Pink Floyd History
- Change returns success -

Roger Waters Nick Mason Rick Wright Syd Barrett David Gilmour
9 Sep., 1943 27 Jan., 1945 28 July, 1945 6 Jan., 1946 6 March, 1946
Bass, vocals Drums Keyboards Guitar, vocals Guitar, vocals



The band Pink Floyd is as most bands a result of several years of changes, both in crew and musical styles. In order to understand what has really happened over the years ever since their psychedellic era in the London music underground in the late 60's it's important to see the band through a historical perspective. The ones to form the band were all born at the end of and nearly after the second World War, which in many ways should influence their music in the late 70's and early 80's. Most band members came from working class families, except Nick Mason, who were the one to later finance the recordings of Wish You Were Here. One might also tend to call the Pink Floyd a Cambridge band, as most of it's members abandoned this city for the swinging city of London.

The year of birth of Pink Floyd was 1965. Nick Mason and Rick Wright, who both had gone to Frensham Heights and Haberdashers, met Roger Waters in an architectural course at Regent Street Polytechnic in London. They all got together and formed a band with the other musicians Clive Metcalf, Keith Noble and Juliette Gale (who later married Rick). The group was initially named Sigma-6, then T-Set and Abdabs (including Screaming Abdabs and Architectural Abdas). Allthough they had a fairly interesting repertoir consisting of romantic lyrics accompanied by music pieces from Tchaikovsky the group did not break through. When the Abdabs finally broke up Waters, Mason and Wright kept together. Bob Close and Syd Barrett later joined as first and second guitar, and with Waters on bass guitar, Mason on drums and Wright on keyboard the group was named the Pink Floyd Sound. The name was taken from one of Barret's recordings with blues players Pink Anderson and Floyd Council.

The groups repertoir consisted mostly of rythm & blues, with songs like "Louie Louie" and "Roadrunner". Jazz player Bob Close finally left the group as Syd Barrett was driven more towards mystique and pop. Syd later started writing his own songs replacing their usual cover repertoir. The songs were all odd and new to the public, with somehow childish lyrics and a new sound, which attracted a small crowd every time the group held a school concert, but the small popularity around the group was not enough the members felt. In the spring of -66 the group was thinking of breaking up, and everybody were planning on spending their summer vacation in different locations. At what would be one of their last concerts in june -66 the group was luckily discovered by a music agent called Jenner, who felt that the group had a huge commercial potential. Jenner was very much into the music styles of the London underground and he also absorbed much of the vibrations coming from loudspeakers at hippie-gatherings all across the USA. Forming Blackhill Enterprices with Peter Jenner introduced them to a whole new set of lights and sounds. Sounds were adapted from other groups playing the London underground, and light technichians came from the U.S. and replaced their color slide light shows with oil slides projected on the stage during concert. The name was changed back and forth from "the Pink Floyd Sound" to "Pink Floyd" and finally ended as the last name which is still in use. The band's popularity was increasing radically with the increasing numbers of concerts, and in early spring -67 the band played as many as 20 conserts a month. The band was signed on with a record label named EMI which held their first press launch on the 1. April 1967.

More to come in a few weeks.....
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