Pink Floyd co-father Roger Keith 'Syd' Barrett passed away.

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Source msn


LONDON (Reuters) - Syd Barrett, a founding member of Pink Floyd, has died aged 60, a source close to the band said on Tuesday.

"I have had it from David (Gilmour) that it was confirmed by the family," said the source, who did not want to be named. "It happened on Friday".

Guitarist David Gilmour joined Pink Floyd in 1968, three years after it was formed and shortly before Barrett left the band.

Barrett, a singer, songwriter and guitarist, had lived the life of a recluse for the last 30 years. He had been suffering from diabetes, although it was not immediately clear what caused his death.

The writer of the bulk of Pink Floyd's early music, Barrett had been credited with helping to shape its progressive sound. His increasingly erratic behaviour in the late 1960s has been linked to his experimentation with psychedelic drugs.

Pink Floyd's 1975 track "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", from the album "Wish You Were Here", is widely believed to be a tribute to Barrett.

He was born in Cambridge as Roger Keith Barrett, and acquired the nickname "Syd" when he was 15 years old.

He missed out on Pink Floyd's most successful years in the 1970s, which included the albums "Dark Side of the Moon", "Wish You Were Here" and "The Wall".

The band has sold an estimated 200 million albums worldwide, although internal rifts have kept public performances featuring its main members to a minimum since the 1980s.


This is extremely dissapointing for me as I'm a huge fan of Pink Floyd and I will miss Syd. If it wasn't for him, his music, his band and their music I would have never come out of my shell. My thoughts and prayers go to Syd, his friends and family.

RIP Shine On You Crazy Diamond.....Shine On Forever and Ever...

RIP syd

sad news indeed.

"It's awfully considerate of you to think of me here,
And I'm most obliged to you for making it clear,
That I'm not here."

The local classic rock station played "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" after announcing this today. That was a good tribute. Sorry to hear about this, as I am a major floyd fan myseslf. My favorite album being Mettle

my wife told me about this as i was driving home from work yesterday

i have always been a big pink floyd fan and my favorite song is another brick in the wall
i have most of their albums in mp3 form so i can just plug in an listen when i want

RIP Syd

This was sad news. While "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" is a decent tribute, I would find playing "Arnold Layne" and "See Emily Play" to be much more entertaining and relevant. It's nice to play a song that was sort of a tribute to him 30 years ago, but why not expose some people to some of his actual Pink Floyd work. I know many people that purport to be Pink Floyd fans but have no idea who Syd is/was and have no appreciation for what he brought to the world.

agreed tekneek, i find it surprising also how many floyd fans have never heard his solo albums either. to me, the whole of pink floyd's post-syd catalogue pales in comparison to the first two albums, the early singles and syds solo albums. other than those first two albums, i don't really care for pink floyd much, aside from perhaps the "more" soundtrack and bits of ummagumma and atom heart mother. he was really the creative spark there.

David Gilmour said in an interwiev that both "Shine On Your Crazy Diamond" and "Wish You Where Here" were written as a tribute to Syd Barret.

On the day they revorded "Wish You Were Here" a studio musician asked who the fat, bald guy sitting in the back listening where, and David Gilmour answered "Thats Syd Barret". He had turned up unexpectedly, when they were recording just that song.

I agree wholeheartedly. It seems that AOR/ Classic Rock stations avidly avoid playing anything preceeding Dark Side of The Moon.

this is a major bummer. i just found out a couple days ago. i've always preferred the early floyd and solo syd. i wonder why he is not more popular. many pink floyd fans seem to only listen to the later stuff and don't even know about syd.

Similar in nature to how a lot of people have no idea that Peter Gabriel was once in Genesis and the music they made then was completely different than the radio-friendly pop made by the band in the 1980s.

totally true, i suppose it comes down to the majority of peoples preference for boring mundane music, and a refusal to look beneath the surface of the mainstream. i can think of countless great musicians who the majority know nothing about. they just accept whatever the media feeds them. i was actually surprised syds death got as much attention as it did, to be honest.

on another note, i think psychic tv's "a star too far" is a much better tribute to syd than crazy diamond. they also did a fairly good cover of set the controls for the heart of the sun, actually.

I love the Gabriel-era genesis, but it is frustrating how they are so underappreciated. a best of compilation released about 6-7 years ago was almost entirely the 80's incarnation of the band. i think "i know what i like" was the only gabriel sung number on there.

RIP Syd

You will always "shine on" for me, "you crazy diamond".