Syd Barrett

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Keg
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Syd Barrett

Post by Keg » Wed Jun 08, 2011 6:29 pm

There's a documentary about Syd Barrett on R4 tomorrow (Thursday 8th June) at 11:30 am.

The Twilight World of Syd Barrett
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011plrs

Five years after his death (7th July 2006) Syd Barrett lives on freeze framed, still young and a striking lost soul of the sixties whose brief moment of creativity outshines those long years of solitude shut away in a terraced house in his home town of Cambridge.

This revealing programme hears how his band Pink Floyd (and family) coped with Barrett's mental breakdown and explores the hurriedly arranged holiday to the Spanish island of Formentera - where the star unravelled. In the programme we also hear about Barrett's pioneering brand of English psychedelic pop typified on early Pink Floyd recordings 'Arnold Layne', 'See Emily Play' and the strange songs on Pink Floyd's impressive debut album 'The Piper At the Gates of Dawn'.

Undoubtedly Barrett's experimentation with the drug LSD affected him mentally and the band members reveal how concerned they were when he began to go catatonic on-stage, playing music that had little to do with their material, or not playing at all. By Spring 1968 Barrett was out of the group and after a brief period of hibernation, he re-emerged in 1970 with a pair of albums, 'The Madcap Laughs' and 'Barrett', but they failed to chart and Barrett retired to a hermit life existence under the watchful gaze of his caring sister Rosemary (featured in the programme)

We hear from David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Rick Wright (one of the last interviews before his sad passing) about how there was little understanding of mental illness when it came to the drug-fused culture of the time. These days a strung-out star is hurriedly booked into the Priory and given counselling. As this programme reveals, Barrett's mental breakdown was not understood and the steps taken to help him were inappropriate and still rankle the members of Pink Floyd today.


It will be availabe for 7 days after broadcast on the iPlayer. Not sure if it will be listenable to non-UK residents, but if not I'll sort something out.

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