Pink Floyd, the #54 Artist of the Rock Era, Part One

"Pure, beautiful, unfiltered art."

"One of the best bands ever."

"It's a Journey to another dimension... classics, man, classics."

"An incredible band which influences the lives of so many people on a daily basis."

"Some of the best music ever."

"Classical music meets progressive rock...amazing."

"Original and innovative music--Pink Floyd is incomparable."

"So much is said in the absence of words rather than their presence. That's what i love about their music."

"One of the best groups of all-time."

"I believe Pink Floyd is the only group that succeeded to capture real emotions not only with their lyrics but also with their musical choices."

"Pink Floyd will be remembered in the same regard as Mozart or Beethoven."

"Can't get much better than this!"

"The majesty of Pink Floyd is unsurpassed."

"Some of the best music I've ever listened to."






This legendary group blended experimental electronics with all manner of sound effects to create a sound that defied labels and pushed music to the outer limits.

This groundbreaking group formed in London in 1965 with guitarist and lead vocalist Syd Barrett, bassist Roger Waters, drummer Nick Mason and keyboardist Richard Wright.  The band can trace their origins to a group called Sigma 6, which originally included Waters and Mason.  Wright joined Sigma 6 later in the year, and in 1964, guitarist Bob Klose joined.

    Clockwise: Nick Mason , Syd Barret , Roger Waters , Richard Wright , David Gilmour

The band went through numerous name changes before deciding on the Tea Set.  When two of the original members left, Waters encouraged his friend, Barrett, to join.  In 1965, the group secured a gig at the Countdown Club in London and played three sets of 90 minutes each.  Klose left shortly thereafter, when Barrett assumed lead guitar duties.

In 1966, another group calling itself the Tee Set formed and was set to perform on the same stage.  Barrett came up with the name Pink Floyd Sound from two blues artists in his record collection, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council.

The group played at the famous Marquee Club in March, where Peter Jenner saw them.  With friend Andrew King, Jenner started Blackhill Enterprises, which bought new instruments and equipment for the band and became their managers.  About this time, the band dropped "Sound" from their name and became Pink Floyd.  Continuing to play at clubs in the London area, the group began to add long instrumental sections to their songs, which were mostly covers of R&B songs.  

In 1967, Pink Floyd recorded a demo and signed with EMI Records.  

Gradually, they began to mix in originals from Barrett and started attracting a following at the UFO Club.  Two singles charted in the U.K., but success was limited there.  But Wright's "Paintbox", the flip to "Apples And Oranges", is a better song.  The band mimed to the song on a bridge in Brussels, Belgium.

 

"See Emily Play" was a non-album single, #6 in the U.K. and #10 in Ireland.  Barrett used a Zippo lighter as a guitar slide.  He supposedly wrote the song about a girl that Barrett claimed visited him while he was sleeping in the woods.  According to the book A Saucerful of Secrets:  The Pink Floyd Odyssey by Nicholas Shaffner, Emily is Emily Young, daughter of Wayland Young, 2nd Baron Kennet, who was given the nickname "the psychedelic schoolgirl" at the UFO Club.

Pink Floyd played three times on the television show Top of the Pops, with Barrett clearly in another world.  Drugs were beginning to ruin his life.  

At one UFO Club performance, Barrett stood lifeless on stage with his arms hanging down.  The group had to cancel a planned appearance at the prestigious National Jazz and Blues Festival, which King blamed on Barrett's "nervous exhaustion".  The public would soon see through the lies.

 

Pink Floyd released their debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, in 1967, reaching #6 in the U.K.  The album, named after a chapter in Barrett's favorite childhood book, The Wind in the Willows, has since gone Gold.  "Astronomy Domine" is the top song on the album, and shows that the most experimental group of the Rock Era was already plotting their course.  "Domine" is a word frequently used in Gregorian chants.  The song starts with Peter Jenner, one of the group's managers, reciting names of planets, stars and galaxies through a megaphone.

 

"Lucifer Sam" is a fan favorite.  Although on the surface it seems to be written about Barrett's cat Sam, it more likely refers to another man who had a relationship with Barrett's girlfriend, Jenny Spires.  The band toured the United States for the first time, but in an appearance on The Pat Boone Show, Barrett did not answer questions and simply stared into space.  Barrett did not mime the words to "See Emily Play", leading King to cancel the rest of their tour and send the group home.

Things didn't get better when they opened for Jimi Hendrix in England, and in December, Pink Floyd added guitarist David Gilmour.  By this time, the drugs had caused several side effects in Barrett, including depression.  For the moment, the other members kept him in the band as a songwriter.  But less than a month later, it was impossible to continue to work with him and Barrett was out.  On January 26, 1968, the band drove to a concert at Southampton University and did not pick up Barrett.

Managers Jenner and King opted to stay with Barrett and terminate their relationship with Pink Floyd.  Steve O'Rourke became the group's new manager and Waters became the chief songwriter.

 

It didn't take long for Pink Floyd to prove their former managers wrong.  In 1968, they released the album A Saucerful of Secrets, which featured the title song.  Unlike their debut in which Barrett controlled everything, all of the group members contributed to this project.  And they moved away from Barrett by introducing long instrumental sections with ethereal sounds.  

We also want to feature "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun", which was performed in live sets until 1973.  It is the only track on the album in which all five members contributed.  Waters borrowed the lyrics from a book of Chinese poetry during the Tang Dynasty.

"Cymbaline" is a song featured in the movie More, though the album version is different from the one in the movie.  Not only are the lyrics different, but Waters sang lead on the movie version while Gilmour provided vocals for this version.  The lyrics tell of a "nightmare", which was the song's original title when it was introduced in the group's live suite The Man and the Journey.

The group returned in 1969 with the double album Ummagumma, with half recorded live at the Manchester College of Commerce and Mothers in Birmingham and the other featuring experimental pieces from each member.

Ummagumma has sold over one million copies.
 

In 1970, the band released the album Atom Heart Mother.  The album is known for not including Pink Floyd's name or the name of the album, just a cow standing in a field with a picture of the band embedded in its flank.  Members of the group didn't like it, even though it became a #1 album in the U.K.  However, it has only gone Gold.  

Pink Floyd was more in demand on a full tour of North America than Europe. 

Working on their next album, they began experimenting with basic sounds or notes and added sounds of everyday household objects into their recordings, a formula they would revisit for several years.  In 1971, the band released the album Meddle.  Waters played the acoustical guitar parts, using open tuning in G Major taught to him by Barrett on "Fearless".  The song fades into the Rodgers and Hammerstein song "You'll Never Walk Alone" from Carousel, sung by fans at a Liverpool soccer match.

Meddle has now sold over two million copies.  In 1972, the group released the album Obscured by Clouds, which includes "Echoes", not just a song but a musical experience that linked a series of riffs.  Wright's memorable organ solo was reportedly inspired by "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys.  As Gilmour explained in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, the screaming sounds in the middle of the song were achieved when Gilmour plugged into a wahwah pedal backwards, an accidental mistake.  But as always, the group capitalized and exploited their "mistakes".  

Gilmour said that in his guitar work featured throughout the song, he was trying to portray "the potential that human beings have for recognizing each other’s humanity and responding to it, with empathy rather than antipathy.”

The album was the soundtrack to the French movie La Valee.  "Free Four" is a song about how our lives pass by, most of the time with no real effect on the cycle by which we all live and pass.  But this line of thinking is grossly wrong.

Gilmour wrote this one--"Childhood's End", which is the title of Arthur C. Clarke's science novel, though the song has nothing to do with the book.  It is the last song that Gilmour wrote the lyrics to for 15 years.

 Water's song "Wot's...Uh The Deal" is another solid track.  The phrase is reportedly one uttered often by roadie Chris Adamson.

There is much more to the Pink Floyd Story--join us for Parts II and III!