Age, Biography, and Wiki
Syd Barrett was born on January 6, 1946, in Cambridge, England. He rose to fame as the co-founder and initial frontman of Pink Floyd, a band that would go on to become one of the most influential in rock music history. Barrett's creative genius played a pivotal role in shaping the band's early sound, but his tenure was cut short due to struggles with mental health and substance use. He passed away on July 7, 2006, at the age of 60.
| Occupation | Rock Singer |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 6 January 1946 |
| Age | 79 Years |
| Birth Place | Cambridge, England |
| Horoscope | Capricorn |
| Country | England |
| Date of death | 7 July, 2006 |
| Died Place | N/A |
Height, Weight & Measurements
While specific details about Barrett's height and weight are not widely documented, his iconic style and presence have been well-documented through photographs and interviews from his time in the spotlight.
| Height | |
| Weight | |
| Body Measurements | |
| Eye Color | |
| Hair Color |
Dating & Relationship Status
Syd Barrett was known to be somewhat reclusive in his personal life. There is limited public information about his romantic relationships, as he maintained a private life after leaving the music industry.
His father, Arthur Max Barrett, was a prominent pathologist and was said to be related to Elizabeth Garrett Anderson through Max's maternal grandmother Ellen Garrett. In 1951, his family moved to 183 Hills Road, Cambridge.
At one point at Morley Memorial Junior School, Barrett was taught by the mother of his future Pink Floyd bandmate Roger Waters. Later, in 1957, he attended Cambridgeshire High School for Boys with Waters. His father died of cancer on 11 December 1961, less than a month before Barrett's 16th birthday. On this date, Barrett left the entry in his diary blank. By this time, his siblings had left home and his mother rented out rooms to lodgers.
Eager to help her son recover from his grief, Barrett's mother encouraged the band in which he played, Geoff Mott and the Mottoes, a band which Barrett formed, to perform in their front room. Waters and Barrett were childhood friends, and Waters often visited such gigs. At one point, Waters organised a gig, a CND benefit at Friends Meeting House on 11 March 1962, but shortly afterwards Geoff Mott joined the Boston Crabs, and the Mottoes broke up.
Interviewed on the Pat Boone in Hollywood television programme during the tour, Barrett replied with a "blank and totally mute stare". According to Mason, "Syd wasn't into moving his lips that day." Barrett exhibited similar behaviour during the band's first appearance on Dick Clark's television show American Bandstand. Surviving footage of this appearance shows Barrett miming his parts competently; however, during a group interview afterwards, Barrett gave terse answers. During their appearance on the Perry Como show, Wright had to mime all the vocals on "Matilda Mother" because of Barrett's condition. Barrett would often forget to bring his guitar to sessions, damage equipment and was occasionally unable to hold the plectrum.
After Barrett left Pink Floyd, Jenner quit as their manager. He led Barrett into EMI Studios to record tracks in May that were released on Barrett's first solo album, The Madcap Laughs. However, Jenner said: "I had seriously underestimated the difficulties of working with him." By the sessions of June and July, most of the tracks were in better shape; however, shortly after the July sessions, Barrett broke up with his girlfriend Lindsay Corner and went on a drive around Britain, ending up in psychiatric care in Cambridge. During New Year 1969, Barrett—somewhat recovered—had taken up tenancy in a flat on Egerton Gardens, South Kensington, London, with the postmodernist artist Duggie Fields. Barrett's flat was so close to Gilmour's that Gilmour could look right into Barrett's kitchen.
These sessions were happening while Pink Floyd had just begun to work on Atom Heart Mother. On various occasions, Barrett went to "spy" on the band as they recorded their album.
In 1978, when Barrett's money ran out, he moved back to Cambridge to live with his mother. He returned to live in London for a few weeks in 1982, but soon returned to Cambridge permanently. Barrett walked the 50 mi from London to Cambridge. Until his death, he received royalties from his work with Pink Floyd; Gilmour said, "I made sure the money got to him." In 1996 Barrett was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Pink Floyd, but did not attend the ceremony.
According to the biographer and journalist Tim Willis, Barrett, who had reverted to using his birth name Roger, continued to live in his late mother's semi-detached home, and returned to painting, creating large abstract canvases. He was also an avid gardener. His main point of contact with the outside world was his sister, Rosemary, who lived nearby. He was reclusive, and his physical health declined, as he had stomach ulcers and type 2 diabetes.
Breen also denied Barrett was a recluse or that he was vague about his past: "Roger may have been a bit selfish—or rather self-absorbed—but when people called him a recluse they were really only projecting their own disappointment. He knew what they wanted, but he wasn't willing to give it to them." In 1996, Wright said that Barrett's mother told the members of Pink Floyd not to contact him because being reminded of the band would make him depressed for weeks.
In his book Saucerful of Secrets: The Pink Floyd Odyssey, Nicholas Schaffner interviewed people who knew Barrett before and during his Pink Floyd days, including his friends Peter and Susan Wynne-Wilson, the artist Duggie Fields (with whom Barrett shared a flat during the late 1960s), June Bolan, and the Pink Floyd album artist Storm Thorgerson. Bolan became concerned when Barrett "kept his girlfriend under lock and key for three days, occasionally shoving a ration of biscuits under the door".
Other friends said that Barrett's flatmates, who had also taken LSD, thought of Barrett as a genius or a deity, and were spiking his morning coffee every day, leaving him in a never-ending trip. He was rescued from that flat by friends, but his erratic behaviour continued. According to Thorgerson, "On one occasion, I had to pull him [Barrett] off [his girlfriend] Lindsay because he was beating her over the head with a mandolin." Powell recalled this event, but Corner denied this happened. On one occasion, Barrett threw a woman across the room because she refused to go to Gilmour's house.
| Parents | |
| Husband | |
| Sibling | |
| Children |
Net Worth and Salary
Estimates of Syd Barrett's net worth vary, with some sources suggesting it was around $500,000 at the time of his death, while others estimate it could be as high as $5 million. Despite his relatively modest net worth compared to other Pink Floyd members, Barrett's contributions to the band's early success and his solo work continue to generate royalties.
In 1993, EMI issued Crazy Diamond, a boxed set of all three albums, each with further out-takes from his solo sessions that illustrated Barrett's inability or refusal to play a song the same way twice. EMI also released The Best of Syd Barrett: Wouldn't You Miss Me? in the UK on 16 April 2001 and in the US on 11 September 2001. It was the first official release of his song "Bob Dylan Blues", taken from a demo tape that Gilmour had kept after an early 1970s session. The tape also contains the unreleased "Living Alone" from the Barrett sessions. In October 2010, Harvest/EMI and Capitol Records released An Introduction to Syd Barrett, a collection of his Pink Floyd and remastered solo work. The 2010 compilation An Introduction to Syd Barrett includes the downloadable bonus track "Rhamadan", a 20-minute track recorded at one of Syd's earliest solo sessions, in May 1968. In 2011, it was announced that a vinyl double album version would be issued for Record Store Day.
Business and Investments
There is no significant public information about Barrett engaging in business ventures or investments beyond his music career. His focus remained on his art and music.
Trained as a painter, Barrett was musically active for just over ten years. With Pink Floyd, he recorded the first three singles, their debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967), part of their second album A Saucerful of Secrets (1968), and several songs that were not released until years later. In April 1968, Barrett left the band amid speculation of mental illness and his use of psychedelic drugs. He began a brief solo career in 1969 with the single "Octopus", followed by albums The Madcap Laughs (1970) and Barrett (1970), recorded with the help of Pink Floyd and the Soft Machine.
In 1974, Barrett left the music industry, retired from public life and guarded his privacy until his death. He continued painting and dedicated himself to gardening. Pink Floyd recorded several tributes and homages to him, including the 1975 song suite "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and parts of the 1979 rock opera The Wall. In 1988, EMI released an album of unreleased tracks and outtakes, Opel, with Barrett's approval. In 1996, Barrett was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Pink Floyd. He died of pancreatic cancer in 2006.
After leaving Pink Floyd, Barrett was out of the public eye for a year. In 1969, at the behest of EMI and Harvest Records, he embarked on a brief solo career, releasing two solo albums, The Madcap Laughs and Barrett (both 1970), and a single, "Octopus". Some songs, "Terrapin", "Maisie" and "Bob Dylan Blues", reflected Barrett's early interest in the blues.
Deciding to return to music, Barrett contacted EMI and was passed to Malcolm Jones, the head of EMI's new prog rock label, Harvest. After Norman Smith and Jenner declined to produce Barrett's record, Jones produced it. Barrett wanted to recover the recordings made with Jenner; several of the tracks were improved upon. The sessions with Jones started in April 1969 at EMI Studios. After the first, Barrett brought in friends to help: the Humble Pie drummer Jerry Shirley, and Willie Wilson, the drummer of Gilmour's old band Jokers Wild. For the sessions, Gilmour played bass. Jones said that communicating with Barrett was difficult: "It was a case of following him, not playing with him. They were seeing and then playing so they were always a note behind." A few tracks on the album feature overdubs by members of Soft Machine. During this time, Barrett also played guitar on the sessions for the Soft Machine founder Kevin Ayers' debut LP Joy of a Toy, although his performance on "Religious Experience", later titled "Singing a Song in the Morning", was not released until the album was reissued in 2003.
Despite the numerous recording dates for his solo albums, Barrett undertook very little musical activity between 1968 and 1972 outside the studio. On 24 February 1970, he appeared on John Peel's BBC radio programme Top Gear playing five songs—only one of which had been previously released. Three would be re-recorded for the Barrett album, while the song "Two of a Kind" (written by Richard Wright) was a one-off performance. Regarding "Two of a Kind", David Gilmour stated that Wright wrote the song but an increasingly confused Barrett insisted it was his own composition (and wanted to include it on The Madcap Laughs). Barrett was accompanied on this session by Gilmour and Shirley who played bass and percussion, respectively. These five songs were originally released on Syd Barrett: The Peel Session. The gig took place on 6 June 1970 at the Olympia Exhibition Hall as part of a Music and Fashion Festival. The trio performed four songs, "Terrapin", "Gigolo Aunt", "Effervescing Elephant" and "Octopus". Poor mixing left the vocals barely audible until part-way through the last number. At the end of the fourth song, Barrett unexpectedly but politely put down his guitar and walked off the stage. The performance has been bootlegged. Barrett made one last appearance on BBC Radio, recording three songs at their studios on 16 February 1971. All three came from the Barrett album. After this session, he took a hiatus from his music career that lasted more than a year, although in an extensive interview with Mick Rock and Rolling Stone in December, he discussed himself at length, showed off his new 12-string guitar, talked about touring with Jimi Hendrix and stated that he was frustrated in terms of his musical work because of his inability to find anyone good to play with.
Barrett made a final public acknowledgement of his musical past in 2002, his first since the 1970s, when he autographed 320 copies of Psychedelic Renegades, a book by the photographer Mick Rock which contained a number of photos of Barrett. Rock had conducted Barrett's final interview in 1971 before his retirement from the music industry, and Barrett visited Rock in London several times for tea and conversation in 1978. They had not spoken in more than 20 years when Rock approached Barrett to autograph his book, and Barrett uncharacteristically agreed. Having reverted to his birth name, he autographed the book "Barrett".
Barrett died at home in Cambridge on 7 July 2006 aged 60, from pancreatic cancer. His death was reported five days later. He was cremated at a funeral at Cambridge Crematorium on 18 July 2006; no Pink Floyd members attended. In a statement, Wright said: "The band are very naturally upset and sad to hear of Syd Barrett's death. Syd was the guiding light of the early band lineup and leaves a legacy which continues to inspire." Gilmour said: "Do find time to play some of Syd's songs and to remember him as the madcap genius who made us all smile with his wonderfully eccentric songs about bikes, gnomes, and scarecrows. His career was painfully short, yet he touched more people than he could ever know."
In 1987, an album of Barrett cover songs called Beyond the Wildwood was released. The album was a collection of cover songs from Barrett's tenure with Pink Floyd and from his solo career. Artists appearing were UK and US indie bands including The Shamen, Opal, The Soup Dragons, and Plasticland.
Social Network
Syd Barrett was not active on social media platforms, as his career and personal life were before the widespread use of such networks. His legacy is celebrated through official Pink Floyd channels and fan communities.
Around this time, Barrett wrote most of the songs for Pink Floyd's first album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967), and songs that later appeared on his solo albums. His reading reputedly included Grimm's Fairy Tales, Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and The I-Ching. In 1966, Pink Floyd became a popular group in the London underground psychedelic music scene. By the end of the year, Pink Floyd had gained a reliable management team in Andrew King and Peter Jenner. In October, they booked a session at Thompson Private Recording Studio, in Hemel Hempstead, for Pink Floyd to record demos. King said of the demos: "That was the first time I realised they were going to write all their own material; Syd just turned into a songwriter, it seemed like overnight."
Barrett made his last recordings with Pink Floyd in October, for the single "Apples and Oranges". He said the song was "about a girl whom I just saw walking around Richmond". By this time, he was having difficulty writing hit material for the group. Before a performance in late 1967, Barrett reportedly crushed Mandrax tranquilliser tablets and a tube of Brylcreem into his hair, which melted down his face under the heat of the stage lighting, making him look like "a guttered candle". Mason disputed the Mandrax portion of this story, saying that "Syd would never waste good mandies". During Pink Floyd's UK tour with Jimi Hendrix in November, the guitarist David O'List of the Nice, who were fifth on the bill, substituted for Barrett on several occasions when he was unable to perform or failed to appear.
Upon the album's release in January 1970, Jones was shocked by the substandard musicianship on the songs produced by Gilmour and Waters. Gilmour said: "Perhaps we were trying to show what Syd was really like. But perhaps we were trying to punish him." Waters was more positive: "Syd is a genius." Barrett said: "It's quite nice but I'd be very surprised if it did anything if I were to drop dead. I don't think it would stand as my last statement."
In August 1974, Jenner persuaded Barrett to return to Abbey Road Studios in hope of recording another album. According to John Leckie, who engineered these sessions, even at this point Syd still "looked like he did when he was younger ... long haired". The sessions lasted three days and consisted of blues rhythm tracks with tentative and disjointed guitar overdubs. Barrett recorded eleven tracks, the only one of which to be titled was "If You Go, Don't Be Slow". Once again, Barrett withdrew from the music industry, but this time for good. He sold the rights to his solo albums back to the record label and moved into a London hotel. During this period, several attempts to employ him as a record producer (including one by Jamie Reid on behalf of the Sex Pistols, and another by The Damned, who wanted him to produce their second album) were fruitless.
Although Barrett had not appeared or spoken in public since the mid-1970s, reporters and fans travelled to Cambridge seeking him, despite public appeals from his family to stop. In 1988 a reporter from the News of the World tracked down Barrett and declared him "a hopeless case". Apparently, Barrett did not like being reminded about his musical career and the other members of Pink Floyd had no direct contact with him. According to The Observer, he visited his sister's house in November 2001 to watch the BBC Omnibus documentary about him, said it was "a bit noisy", enjoyed seeing Mike Leonard again (calling him his "teacher"), and enjoyed hearing "See Emily Play".
Barrett wrote most of Pink Floyd's early material, and their producer, Norman Smith compared him favourably with John Lennon in his memoir: "Syd Barrett could write like John. I've said it before. He wasn't quite as good as John, and I am talking about a Syd on top form with 'See Emily Play'. But he would have developed. Definitely! In time he would have got even better." Jimmy Page never saw Barrett play with the Floyd, but was a fan of the early group's music, telling an interviewer, "Syd Barrett's writing with the early Pink Floyd was inspirational. Nothing sounded like Barrett before Pink Floyd's first album. There were so many ideas and so many positive statements. You can really feel the genius there, and it was tragic that he fell apart. Both he and Jimi Hendrix had a futuristic vision in a sense." According to critic Steven Hyden, even after Barrett left the band, Barrett's spirit "haunted" their records, and their most popular work "drew on the power of what Barrett signified".
Many artists have acknowledged Barrett's influence on their work. Paul McCartney, Pete Townshend, Blur, Kevin Ayers, Gong,, Marc Bolan, Tangerine Dream, Genesis P-Orridge, Julian Cope, Pere Ubu, Jeff Mangum, The Olivia Tremor Control, The Flaming Lips, Animal Collective, John Maus, Paul Weller, Roger Miller, East Bay Ray and David Bowie were inspired by Barrett; the Sex Pistols, and The Damned all expressed interest in working with him at some point during the 1970s. Bowie recorded a cover of "See Emily Play" on his 1973 album Pin Ups. The track "Grass", from XTC's album Skylarking was influenced when Andy Partridge let fellow band member Colin Moulding borrow his Barrett records. Robyn Hitchcock's career was dedicated to being Barrett-esque; he even played "Dominoes" for the 2001 BBC documentary The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story.
Other artists who have written tributes to Barrett include his contemporary Kevin Ayers, who wrote "O Wot a Dream" in his honour (Barrett provided guitar to an early version of Ayers' song "Religious Experience: Singing a Song in the Morning") Robyn Hitchcock has covered many of his songs live and on record and paid homage to his forebear with the song "(Feels Like) 1974". Phish covered "Bike", "No Good Trying", "Love You", "Baby Lemonade" and "Terrapin". The Television Personalities' single "I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives" from their 1981 album And Don't the Kids Love It is another tribute.
The 2023 documentary film ''Have You Got It Yet? The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd'' features interviews with Roger Waters, Nick Mason, David Gilmour, Barrett's sister Rosemary Breen, and Pink Floyd managers Peter Jenner and Andrew King. It is directed by Roddy Bogawa and Storm Thorgerson, and narrated by Jason Isaacs.
According to the writer and critic Jonathan Meades, some groupies treated Barrett with cruelty; one said they put Barrett in a cupboard while he was having a bad trip. Thorgerson responded: "I do not remember locking Syd up in a cupboard. It sounds to me like pure fantasy, like Jonathan Meades was on dope himself." Thorgeson's colleague Aubrey Powell said the groupies probably told Meades this to "wind him up".
Education
Barrett enrolled at the Camberwell College of Arts in 1964 to study painting, which reflects his early interest in visual arts.
Syd Barrett's impact on music and his enduring legacy as a pioneer of psychedelic rock continue to inspire new generations of artists and fans. Despite his relatively short career, his contributions remain pivotal to the history of Pink Floyd and the broader music landscape.
Barrett reportedly used the nickname Syd from the age of 14, derived from the name of an old Cambridge jazz bassist, Sid "the Beat" Barrett; Barrett changed the spelling to differentiate himself. By another account, when Barrett was 13, his schoolmates nicknamed him Syd after he came to a field day at Abington Scout site wearing a flat cap instead of his scout beret, because "Syd" was a "working-class" name. He used both names interchangeably for several years. His sister Rosemary said: "He was never Syd at home. He would never have allowed it."
In September 1962, Barrett took a place at the art department of the Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology, where he met future Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour. In late 1962 and early 1963, the Beatles made an impact on Barrett, and he began to play Beatles songs at parties and at picnics. In 1963, he became a Rolling Stones fan and attended a performance at a village hall in Cambridgeshire. He said Bo Diddley was his greatest influence.
At this point, Barrett started writing songs. One friend recalled hearing "Effervescing Elephant", which he later recorded for his solo album Barrett. Also around this time, Barrett and Gilmour occasionally played acoustic gigs together. Barrett referred to Gilmour as "Fred" in letters to girlfriends and relatives. Barrett had played bass guitar with Those Without in mid-1963 and bass and guitar with the Hollerin' Blues the next year. In 1964, Barrett and Gausden saw Bob Dylan perform. After this performance, Barrett was inspired to write "Bob Dylan Blues". Barrett, now thinking about his future decided to apply for Camberwell College of Arts in London. He enrolled in the college in mid-1964 to study painting.
Around Christmas 1967, Pink Floyd asked Gilmour to join as a second guitarist to cover for Barrett. For a handful of shows, Gilmour played and sang while Barrett wandered around on stage, occasionally joining the performance. The other band members grew tired of Barrett's behaviour. On 26 January 1968, when Waters was driving on the way to a show at Southampton University, they elected not to pick him up. One person said, "Shall we pick Syd up?" and another said, "Let's not bother." As Barrett had written the bulk of the band's material, the plan was to retain him as a non-touring member, as the Beach Boys had done with Brian Wilson, but this proved impractical.
"Quite often he took the train on his own to London to look at the major art collections—and he loved flowers. He made regular trips to the Botanic Gardens and to the dahlias at Anglesey Abbey, near Lode. But of course, his passion was his painting."
