, "See Emily Play,"
reached No. 6 and stayed on the charts for
almost two months, leading the band to release
their full-length debut, the psychedelic The
Piper at the Gates of Dawn, later that
year.
While their first album was sitting high on the
U.K. charts, the band was facing a personnel
crisis: Syd Barrett was using so much LSD
almost constantly that he became very
unstable,often staring into space while the
rest of the band performed, missing recording
sessions and shows, and even disappearing for
days at a time. In January of 1968 the band
brought in David Gilmour, who had gained a
reputation as a skillful guitarist while
performing with the local band Joker's Wild, to
cover for Barrett on stage whenever he wigged
out. After only a few shows as a five-piece it
became apparent Barrett could no longer perform
at all and one night on the way to a show the
band just didn't pick him up |
