Waters

In his career Waters has been a lyricist, composer, vocalist, bassist, publisher & lots more.

He started the band Pink Floyd in the early / mid sixties with Rick Wright, Syd Barrett & Nick Mason. They went psychedelic in the begining. They sang about pretty girls, good mice, bicycles, drugs, paintboxes and other things belonging to the world of dreams. Their music was a good deal of performance acting, a bit of noise, a bit of mad words, a bit of drugs & a lot of energy. The played to the underground circuit & gained a fair bit of popularity. As soon as they had their own devouted audience, they started publishing studio albums. The horizons were broadening.

Unfortunately but perhaps not very unexpectedly, Barrett, who had led the band till 1969 went too far in his love for LSD. He suffered MPD & subsequently had to be forced to retire. David Gilmour was brought in as the lead guitarist. The Pink Floyd Sound was to change forever.

As the vibrant 60's turned into the speedy, pacey 70's the onus of creation came to Waters. The music scene in Britain was changing radically & drugs powered jam-ups were almost passe. The day & age of the big bands was coming. Even as early as the end of 1971, the Beatles had broken up. Jim Morrison & Jimi Hendrix were dead. Elvis was history. Heavier music (particularly embryonic metal of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath & Deep Purple) was taking roots. The erstwhile basement / bar jigs of Floyd were no longer as popular. In these turbulent times, Waters decided to take the bull by the horns. Rather than follow the metal-trend he chose to write his own musical destiny.

He looked in his own childhood for inspiration. He had lost his father to the World-War before his birth. He had spent his formative years under the extra-watchful eye of an excessively restrictive mother who herself had had a nervous breakdown. And he had grown up in the ruined back-alleys of a bombed-flat country. He was never short of material that could be turned into songs. He put on paper all that and more. What became of Floyd here, is what a true fan cannot forget.

A careful & observant listener can notice the distinct change from Barrette's rock- nroll-esque 60's to Waters' progressive psychedelic 70's & 80's. Although Waters retained most of the psychedelic touches, he brought in a lot more experimentation, ably aided by the sensuous, flawless guitars of Gilmour. I have never heard any other band (even in today's electronic era) experiment as successfully with instruments, sounds & special effects as Floyd (Waters). Through these novel presentations, Floyd had pioneered 3 important genre - Psychedelic Rock, Progressive Rock & Trance - in just under 10 years. Hardly has any single band or artiste contributed so much to modern music.

It is the experimental music of Floyd that shines bright across generations. It is the new sound that captivates several generations (in terms of the sound of music, tastes change almost every 5 years so may be 6 generations already).

I shall not rut out the details of popular Floyd numbers & albums as it has been done to death already. What I also need not emphasise is the charisma of this unpretentious and publicity shy artiste who is most understated in his ways. This charisma is amply demonstrated by the 35-40 thousand audience in Bombay where tickets were so massively over-priced that the richest kids driving fancy cars had to pay through their noses for them.

What I would rather highlight is the humility of the man who otped to speak personally for his crowd & thank them with great dignity & modesty rather than do crazy stunts & stage dives. Genious is what genious does.