Rock History
Learn the complete history of one of the most important bands in music, from its beginnings, members, problems between its members and today.
Syd barret
Roger Keith Barrett, known as Syd Barrett, was the frontman, singer, guitarist and songwriter for the English band Pink Floyd on their first successful album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967). Three years after the founding of Pink Floyd, Barrett left the band due to problems with drugs, especially LSD, and attempted a brief solo career that resulted in two albums, after which he retired, retiring since then in the his mother's house. Pink Floyd survived their loss, but Barrett's mental illness had a profound effect on the lyrics of their new leaders, Roger Waters, and Barrett's guitar replacement, David Gilmour, reaching their greatest hits under his baton (Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall) with themes often inspired by the disintegration of their former leader.
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The Pink Floyd
The name had been proposed by Barrett and taken from two old blues musicians he admired: Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. The Sound faded fairly quickly, but the The would be used regularly until 1968. The band's English productions during the Syd Barrett era were credited as The Pink Floyd as well as their first two singles in the US. David Gilmour continued to refer to the group as The Pink Floyd until 1984.
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Debate still exists as to which of the many songs that have been coined the "first rock and roll recording" actually deserves that title. Among the candidates have been named "Good Rocking Tonight" (1948) by Wynonie Harris; "Rock Awhile" (1949) by Goree Carter; Jimmy Preston's "Rock the Joint" (1949), later covered by Bill Haley & His Comets in 1952; and "Rocket 88" by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (who were actually Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm band), produced by Sam Phillips for Sun Records in 1951.It has also been argued that Elvis Presley's debut single, "That's All Right" from 1954, is "the first rock and roll recording".​Other artists with early successes in the genre included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Gene Vincent.
In 1955, Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" would become the first rock and roll song to top the Billboard magazine music charts. Soon rock and roll would be the main source of sales in the US music market, prompting crooners like Eddie Fisher, Perry Como and Patti Page, who had dominated popular music for the past decade, to find their way onto the charts. considerably limited successes.
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Rock and roll would evolve into numerous subgenres, including rockabilly, in combination with "hillbilly" country music, which would be recorded and performed by white artists such as Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, and (with enormous commercial success) Elvis Presley. , in the mid-1950s. The Hispanic and Latin American rock and roll movements, which would eventually popularize Latino and Chicano rock in the United States, began to emerge in the Southwest with standard rock and roll musicians such as Ritchie Valens and others with different cultural influences, such as Al Hurricane and his brothers Tiny Morrie and Baby Gaby, who would begin to fuse rock and roll with country-western in the traditional music of New Mexico. Other styles such as doo wop, originated by African-American vocal groups in the 1930s and 1940s, would place special emphasis on vocal harmonies and choruses (from which the genre would get its name), and were usually accompanied by light instrumentation. Groups like The Crows, The Penguins, The El Dorados and The Turbans achieved bigger hits, and other other musicians like The Platters, with "The Great Pretender" (1955), and The Coasters, with humorous numbers like "Yakety Yak" (1958). ), were among the most successful rock and roll musicians of their era.
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This period would also see a growth in the popularity of the electric guitar., as well as the development of a specific style of playing with rock and roll exponents such as Chuck Berry, Link Wray and Scotty Moore. The use of distortion, innovated by electric blues guitarists such as Guitar Slim, Willie Johnson and Pat Hare, and power chords, innovated by the latter two, in the early 1950s, would be popularized, respectively, by Chuck Berry in the middle of the decade, and Link Wray in the late decade.
In the United Kingdom, the movements of traditional jazz and folklore would cause the arrival of blues musicians in Great Britain.​ In 1955, Lonnie's hit "Rock Island Line" Donegan was a major influence on the development of the skiffle fashion, which spawned a host of bands across the country, many of whom, like John Lennon's The Quarry Men, would go on to play rock and roll.
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In retrospect, a decline in the genre was perceived towards the end of the decade and the beginning of the next. In 1959, the death of Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens in a plane crash, coined "The Day the Music Died", Elvis's enlistment in the US Army, Little Richard's retirement to become a preacher, the legal prosecutions of Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry, and the payola scandals (with the implication of major figures, such as Alan Freed, in corruption and bribery for the promotion of individual acts and songs), would make it seem that the era of established rock and roll hitherto had come to an end.
THE BEGINNING
1964 to 1967
Pink Floyd emerged in 1964 from a band called Sigma 6, which successively changed their name to T-Set, Megadeaths, The Screaming Abdabs, The Architectural Abdabs, and The Abdabs. When the band broke up, some of its members (guitarists Bob Klose and Roger Waters, drummer Nick Mason, and keyboardist Rick Wright) formed a new band called The Tea Set. After a brief stint with Chris Dennis as lead vocalist, guitarist and vocalist Syd Barrett, a fan of The Beatles and rhythm and blues, joined the band, whereupon Waters went on to play bass. In the summer of 1965, Bob Klose was forced to leave the band under pressure from his parents and university professors, and the group became a quartet, with Barrett, Waters, Wright and Mason. In this way, Barrett was revealed as the main songwriter of the group, and soon began to write new songs with influences from Bo Diddley's rhythm and blues, 14 although the publication of Eight Miles High by the Californians The Byrds and especially the album Revolver of their countrymen the Beatles in 1966 caused the rise of psychedelic rock, a then new musical genre that impacted the band and in which Barrett felt more comfortable.
In the autumn of that same year, Tea Set coincided in a concert in Northolt, on the outskirts of London, with a band with the same name that was going to perform in the same place. For a short period the name oscillated between Tea Set and The Pink Floyd Sound, but over time the latter became prevalent. The name had been proposed by Barrett and taken from two old blues musicians he admired: Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. The Sound faded fairly quickly, but the The would be used regularly until 1968. The band's English productions during the Syd Barrett era were credited as The Pink Floyd as well as their first two singles in the US. David Gilmour continued to refer to the group as The Pink Floyd until 1984.
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Pink Floyd became one of the underground movement's favorite bands, playing venues like the UFO Club, the Marquee Club, and The Roundhouse. At the end of 1966 the band was invited to compose music for Peter Whitehead's film, Tonite Let's All Make Love in London, and was filmed recording two songs ("Interstellar Overdrive" and "Nick's Boogie") in January 1967. Although they appeared very few samples of this music in the film, the session was released as London 1966/1967 in 2005.
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Given their growing popularity, the band members decided to form Blackhill Enterprises in October 1966, in association with their managers Peter Jenner and Andrew King, 18 to distribute the singles "Arnold Layne" in March 1967 and "See Emily Play." in June of the same year. The former climbed to # 20 on the UK hit chart, 1 and the latter peaked at # 6.19 giving the group the opportunity to appear for the first time on national television on the Top of the Pops program. July 1967.
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Sigma 6 in 1964
Sigma 6 in 1964
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
Jimi Hendrix
FIRST STEPS AND
THE EXPERIMENTATION
First steps (1967-1968)
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In 1967, after several instrumental sessions and live performances, Pink Floyd decided to make their first album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, which was released in August 1967. The title was taken from the novel The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame. It is currently considered the quintessential example of British psychedelic music, 22 in addition to being very well received by critics at the time. The album's tracks, predominantly written by Barrett, feature poetic lyrics and an eclectic mix of music, from the avant-garde 'Interstellar Overdrive' to 'The Scarecrow' (inspired by the folk music of The Fens, a rural region north of Cambridge in Cambridge). where Barrett, Gilmour and Waters originate). The lyrics are totally surreal and often folkloric, like "The Gnome." The music reflected the best electronic technology of the time, highlighting the use of stereo panning, tape editing, tape echo effects, and the use of electronic keyboards, notably the Farfisa organ played by Wright. The album was a success in the United Kingdom, where it reached number 6, but did not do so well in the United States, on whose charts it only reached 131st position, although it would later be re-released in the period of commercial success of the album. group, in the decade of the 70. During this period, the band undertook a tour with Jimi Hendrix, which helped to increase their popularity.
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As the band's success grew, stress and drug use (especially LSD) took their toll on Syd Barrett's mental health. His behavior became increasingly unpredictable, affecting the group's public performances as Barrett was often unable to play guitar or even sing. For this reason, in December 1967 the group contacted a musician friend of Barrett who frequented the band's concerts, David Gilmour, to support him on the guitar and sing when he suffered any of his mental blocks, although the candidacy of Barrett was also considered. Jeff Beck. However, this solution was not practical and the other members simply stopped wearing it to concerts. Barrett's last concert in the group was on January 20, 1968, at Hastings Pier. The rest of the members hoped that Barrett could write for the band with Gilmour at concerts, but this did not happen, and Barrett's compositions became increasingly difficult and abstract, such as "Have You Got It, Yet? », With changes of melodies and harmonic progressions, which made the rest of the members scrap the agreement. Barrett's departure became official on April 6, 1968, and producers Jenner and King decided to follow him, so the Blackhill partnership disbanded. The band adopted Steve O'Rourke as manager, who would continue with Pink Floyd until his death in 2003.
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After the release of two solo albums (The Madcap Laughs and Barrett) in 1970 (co-produced by and sometimes with collaborations with Gilmour, Waters and Wright), of moderate success, Barrett retired to his native Cambridge and led a quiet life until his death on July 7, 2006.
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The arrival of world fame (1973-1975)
The following publication, Meddle (1971) , ended up cementing the path that the band would take towards progressive Rock. The 23-minute song "Echoes" was described by Waters as a "sonic poem" due to its constant sound effects, and is considered one of his best pieces, as it contains long and unnerving instrumental lapses that fully demonstrate Gilmour's talent on guitar, Mason on drums and Wright on the Hammond Organ. In this sense, the orchestra that had so much prominence in Atom Heart Mother was put aside to give way to improvisations and studio experimentation. Shortly before the release of this album in 1971, the band stated in an interview that by this time the quality and sound of their performances had no secrets (such as those that claimed they required a large number of sound engineers), more than the 4 instruments that each of them mastered. Meddle reached the third position in the United Kingdom, but the lack of publicity on the part of Capitol Records in the United States caused that in this country it only reached 70th.
The next work of the band was Obscured by Clouds (1972) , recorded in France, and that formed the soundtrack of the film The Valley of Barbet Schroeder. It became the first top 50 for Pink Floyd in the US, as well as reaching sixth place in the UK. The lyrics to the song "Free Four" were the first reference in a song to Waters' father's death in World War II, a theme that became a recurring theme in later work. Furthermore, the song "Childhood's End" was Gilmour's last lyrical contribution in fifteen years, and is based on the book of the same name by Arthur C. Clarke. Stylistically, it is an album slightly different from its predecessor, Meddle, with shorter songs and with the reduction of the use of sound effects to create atmospheres, bordering on blues rock, folk rock or soft rock in many cases.
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During this time, Pink Floyd distanced itself from psychedelia and became a difficult band to classify. The different styles of each of the composers came together in a unique one, which crystallized in the two most important works of their discography, for critics and audiences: The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) and Wish You Were Here (1975) . In both works, Gilmour became the main vocalist of the formation, while the feminine choirs and the saxophone of Dick Parry acquired special relevance. This time became the creative zenith of the band, since both in Dark Side and in Wish you Were Here the 4 members carried out the composition of great songs like Time, in whose creation even Mason was involved. According to Gilmour, there was a kind of "consensus" among the 4 in that Waters was the main writer of the songs while the musical composition fell mainly on Wright and him.
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