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Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZBARRETT, Syd(b Roger Keith Barrett, 6 January 1946, Cambridge; d there 7 July 2006). Singer/songwriter and guitarist, then legend. Jazz fans nicknamed him Sid after drummer Sid Barrett, schoolfriends took it up and he changed the spelling. He had a happy childhood but his father died suddenly '61. He was a founder member of Pink Floyd, contributing ten of eleven songs on their debut album Piper At The Gates Of Dawn '67 (the name from a passage in Wind In The Willows, a book Barrett loved). He left the band in April '68, LSD perhaps exacerbating personal problems, and Pink Floyd became a 'portentious art-rock institution devoid of charm' according to Ian Thompson, reviewing Rob Chapman's meticulous 440-page biography, Syd Barrett: A very irregular head (2010) in the TLS. Chapman challenges the story of the crack-up according to Thompson, implying that 'there may also have been an element of conrtrived lunacy.' Barrett may simply have not wanted to put up with fame. Barrett's solo work amounted to albums The Madcap Laughs and Barrett, both '70, psychedelia married to nursery-rhyme vision, the beguiling quality subsequently missing from Floyd's work found in 'Baby Lemonade' and 'Effervescing Elephants', Barrett's work also including a setting of James Joyce's 'Golden Hair', and the chilling 'She Took A Long Cold Look'. Critics mention self-mockery, English music-hall and rueful melancholy. The literary references are still being teased out of his stuff. Jon Pareles wrote in the New York Times in Barrett's obituary that on his solo albums he 'sounds fragile but oddly serene, following his rhymes whether they lead to nonsense or revelation.' He did a few shambolic gigs, surfaced briefly at the mixing of Floyd's Wish You Were Here '74, largely about his so-called crack-up; the solo albums were issued in a set on Harvest that year and charted in the USA. David Bowie and others allegedly approached him to resume recording; tracked down by French journalists '82 at his mother's home, he said he no longer played guitar but preferred watching TV. Rumours of a third solo issue came to nothing as bands such as the Shamen, TV Personalities etc made From The Wildwood '87, an album of his songs. Outtakes from Barrett's albums were issued as Opel '88 and all three discs reissued in a box as Crazy Diamond '93. His mother died '91; he was diagnosed with diabetes '98 and had to be looked after by his sister. Biographies include Lost in the Woods '98 by Julian Palacio, and Madcap: The half-life of Syd Barrett 2003 by Tim Willis, and Chapman's. |