Introduction

The early Sixties. Everything is up in the air, not least love, drugs and sex. A group of
talented teenagers from academic backgrounds in Cambridge Roger 'Syd' Barrett,
Roger Waters and David Gilmour are all keen guitarists and among many who move
to London, keen to discover more of this new world and express themselves in it. Mainly
in further education studying the arts, architecture, music they mix with likeminded incomers in the big city.

In 1965, Barrett and Waters meet an experimental percussionist and an extraordinarily gifted keyboards-player
Nick Mason and Rick Wright respectively. The result is Pink Floyd, which more than 40 years later has moved from
massive to almost mythic standing.
Through several changes of personnel, through several musical phases, the band has earned a place on the ultimate roll
call of rock, along with the Beatles, the Stones and Led Zeppelin. Their album sales have topped 250 million. In 2005, at
Live 8 the biggest global music event in history the reunion of the four-man line-up that recorded most of the
Floyd canon stole the show. And yet, true to their beginnings, there has always been an enigma at their heart.
Roger 'Syd' Barrett, for example. This cool and charismatic son of a university don was the original creative force behind the band (which he named after the Delta bluesmen Pink Anderson and Floyd Council). His vision was perfect for
the times, and vice versa. He would lead the band to its first precarious fame, and damage himself irreparably along the
way. And though the Floyd's Barrett era only lasted three years, it always informed what they became.
These were the summers of love, when LSD was less an hallucinogenic interval than a lifestyle choice for some young
people, who found their culture in science fiction, the pastoral tradition, and a certain strain of the Victorian imagination. Drawing on such themes, the elfin Barrett wrote and sang on most of the early Floyd's material, which made use
of new techniques, such as tape-loops, feedback and echo delay.
Live, the Floyd played sonic freak-outs half-hidden by new-fangled light-shows and projections with Barrett's
spacey lead guitar swooping over Waters' trance-like bass, while Wright and Mason created soundscapes above and
beneath. On record they were tighter, if still 'psychedelic'. Either way, they sounded 'trippy'. And perhaps that was Barrett's intention. He certainly ingested plenty of LSD and other drugs, which didn't help his delicate mental balance.
Over the spring of 1966, the young band were regulars at the Spontaneous Underground 'happenings' on Sundays at
the legendary Marquee Club, where they were spotted by their future managers Peter Jenner and Andrew King. And
by the autumn, the Floyd had become the house band of the so-called London Free School in west London.
A semi-residency at the All Saint's Hall led to bigger bookings at the UFO and the International Times' launch in the
Roundhouse as well as the recording of the instrumental 'Interstellar Overdrive' with the UFO's co-founder, producer Joe Boyd. (This track was later used on hip documentaries of the scene.) A signing to EMI followed in early 1967.
"We want to be pop stars," said Syd. In March, Boyd recorded Barrett's oddly commercial 'Arnold Layne' as a threeminute single. And with a Top Twenty hit to promote, the band took on a gruelling schedule of gigs and recordings.
They appeared at the coolest event of the summer, The 14-Hour Technicolor Dream in Alexandra Palace. They gave a
concert under the banner 'Games for May' in a classical venue the Queen Elizabeth Hall where they displayed
their theatrical ambitions through the use of props, pre-recorded tapes and the world's first quadraphonic sound system. (They received a lifetime ban for throwing daffodils into the audience.) And in June the Floyd released a single
originally written for this event.
'See Emily Play', which was produced by EMI's Norman Smith, charted at Number Six and made it on to primetime
TV's Top of the Pops three times (with Barrett acting increasingly strangely). This was followed in August by Pink
Floyd's first LP, The Piper At The Gates of Dawn, which they recorded at Abbey Road next door to the Beatles, then

working on Sergeant Pepper. Again making the Top Ten, the album is mainly Barrett's and is a precious relic of its time,
a wonderful mix of the whimsical and weird.
Talking of which, Barrett's behaviour and
output were threatening to bring the band
down with him: refusing to speak, playing one
de-tuned string all night, writing material like
'Scream Thy Last Scream, Old Woman with a
Basket'. The band wanted to keep their
frontman and hoped he would recover himself, so they asked David Gilmour now
back in London after a sojourn abroad to
take over Syd's role on stage, and thought
Barrett might become their off-stage songwriter. They tried a few gigs as a five-piece.
But in the end, they decided they could do without Barrett, and by March 1968 were in their second incarnation and
under new management.

Barrett went his way with Jenner and King, and later recorded two haunting solo albums on which Waters, Wright
and especially Gilmour helped before retreating to Cambridge for the rest of his life. The other four acquired a new
manager Steve O'Rourke and in a state of some consternation finished their second album, A Saucerful of Secrets (begun the previous year).
Lyrical duties had now fallen to the bassist Roger Waters. And apart from 'Jugband Blues' a disturbing track by Barrett, who contributed little else the album's standout moments included the title track and Waters' 'Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun'.
This hypnotic epic signposted the style the band would expand on in the Seventies, its vision at first more appreciated
by an 'intellectual' and European audience. The Floyd played the first free concert in Hyde Park, and laid down the
soundtrack for the bizarre Paul Jones movie vehicle, The Committee. They toured continually, developing new material
on stage as well as in the studio.
And they worked on the experience, in April 1969 revealing an early form of surround-sound at the Royal Festival Hall
their rebuilt 'Azimuth Co-Ordinator'. (The prototype, first constructed and used in 1967, had been stolen.) They
worked on their concepts, too - at that concert, performing two long pieces fusing old and new material, entitled 'The
Man' and 'The Journey'.
So their star continued its inevitable ascent. In July, the Floyd released More, less a soundtrack than an accompaniment
to Barbet Schroder's eponymous film about a group of hippies on the drug trail in Ibiza. The same month, they played
live 'atmospherics' to the BBC's live coverage of the first moon landing. In November, they released the doublealbum Ummagumma, a mixture of live and studio tracks and that same month reworked its outstanding number, the
eerie 'Careful With That Axe, Eugene', for Antonioni's cult film Zabriskie Point.

With Ummagumma at Number Five in the UK charts, and a growing reputation in both Europe and the US underground, the Floyd played some of the key festivals of their time Bath, Antibes, Rotterdam, Montreux and between October 1970 and November 1971, put out two more albums.
Atom Heart Mother, their first Number One, featured the Floyd in their pomp 'I like a bit of pomp,' says Gilmour
(who also made his first lyrical contribution with the gentle 'Fat Old Sun'). And Meddleincluded two timeless and largely
instrumental tracks that showcased their lead guitarist in all his vertiginous, keening glory: 'Echoes', which took up the
whole of Side One and began with a single 'ping' created almost accidentally by Wright, and 'One of These Days'.
Increasingly successful, in 1972 the band was still pushing the boundaries. They shot the film 'Live at Pompei' in a Roman amphitheatre, recorded another movie soundtrack for Schroder Obscured by Clouds and performed with the
Ballet de Marseille. But more importantly, they began to work on an idea that would become their most popular album
and with 45 million sold, the world's third biggest.
Provisionally entitled 'Eclipse' and honed through an extensive world tour, The Dark Side of the Moonwas released in
March 1973, and defies a potted critique here. Demonstrating Waters' talents as both lyricist and conceptualist, it was
also a musical tour de force by Gilmour. But Waters was becoming de facto leader of the band which in public at least
was becoming less about the individuals than the experience.
That was (as Barrett had always intended) increasingly visual. The intriguing sleeve artwork commissioned from the exCambridge outfit Hipgnosis was complemented by stage shows featuring crashing aeroplanes, circular projection
screens and flaming gongs. There were backing singers on-stage and a guest slot for another pal from Cambridge, the
saxophonist Dick Parry. In the dawning age of stadium rock, the Floyd were truly its masters.
Or maybe its servants? Even before Dark Side broke Middle America through FM radio with the single 'Money'
alienation, isolation and mental fragility had long been Waters' themes. As a stadium performer, and a cog in the music
business machine, he was becoming more prone to all three. As Barrett's ex-colleague, he had seen them embodied in
his old friend. The results were evident in two of his best lyrics for 'Shine On, You Crazy Diamond' and 'Wish You
Were Here'. These tracks were the high points of the Floyd's next LP, also called Wish You Were Here, which was begun in January 1975 and released that summer.
Famously, Barrett briefly appeared unannounced at Abbey Road during the recording of 'Shine On' and shocked the
band by his appearance and demeanour. It was the last time any of them saw him but they were seeing less of each
other, too. Personal and musical differences were starting to tell on the band, though it would be several years until
these became unbearable and two more LPs.
The first was Animals, released in January 1977 (although work had also begun on it in 1975). When this was toured
with lavish special effects, including giant inflatables, Waters was dismayed that the crowds kept calling for old hits. In
Montreal his patience snapped and he spat into the audience. It was a cathartic moment that gave birth to the Floyd's
most ambitious project ever: The Wall, a largely autobiographical reflection by Waters on the nature of love, life and
art.

The double album charts the progress of a rock star,

'Pink', facing the break-up of his marriage while on
tour. This leads him to review his life from the death
of his father - like Waters' killed on the battlefield
before he was born - to his spiteful teachers, his
business, even his audience. He sees each as a brick
in a metaphorical wall between him and the rest of
the world. This wall intensifies his isolation, until he
imagines the only solution is to become a fascist dictator. When he confronts his madness and deals
with his issues, his torments cease and the wall
crumbles.
The show in which the band were slowly obscured by a giant wall of cardboard 'bricks' was
the most ambitious the rock world had ever seen,
and was also turned into an Alan Parker film, starring Bob Geldof (who would return to the Floyd
story 25 years later). The album sold 20 million, and
spawned the band's only Number One single, the anti-authoritarian 'Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2'.
Though the album had its musical highlights Gilmour's solo on 'Comfortably Numb' being the most memorable it
was largely a lyrical piece. Waters drove the project and the others fitted in. They ceded their vision to his increasingly
personal direction, and worked together on no new material for more than two years.
When they did get back in the studio, it was to record The Final Cut. This prophetically titled album, prompted by the
Falklands conflict of 1982 and released the next year, explores themes of remembrance and the undelivered post-war
dream for which Waters' father had given his life. Completely credited to Waters, it was attributed to 'Roger Waters, performed by Pink Floyd' and featured Gilmour's vocals on one track.
After three years during which all four band members had pursued solo projects Waters announced he was leaving the Floyd and disbanding them. Wright had left the legal entity some time before, transferring to the payroll for The
Wall tour and playing no part in The Final Cut, but Gilmour and Mason decided to continue Pink Floyd without its erstwhile 'leader'. A turbulent period followed, but agreement was eventually reached: Waters would continue to perform
the songs on which he worked while he was with the band, as well as new solo material. Gilmour now first among
equals and Mason would continue to record and perform with Wright as Pink Floyd.
In 1987 came their next album, A Momentary Lapse of Reason which emphatically proved that the Floyd could exist
without Waters. The subsequent world tour, which also spawned the live Delicate Sound of Thunder, was the band's
longest and most successful ever. Over four years, 5.5 million people saw 200 shows, including one on a floating stage
in Venice (which again earned them a venue-ban) while Thunder became the first rock album to be played in space, by
the Soviet-French Soyuz-7 mission.

1994's album and tour, The Division Bell, broke similar records; but more, it showed Gilmour and the band on a creative
roll, with Wright contributing to some of the writing and Gilmour forging a new writing partnership with his wife, the
novelist Polly Samson 'High Hopes' being one of their new classics. However, since then, the Floyd has recorded no
new material in the studio.
Not that they have been inactive nor untouched by sorrows. In 2003, the band's manager Steve O'Rourke died
from a stroke and the three-man Floyd played 'Fat Old Sun' and Dark Side's 'Great Gig in the Sky', at his funeral in
Chichester Cathedral. In 2006, Syd Barrett died from pancreatic cancer. And in 2008 Rick Wright followed him but
not before he had helped re-write the Pink Floyd story a couple more times.
In 2005, prompted by Bob Geldof, the band decided to perform at Live 8 (on the 20th anniversary of Live Aid) and invited Waters to join them. He accepted and sharing vocals with Gilmour they played two numbers from Dark
Side, plus 'Wish You Were Here' and 'Comfortably Numb'. It was an epoch-making moment in rock history, and their
final group hug became one of Live 8's iconic images.

After that, the three-man Floyd performed together on two occasions once during a solo gig by Gilmour in 2006
(Wright played the whole three-month tour and was 'in great form', says Gilmour); and again at an all-star memorial
tribute to Barrett in 2007. Waters also appeared at the gig but was unable to join his old colleagues due to a previous
appointment. Still, that was not the end of their association.
On 10 July 2010, with some of their favourite musicians, Waters and Gilmour performed a few Floyd songs plus Phil
Spector's 'To Know Him Is To Love Him'! at a private charity event in Oxfordshire. And on 12 May 2011, during
one of Waters' Wall concerts at the London O2, Gilmour appeared on top of the wall as of old, to sing and play his
parts on 'Comfortably Numb'. Nick Mason, who was at the gig, then joined them for the final song, 'Outside the Wall'.
Departing the stage, as they had before, Waters played trumpet, Gilmour mandolin and Mason tambourine. The audience was stunned and delighted.
But a handful of concerts was never going to sate the interest of the diehard fans. In 1995, they were rewarded with
the double-album PULSE, all recorded on the Division Bell tour and containing the first complete live version of Dark
Side. A live compilation of The Wall from 1980-1 called Is There Anybody Out There? followed in 2000, and then a

re-mastered 'best of', called Echoes. There have also been collectors' editions of Dark Side, a complete works box-set
Oh, By the Way and now (autumn 2011) an extensive reissue campaign by EMI, with new packaging and production values, not to mention some rare and archival recordings that go back to the Barrett days.
Nor, as individuals, have the survivors from those times been strangers to the studio or stage these last dozen or so
years (and before). Gilmour put out his third solo album, On an Island, in 2006; Waters has had a prolific and varied
career since 1986; Mason and Wright released one or two collaborative albums respectively.
There have been awards and honours along the way: induction into both the US and UK Rock 'n' Roll Halls of Fame;
Sweden's Polar Music Prize in 2008 for their 'monumental contribution over the decades to the fusion of art and music
in the development of popular culture'. And in 2010, The Royal Mail usedDivision Bell visuals on their stamps, also creating a unique sheet using only the Floyd's imagery.
So is that the end of the Floyd's road? Do they still exist? Will they perform and record again? It now seems highly unlikely that the surviving members will ever convene under the name chosen by Syd Barrett, nor under it make new music. But who's to say? For at the heart of Pink Floyd, there has always been an enigma...

History of Rock in the Sixties

The songs and the sounds we call "rock and roll" evolved from many different sources, in
many different regions, and at many different moments in twentieth century history. The
music was shapedand continues to be molded and transformedby countless regular
people, some doing what they love, others seeking refuge from what they hate, some
hoping to change the world, and still others resisting what they fear.

Early in 1964, Life magazine put it like this: "In [1776] England lost her American colonies. Last week the Beatles took
them back."
It was a sweet surrender, as millions of kids (and not a few adults) succumbed to the sound of guitar-wielding, moptopped redcoats playing rock & roll that was fresh, exotically foreign and full of the vitality of a new age in the making.
This was the British Invasion, and the Beatles were its undisputed leaders. In 1963, the Fab Four released their first U.S.
single, "Please Please Me." That same year, the term Beatlemania was coined to describe the phenomenal outburst of
enthusiasm in England. But 1964 was the year of the Beatles' American conquest, and it began with the January 25th
appearance of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" on Billboard's Top Forty chart and the February 7th arrival of the band in
the States for a two-week promotional
blitz.
Overnight, Beatlemania swept the nation.
Before you could say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah!"
we had a new game, and part of the fun
was that there were no discernible rules.
Reporters found themselves trading quips
with the surprisingly quick-witted Liverpudlians. Young girls abandoned themselves to hysteria. And schoolboys started
dreaming of long hair and electric guitars.
Britannia Ruled the airwaves in 1964. In
the front ranks, marching in formation behind the Beatles, were the Dave Clark
Five, the Rolling Stones, Herman's Hermits, the Searchers, the Hollies, the Animals, the Kinks, the Yardbirds, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Freddie and the
Dreamers, Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield, Peter and Gordon and Chad and Jeremy. Then there were the one-hit wonders and what hits! "Have I the Right?" by the Honeycombs, "Hippy Hippy Shake," by the Swinging Blue Jeans, and
"Concrete and Clay," by Unit 4 + 2, all made the charts during the rave years.
Rock & roll, seemingly so moribund at the start of the decade, set off a fever that defied all attempts to contain it or
rationalize it as a fad. And Beatlemania precipitated a strange collision of generational currents. At the time, there was
no youth-oriented alternative press to report on and interpret the British Invasion, so the job fell to the establishment
media. Opinions ranged from effete condescension to a bemused thumbs up from more enlightened commentators.
Many guardians of young morals saw the Beatles not as lovable mop tops but as the (Fab) Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The first question posed to Harvard sociologist David Riesman in a U.S. News and World Report interview was
"Is the furor over the singers who call themselves the Beatles a sign that American youngsters are going crazy?" Riesman answered, "No crazier than hitherto."
In other words, the generation gap opened in 1964 with a crack that was more like a friendly grin than a roar of disapproval. American youngsters hadn't gone crazy. They just woke up, looked around and decided they all felt the same
way about something that was important to them and this newfound solidarity was an exciting thing.

There is no lack of theories as to why the States embraced the Beatles with such zeal. A popular one holds that the
country, in the aftershock of President John F. Kennedy's assassination, transferred to the Beatles all the youthful idealism that had begun cresting under JFK. It's also plausible that the Beatles stood so far above the musical status quo of
the early Sixties that they gave kids the first credible excuse for mania since Presley. Finally, of course, the Beatles'
campaign was a shrewdly plotted one, involving considerable promotional money and a lot of advance work by managers, press agents and their record company.
This accounts for the band's fanatical reception in the States but doesn't explain how Great Britain, not previously
known as a hotbed of rock & roll, produced the Beatles and their colleagues in the first place. In the Fifties the U.K.
had little more to offer than pallid imitations of American rock & roll singers. British pop was "pure farce," according to
writer Nik Cohn. "Nobody could sing and nobody could write," he said, "and in any case, nobody gave a damn."
The British music industry was rigidly controlled by the BBC and London's Denmark Street music publishers. A handful
of powerful managers groomed a stable of homegrown singers in the mold of Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly. This cleancut, nonthreatening lot included Tommy Steele, Cliff Richard, Adam Faith and Billy Fury hardly household names
stateside. On another front, however, a movement of musical purists, enamored of black American music, began replicating New Orleans-style jazz (a.k.a. "trad jazz") and acoustic folk blues. This route would indirectly lead to the Beatles
and an indigenous British rock & roll sound.
One of the more promising offshoots of the trad-jazz movement was a simplified jug-band style of music known as skiffle. Britain's premier skiffler was Lonnie Donegan. Singing in a nasal American twang, he enjoyed a run of hits in the late
Fifties; he mostly covered songs by Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie. In fact, Donegan charted sizable hits over here in
1956 and 1961 with "Rock Island Line" and "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor (on the Bedpost Over Night)"
an early warning sign that England could successfully sell America reconstituted versions of its own music. Young
Britons like John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Richard Starkey, the future lineup of the Beatles
took note of this. Prior to skiffle, the only significant blip on the British pop-culture time line had been a brief flurry of
juvenile delinquency occasioned by the arrival of Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" (the record and the film) in the
U.K. in 1955.
In the seaport town of Liverpool, Lennon, Harrison and McCartney first teamed up to form the Quarrymen. A few
name changes later, following stints as the Moondogs and the Silver Beatles, they crossed the threshold into the Sixties
as simply the Beatles. It is a measure of the talent found by the Mersey that the Beatles did not immediately become
kingpins on the Liverpool scene. Until they cemented their reputation with a stint at a club called the Cavern, they
stood in the shadow of such home-town favorites as the Big Three and Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, whose drummer was none other than Richard Starkey, a.k.a. Ringo Starr. These Mersey bands played a souped-up form of beat music essentially amplified skiffle with a heavy R&B influence, a style inspired by the records imported from the States
by Liverpool's merchant seamen.
Beginning in 1961, the Beatles commuted between Liverpool and Hamburg, Germany, where, dressed in black leather,
they played dives like the Kaiserkeller and the Star Club. By 1963, they had an act, an image, a repertoire, a following
and a manager Brian Epstein, a local record-store manager. They also lost a bass player (Stuart Sutcliffe), fired a
drummer (Pete Best), jelled as a quartet with the addition of Ringo and spruced themselves up, ditching the black leather and the bad-boy antics. The Beatles performed their 282nd and final show at the Cavern on August 3rd, 1963.
They'd already scored two Number One hits in Britain with "Please Please Me" and "From Me to You." Only one
month after their Cavern farewell, they saw their fourth single, "She Loves You," turn gold on its way to becoming the
biggest-selling single ever issued in Britain. An October 13th television performance, on Sunday Night at the London

Palladium, was viewed by some 15 million of their countrymen. Mob scenes followed them wherever they played.
"This is Beatlemania," the Daily Mail reported. "Where will it all lead?" To the lost colonies, of course and the
world's biggest market for rock & roll.
Nineteen sixty-four belonged to the Beatles. From the moment "I want to Hold Your Hand" was first played on an
American radio station WWDC, in Washington, D.C., in December of 1963 the country fell under their spell.
Preceded by a promotional campaign that included bumper stickers (The Beatles Are Coming! and Ringo For President), buttons (Be A Beatle Booster) and Beatle wigs as well as tantalizing glimpses of their performances on Walter Cronkite's newscast and The Jack Parr Show the Beatles' February 7th landing at New York's Kennedy Airport
generated an unprecedented fanfare. Sounding what would become a recurrent theme, one of the first questions
shouted at the Beatles' airport press conference was "Are you in favor of lunacy?" Paul McCartney, not missing a beat,
replied, "Yes, it's healthy."
The group's February 9th appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show drew a TV audience estimated at 70 million, the largest
in the history of the medium. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" topped the singles charts for seven consecutive weeks, and
by March, Meet the Beatles their first album for Capitol Records had shipped 3.6 million copies, making it the
largest-selling LP in history. Several record companies owned the rights to early Beatles tracks, and these also began
turning up in the Top Forty. When the group issued "Can't Buy Me Love" in mid-March, it caused a veritable Beatles
logjam on the pop charts. As records were sold, records were broken. Rising to Number One in its second week,
"Can't Buy Me Love" was the third consecutive Beatles single to top the charts, breaking Elvis Presley's previous record. During the first week of April the Beatles occupied twelve positions on the Top 100 and every position in the
Top Five. The hits in this quintuple hegemony were, in order, "Can't Buy Me Love," "Twist and Shout," "She Loves
You," "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "Please Please Me."
The Beatles' dominion was carried to new heights by the July release of their first movie, A Hard Day's Night
the Village Voice called it "the Citizen Kane of jukebox musicals" and the August kickoff of their first American tour.
The merchandising of the Beatles, whose names and likenesses adorned everything from lunch boxes to inflatable dolls,
accounted for an estimated $50 million in retail business in 1964 alone. The Beatles had become Britain's leading cultural export, and the trail they blazed to the colonies quickly became a well-trampled one.
Scads of would-be contenders were tapping their toes on the far side of the Atlantic, just waiting for a chance to show
the Yanks a thing or two. The group that initially gave the Beatles the best run for their money was the Dave Clark
Five, who hailed from London's northern suburb of Tottenham. Although they placed a poor second to the Beatles,
the DC5 racked up seventeen Top Forty hits between 1964 and 1967 more than the Rolling Stones or any other
British act during that span of years. By the time the Sixties rolled to a close, the DC5 had sold 70 million records
worldwide.
Because the band's single "Glad All Over" unseated "I Want to Hold Your Hand" from its lengthy perch atop the British charts in January 1964, it was assumed for a while that the DC5 were neck and neck with the Beatles in the superstar sweepstakes. But they didn't "progress," in the sense of graduating from pop stars to poets, as the Beatles did.
Nonetheless, the Dave Clark Five were what they were: a singles band, a dance band and one of the best.
Meanwhile, Liverpool was teeming with an estimated 300 bands, and several performers under the aegis of Beatles
manager Brian Epstein were having a field day. Gerry and the Pacemakers weren't a very convincing rock band, but
they had a solid way with ballads like "Ferry Cross the Mersey" and "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying." Gerry's star
shone only dimly after 1965, but his hits are pleasant memories, and he's notable for being the second act out of Liver

pool (behind the Beatles) to crack the British charts.

Another Epstein protg was Billy J. Kramer. Kramer and his band, the Dakotas, made their mark with some unreleased tunes from the Lennon-McCartney song bag; "Bad to Me" was a Number Nine hit stateside in mid-1964. The
only other Mersey groups that saw any significant American chart action in 1964 were the Swinging Blue Jeans ("Hippy
Hippy Shake," a song that was part of the Beatles' early repertoire) and the Searchers. This group was Liverpool's second most talented export. With their ringing harmonies and melodic, twelve-string-guitar hooks, the Searchers recast
borrowed American tunes, like "Love Potion Number Nine" and "Needles and Pins," in fresh new arrangements. All in
all, a handful of Liverpool bands did hit the big time, but legions more got lost in the shuffle, including such talented entities as the Merseybeats, the Mojos, the Escorts, the Fourmost, the Big Three and the Undertakers.
Like Billy J. Kramer, a London duo called Peter (Asher) and Gordon (Waller) turned Beatle leftovers into gold. Their
access to unreleased Beatles songs came through Peter's sister, Jane, who was dating Paul McCartney at the time. This
cute, strait-laced pair were the first British act to follow the Beatles to the top of the U.S. charts. Their ticket to ride
was the McCartney-penned "A World Without Love." More singles followed from the same cask "Nobody I Know,"
"I Don't Want to See You Again" and "Woman" and all made the Top Twenty. But even without McCartney's help,
Peter and Gordon reaped hits, with Del Shannon's "I Go to Pieces" and a music-hall novelty titled "Lady Godiva." After
the duo split in 1968, Peter became a producer at the Beatles' Apple Records label. He produced James Taylor's first
album at Apple, but his most famous client is Linda Ronstadt, whose classic sound he helped tailor in the Seventies.
Some of the loudest, rawest and toughest music of the British Invasion came out of London. A rhythm & blues scene
was thriving at a handful of venues under the tutelage of elder statesmen and bandleaders Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies, whose ensembles included such stars-to-be as Mick Jagger, Brian Jones and Charlie Watts (of the Rolling Stones),
Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker (of Cream) and Paul Jones (of Manfred Mann). An extended family of electric blues aficionados jammed and gigged at such haunts as the Marquee, the Flamingo, the Crawdaddy and the Ealing Rhythm and
Blues Club. Out of the mass of players, a number of important groups took shape, including the Rolling Stones, the
Yardbirds and the Pretty Things. The last of these never made it in America, though they were influential in their
homeland and endured into the Eighties.
After twenty-five years, even with their current status open to conjecture, the Rolling Stones remain the most tangible
link to the British Invasion era. They put the raunch back in rock & roll. Unlike the Beatles, the Stones came on unsmiling and without manners the kind of group parents had every right to feel uneasy about. Whereas Brian Epstein
transformed his charges from Teddy boys to teddy bears, manager Andrew Loog Oldham encouraged the Stones' delinquent tendencies.
The Stones got a delayed start in the U.S. They didn't enter the fray in a major way until 1965. After warming up the
Top Ten with "Time Is on My Side" and "The Last Time," they delivered a knockout punch with "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." Its central riff and basic lyrical thrust were created by guitarist Keith Richards one restless night in a Florida
motel room. Recorded in Los Angeles, with Richards' fuzz-cranked guitar blasting like the Stax-Volt horn section,
"Satisfaction" remains one of the bedrock songs of the age. From here the Stones turned up the heat with numbers like
"Get Off of My Cloud," "19th Nervous Breakdown" and "Paint It Black." The music of the Rolling Stones was an ice-and
-fire contrast to the Beatles. Simmering, blunt edged and angry, it set off the Liverpudlians' sunnier pop visions in a way
that perfectly caught the spirit of the times.

The Yardbirds, who inherited the Stones' regular spot at London's Crawdaddy Club, used their blues background as a
launching pad for a series of experiments in futurist rock. They were the first British Invasion group to be recognized
for the instrumental prowess of their guitarists who were, in order of succession, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy
Page. They stretched the boundaries of pop, adding a harpsichord in "For Your Love" and a droning, sitar-style lead in
"Heart Full of Soul." But most Yardbirds fans climbed aboard for the "raveups" extended instrumental breaks that
served as showcases for Clapton, Beck and Page.
Whereas the Yardbirds were known for instrumental virtuosity, a couple of other rising London bands the Kinks
and the Who established themselves through the force of their songwriting. Ray Davies of the Kinks was arguably
the most versatile composer to emerge from the Invasion. He was equally capable of driving hard rock ("You Really
Got Me") and wry social commentary ("A Well Respected Man"). The Kinks, with Ray's brother, Dave Davies, on frenzied lead guitar, were a familiar sight to viewers of Shindig! and Hullabaloo, two TV variety shows that spread the gospel of British rock in the States.
The Who burst on the scene with an anarchic stage show, which featured the smashing of guitars, drums and amps and
an arsenal of angry polemics on modern youth's state of mind. Such classics as "My Generation" and "I Can't Explain"
sprang from the pen of Pete Townshend, the group's guitarist and spokesman. Although the Who was enormously influential in swinging London, the band's impact on America was not largely felt until the tail end of the Invasion, with "I
Can See for Miles" rising to Number Nine in late 1967. Of course, this was just the beginning for the band, which went
on to create such musical landmarks as Tommy and Who's Next.
Manfred Mann (whose "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" was another 1964 chart topper), Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames
("Yeh, Yeh"), the Nashville Teens ("Tobacco Road") and the Paramounts (a hot R&B act that later changed its style and
became Procol Harum) kept London jumping to a bluesy beat. From the suburbs came a band called the Zombies, who
scored with some artful pop singles ("She's Not There," "Tell Her No") despite their gruesome name. From out of
town all the way from Belfast, Ireland another ugly-monikered group, Them, made the charts with "Here Comes
the Night" and "Mystic Eyes." Them's singer was none other than Van Morrison, whose hit streak continued when he
went solo in 1967 with "Brown Eyed Girl." And all the way from the West Coast of the United States came the Walker Brothers, a trio that settled in London and recorded two of the biggest
ballads of the British Invasion, "Make It
Easy on Yourself' and "The Sun Ain't
Gonna Shine (Anymore)."
While the Invasion was generally a band
-oriented phenomenon, the female artists stood alone and did quite well for
themselves. Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield, Marianne Faithfull and Lulu are
four of the more recognizable names to
dent the charts. Pert, cheerful Pet Clark
enjoyed a fifteen-hit reign, crowned by a
pair of Number Ones ("Downtown"
and "My Love"). Dusty Springfield's cool,
soulful voice was familiar to transistorradio owners via such mid-Sixties mega-

hits as "Wishin' and Hopin' " and "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me." Lulu had one of the biggest singles of the decade, "To Sir with Love," which held down the Number One spot for five weeks in 1967. Faithfull, who was Mick Jagger's girlfriend, did well with her torchy recording of the Stones weeper "As Tears Go By"; she was also one of the
more celebrated blond presences in swinging London.
Solo males were scarcer in combo-happy Britain. But they had several hits worth noting: the campy "You Turn Me
On," by Ian Whitcomb; "Niki Hoeky," by P.J. Proby; and the dreamy space-race ballad "Everyone's Gone to the Moon,"
by Jonathan King. Then there was Donovan, the Dylanesque folk singer turned psychedelic minstrel, whose "Sunshine
Superman" soared to Number One in 1966.
The provinces beyond London stoked the R&B furnace with such powerhouse acts as the Animals (from Newcastleupon-Tyne), the Spencer Davis Group and the Moody Blues (both from Birmingham). Yes, the Moody Blues. Back in
1965, they could pound it out with the best of them. Exhibit A is the piano-thumping beat ballad "Go Now," with its
beseeching vocal from Denny Laine (later of Paul McCartney's band Wings). The key talent in the Spencer Davis Group
was sixteen-year-old lead singer and multi-instrumentalist Steve Winwood. His soulful pipes carried "I'm a Man" and
"Gimme Some Lovin' " into the Top Ten in early 1967 and set the stage for his tenure as leader of Traffic and, eventually, as a solo superstar.
Gruff and earthy, Eric Burdon of the Animals sang about hard times in a powerful growl that made him sound decades
wiser than his age. On the back of the Animals' first American LP, he listed his favorite color as "brown-black" a
claim that's obvious in his stylistic debt to a host of American rhythm & blues artists. With organist Alan Price supplying jazzy counterpoint, the Animals vaulted to Number One in September 1964 with "House of the Rising Sun," a fourminute-plus ode to a New Orleans brothel. Closer in spirit to the Stones than to the Beatles, the Animals issued some
of the more desperate pleas of the day in "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" and "It's My Life."
The city of Manchester contributed a disproportionate share of pop hitmakers to the British cause. Herman's Hermits,
the Hollies, Freddie and the Dreamers and Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders all claimed a piece of the U.S. charts.
Fronted by doe-eyed Peter Noone, a former child actor, the Hermits recorded an impressive string of pop and musichall-flavored tunes set to a Mersey beat. "Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter" was their best-known song, but
they cracked the Top Ten nine times in a row between 1965 and 1966 a feat that even the Beatles couldn't claim.
The Hollies served up the best vocal harmonies of the era and outlasted many of their U.K. colleagues; they earned
their biggest hit in 1972 with "Long Cool Woman (in a Black Dress)." Freddie and the Dreamers were the clowns of
the British Invasion. Horn-rimmed beatnik Freddie Garrity and his bumptious, balding band mates devised the most
ludicrous novelty dance of all: a flapping free-for-all called the Freddie. It did not catch on. They did, however, leave
behind one big hit, "I'm Telling You Now." As for Wayne Fontana, his biggest hit was the catchy pop rocker "Game of
Love." It was part 2 of what the Billboard Book of Number One Hitscalled the "Mancunian hat trick" three chart
toppers in a row from Manchester. This unusual alignment occurred in late April and early May of 1965, with "I'm Telling You Now," "Game of Love" and "Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter."
The statistical high-water mark of the British Invasion fell only a month later, on June 18th, 1965. On that date, no fewer than fourteen records of British origin occupied the U.S. Top Forty. It was a record that stood until July 16th, 1983,
when the second British Invasion led by Duran Duran, Culture Club and the Police landed eighteen hits on the
chart. Ironically, during that historic week in the summer of 1965, the top seven positions all belonged to American
acts. Herman's Hermits ("Wonderful World") and the Beatles ("Ticket to Ride") nailed down Number Nine and Number Ten, respectively, while the rest of the British entries were scattered among the middle and lower reaches of the
chart.

The Beatles continued to reign supreme in the second half of the Sixties, although the British Invasion, in the sense the
term is commonly understood, had pretty much run its course by 1967. It was still the Beatles everyone tried to emulate or top, though the music, the audience and the rules of the game had changed markedly. The simmering down of
Beatlemania after 1965 reflected the group's loss of appetite for celebrity more than any waning of interest on the part
of the public. With the release of Rubber Soul (December 1965) and Revolver (August 1966) and their decision to stop
touring (they performed their last concert in San Francisco on August 29th, 1966), the Beatles moved into another
phase. They were turning inward, and their music was greeted not with screams but with a more mature appreciation
of the new places the Beatles were taking their audience.
"It sort of turned out all right," George Harrison said of the Beatles' decade, with monumental understatement, at the
1988 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame awards ceremony. "And still a lot bigger than we expected."

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

"Shine On You Crazy Diamond" is a nine-part Pink Floyd composition written by David
Gilmour, Roger Waters, and Rick Wright. It appeared on Pink Floyd's 1975 concept album Wish You Were Here.

As neither the original 1975 vinyl release nor the CD re-release actually delineate the various parts precisely, the make
-up of the parts below is based on a comparison of the recorded timings with the identifications in the published sheet
music. Without benefit of the publication, it is easy to mistake Parts I and II as Part I, Part III as Part II, and so on, with
the extensive postlude of Part V (at 11:10) as the beginning of the fifth section.
Parts IV
Part I (Wright, Waters, Gilmour; from 0:00 to
3:54) begins with the fade-in of a dense G-minor synthesizer pad created with an EMS VCS 3, ARP Solina,
aHammond organ and the sounds of a wine glass
harp (recycled from an earlier project known
as Household Objects). This is followed by
Wright's Minimoogpassages followed by a
lengthy, bluesy guitar solo played by Gilmour on
a Fender Stratocaster (neck pickup) using a heavily compressed sound and reverb. The harmony
changes from G minor to D minor at 2:29, then to C
minor, and back to G minor. This is repeated again,
and the part ends with the synth pad fading into the
background. During this section some very faint conversation in the studio can be heard in the left channel.
Part II (Gilmour, Waters, Wright; from 3:54 to 6:27) begins with a four-note theme (B, F, G, E) (known informally as
"Syd's theme") repeated throughout much of the entire section. This theme leads the harmony to C major (in comparison to the use of C minor in Part I). Mason starts his drumming and Waters his bass playing after the fourth playing of
the four-note theme, which is the point where the riffs get into a fixed tempo, in 6/4 time. The chord leads back to G
minor (as from Part I), followed by E major and D major back to a coda from G minor. This part includes another
solo by Gilmour.
Part III (Gilmour, Wright, Waters; from 6:27 to 8:42) begins with a Minimoog solo by Wright accompanied by a less
complex variation of Mason's drums from Part II. This part includes Gilmour's third guitar solo, in the G natural minor
scale, and ends with a fade into Part IV. When performed on the Animals tour, Gilmour addeddistortion to the guitar
for this solo. This solo is often dropped in live performances while the rest of part III is still playednotably
on Delicate Sound of Thunder andPulse.
Part IV (Waters, Gilmour, Wright; from 8:42 to 11:10) Waters sings his lyrics, with Gilmour, Wright and female backing vocalists Venetta Fields and Carlena Williams on harmonies.
Part V (Waters, Gilmour, Wright; from 11:10 to 13:32) Part IV is followed by two guitars repeating
an arpeggio variation on the main theme for about a minute with the theme of Part II. A baritone saxophone overlays
the sounds, played by Dick Parry. The saxophone changes from a baritone to a tenor saxophone, as a time signature
switch from 6/4 to 12/8 creates the appearance that the tempo doubles up, though the arpeggio guitar part in the background remains unchanged. The sax solo is accompanied by an ARP string synthesizer keyboard sound. A machine-like
hum fades in with musique concrte and segues into "Welcome to the Machine".

Parts VIIX
Part VI (Wright, Waters, Gilmour; from 0:00 to 4:39) begins with a howling wind from the preceding song "Wish You
Were Here". As the wind fades away, Gilmour comes in on the bass guitar. Waters adds another bass with a continuing riff pattern. Then Wright comes in playing an ARP String Ensemble Synthesizer and after a few measures, several
rhythm guitar parts (Gilmour played the power chord rhythm part using his black Fender Stratocaster before switching
to lap steel guitar for the solo in live performances from 197477. Snowy White did the rhythm guitar parts on this
track on the band's 1977 "In the Flesh" tour) and drums come in, as well as a Minimoog synthesizer to play the opening
solo. At the two-minute mark, Wright's Minimoog and Gilmour's lap steel guitar play notes in unison before Gilmour
does a lap steel guitar solo (the lap steel had open D tuning) with some counterpointing from Wright's synthesizers. It
lasts for about three minutes (four when played on the band's "In the Flesh" tour) and Gilmour played each section an
octave higher than the previous one. The highest note he hit on the lap steel/slide solo was a Bb6, followed by a reprise of the guitar solo from Part IV (which was played by White live on Pink Floyd's 1977 tour so Gilmour could
switch from the lap steel guitar back to his Fender Stratocaster). The song then switches time signatures to 6/4 (found
in Parts IIV), giving the appearance of a slower tempo and reintroducing the vocals.
Part VII (Waters, Gilmour, Wright; from 4:39 to 6:09) contains the vocals, in a similar vein to Part IV though half the
length, before segueing into Part VIII. Waters again sings the lead vocals with Gilmour, Wright and Venetta Fields and
Carlena Williams providing backing vocals.
Part VIII (Gilmour, Wright, Waters; from 6:09 to 9:07) brings in Waters to play a second electric guitar for a highnoted sound riff while Gilmour plays the arpeggio riff that bridges Parts VII and VIII. A solid progression of funk in 4/4
plays for about two minutes before very slowly fading out as a single sustained keyboard note fades in around the nineminute mark. Throughout this section, Wright's keyboards dominate, with the use of a Minimoog synthesizer, and a
Hohner Clavinet. Originally the section clocked in at 8 minutes before it was edited down to three minutes on the final
version (the unedited Part 8 without the Fender Rhodes and Mini-Moog overdubs surfaced on a bootleg called The
Extraction Tapes). When performed on the "In the Flesh" tour in 1977, the section would be extended to between 5
and 10 minutes as it would feature guitar solos from Gilmour (which would vary from funky power chords to a proper
solo as the Animals tour progressed) and Snowy White. In addition to their guitar solos, there was also occasional
trading of leads from Gilmour and White instead of the keyboard sounds as heard on record.
Part IX (Wright, from 9:07 to 12:28) is played in 4/4 time. Gilmour described Part IX in an interview as "a slow
4/4 funeral march... the parting musical eulogy to Syd". Again, Wright's keyboards dominate, with little guitar input
from Gilmour. Mason's drums play for much of this part, and the keyboards play for the final minute before fading out.
On the fade-out, a short keyboard part of the melody of "See Emily Play" (at 12:12), one of Barrett's signature Pink
Floyd songs, can be heard. Part IX, and the album, ends in G major, a Picardy third. When performed early on the Animals tour, the part begins with the piano (as heard on record) then the synth solo is played (as on record) by Dick
Parry with some slide guitar accompaniment by Snowy White would then change to half synthesizer/half harmony lead
guitar solo for the remainder of European leg and first US leg. For the final US leg, after the piano began it was a bluesy
guitar solo from Gilmour then harmony guitars from Gilmour and White (Gilmour playing the highest parts) and then
ending like on record. This was the final solo writing credit Wright would receive in Pink Floyd during his lifetime, as
well as his last writing credit of any kind until The Division Bell in 1994.

Another Brick In The Wall

In the UK, it was Pink Floyd's first single since 1968's "Point Me at the Sky"; the song was
also the final number-one single of the 1970s. For Part II, Pink Floyd received
a Grammy nomination for Best Performance by a Rock Duo or Group. In addition, Part
II was number 375 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".The
single sold over 4 million copies worldwide.

"Another Brick in the Wall" is the title of three songs set to variations of the same basic theme, on Pink Floyd's
1979rock opera, The Wall, subtitled Part 1 (working title "Reminiscing"), Part 2 (working title "Education"), and Part 3
(working title "Drugs"). All parts were written by Pink Floyd's bassist, Roger Waters. Part II is a protest song against
rigid schooling in general and boarding schools in the UK in particular. It was also released as a single and provided the
band's only number-one hit in the United Kingdom, the United States, West Germany and many other countries. In
addition, in the US, along with the tracks, "Run Like Hell", and "Don't Leave Me Now", "Another Brick in the Wall"
reached number fifty-seven on the disco chart.
The single, as well as the album The Wall, were banned in South Africa in 1980 after the song was adopted by supporters of a nationwide school boycott protesting racial inequities in education under the apartheid regime.
Each of the three parts has a similar tune, and lyrical
structure (though not lyrics, aside from the "all in all"
refrain), and each is louder and more enraged than
the one before, rising from the sadness of Part I to
the protesting Part II to the furious Part III.
Part 1 of the song is very quiet dynamically and features a long, subdued guitar solo. The vocals are
softer and gentler in tone than in Parts 2 and 3, although there is a short, sharp rise in dynamics and
tone for a brief period towards the end of the lyrical
portion. Sniffing, shouting, wailing, calling, and children can be faintly heard in the background. The
song's beginning coincides with the final chord of
"The Thin Ice", and the echoing multi-guitar solo
(after the lyrics)crossfades into the helicopter and
yelling-teacher sounds of "The Happiest Days of Our
Lives".
In the album version of The Wall, "Another Brick in
the Wall (Part 2)" segues from "The Happiest Days
of Our Lives", with Roger Waters' signature
scream. The song has strong drums, a well-known
bass line and distinctive guitar parts in the background with a smooth, yet edgy guitar solo. The song
also features a choir of schoolchildren singing in the
second verse: as the song ends, the sounds of a
school yard are heard, along with a Scottish teacher
who continues to lord it over the children's lives by
shouting "Wrong! Do it again!", and "If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding! How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?!", and "You! Yes! You behind the bikesheds! Stand still, laddie!", all of it dissolving into
the dull drone of a phone ringing. It trails off into the next song, ending with a deep sigh.

Part 3 is louder than the previous two parts, expressing Pink's rage. It is also the shortest part of "Another Brick in the
Wall", and cross-fades into "Goodbye Cruel World". On the live version the song gets an extended ending seguing into
the instrumental "The Last Few Bricks" which continues its keyboard staccato.

My Personal View
I have chosen to write about Pink Floyd because it is one of the few bands in the annals
of Rock n Roll to be remembered for both their critical depiction of social realities such
as education, authorities, youth spirit or love and for their global recognition as a worldwide lieder in the field of art.

The music of Pink Floyd represents art in its purest form since it is the direct expression of profound feelings of love,
freedom and revolt. It is the eternal beauty of the hope that the world will be a better place without inequalities or
discrimination. It is the voice of the many, the voice which demands justice and recognition. Their interests are truth
and illusion, life and death, time and space, causality and chance, compassion and indifference.
Absence as a lyrical theme is common in the music of Pink Floyd. Examples include the absence of Barrett after 1968,
and that of Waters' father, who died during the Second World War. Waters' lyrics also explored unrealized political
goals and unsuccessful endeavors. The idea of presence withheld, of the ways that people pretend to be present while
their minds are really elsewhere, and the devices and motivations employed psychologically by people to suppress the
full force of their presence, eventually boiled down to a single theme, absence: The absence of a person, the absence of
a feeling.
The album Animals is a unique blend of the powerful sounds and suggestive themes of Dark Side and The Wall a timeless portrayal of artistic alienation.
Their music is full of metaphors, "Dogs", representing fervent capitalists, the "Pigs", symbolizing political corruption, and
the "Sheep", who represent the exploited . I would describe the "Sheep" as being in a state of delusion created by a
misleading cultural identity, a false consciousness. The "Dog", in his tireless pursuit of self-interest and success, ends up
depressed and alone with no one to trust, utterly lacking emotional satisfaction after a life of exploitation. "Pigs" are a
continuing threat to liberal values and this is why Pink Floyd exists. It will always stand for freedom of speech and the
pursuit of happiness.