Roger Water
Roger Waters British musician and songwriter Roger Waters performing on his bass with Pink Floyd at the Live 8 benefit concert in Hyde Park, London, 2005.
Roger Waters (born September 6, 1943, Great Bookham, Surrey, England) is a British musician and songwriter, best known as the former songwriter and bassist of the rock band Pink Floyd. Waters was one of the founding members of Pink Floyd and set the conceptual direction for the band from 1968 to 1985, when he departed to embark on a solo career.
Early life and career
Waters’s father was a teacher and a soldier, having fought and died in World War II, when Waters was only a few months old. Waters was brought up by his mother, with whom he had a strained relationship. She moved Roger and his elder brother to Cambridge, where Waters studied at the Cambridge County High School for Boys. Waters reportedly performed poorly in school but became friends with Syd Barrett, with whom he would later start Pink Floyd.
Quick Facts
In full: George Roger Waters
Born: September 6, 1943, Great Bookham, Surrey, England
Also Known As: George Roger Waters
Waters showed little interest in music in his early life. He studied mechanical engineering for a short time before quitting to go on a hitchhiking tour. On his return, he enrolled at Regent Street Polytechnic, where he met the future Pink Floyd drummer, Nick Mason. Along with Richard Wright, who would go on to play the keyboard for Pink Floyd, they formed a band that went through a series of names. They brought in Barrett as vocalist in 1965, and they eventually settled on the name Pink Floyd, combining the first names of Pink Anderson and Floyd Council, a pair of blues musicians; Anderson was known particularly for the album Carolina Blues Man (1961).
Pink Floyd years
Roger Waters
Roger WatersBritish musician and songwriter Roger Waters photographed in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1968, when he was the bassist for Pink Floyd.
Pink Floyd’s initial direction came from Barrett, whose mixture of blues, music hall styles, Lewis Carroll references, and dissonant psychedelia established the band as a cornerstone of the British underground scene. Their debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967), became a rock classic. But by 1968, Barrett, who had overused LSD and was struggling with schizophrenia, was replaced by guitarist David Gilmour.
After Barrett’s departure, Waters started exerting more control over the band and its creative output. While early albums such as Meddle (1971) and Obscured by Clouds (1972) saw artistic input from all the band members, Waters wrote all the lyrics for their 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon, which was an instant hit that catapulted the band to worldwide fame. Waters continued to be the primary songwriter for the albums Wish You Were Here (1975) and Animals (1977), as well as the primary creative source behind the double album The Wall (1979).
Pink Floyd
Pink FloydNick Mason, Dave Gilmour, Rick Wright, and Roger Waters (from left) of Pink Floyd, c. early 1970s.
Waters’s tendency for perfectionism and control increasingly strained his relationship with the other band members, culminating in his departure from the band after the release of The Final Cut (1983). The Final Cut is considered by many to be a solo album by Waters, since he wrote all the songs and lyrics. A lawsuit followed, in which Gilmour and Mason won the rights to the name Pink Floyd; Waters, however, retained rights to the album The Wall and all the songs therein. Pink Floyd, comprising Gilmour, Mason, and Wright, later released three more studio albums.
Solo career
Waters launched his solo career with the album The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking (1984), featuring Eric Clapton on lead guitar, followed by Radio K.A.O.S. (1987). In 1990, the year after the Berlin Wall fell, Waters staged a charity concert in Berlin that featured many guest superstars. The Wall: Live in Berlin was released as a live album after the concert. His next album, Amused to Death (1992), featured Jeff Beck on guitar.
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Waters resumed touring in 1999. In 2005 he reunited with his former Pink Floyd band members to perform four Pink Floyd songs at the Live 8 concert in Hyde Park, London, and later that year he released Ça Ira, an opera in three acts. In 2011 Waters reunited again with Gilmour and Mason for a concert in London. He later released a solo album titled Is This the Life We Really Want? (2017).
Waters’s lyrics and song style draw heavily from his personal experiences and beliefs, and his music has often overtly featured political themes. Several aspects of his life, such as the early loss of his father, his sometimes difficult relationship with his mother, and his dislike for the British educational system, are depicted in songs from The Wall and The Final Cut. The Final Cut is critical of then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party. Waters has also openly criticized Israel’s actions toward Palestinians and has described the Russian invasion of Ukraine as “provoked”—a term that Waters used in a speech to the United Nations. Several of his concerts were canceled following his comments on political matters.
Sanat Pai Raikar
Entertainment & Pop Culture
Music, Contemporary Genres
Rock Music
Pink Floyd
British rock group
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Article History
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd Nick Mason, Dave Gilmour, Rick Wright, and Roger Waters (from left) of Pink Floyd, c. early 1970s.
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Pink Floyd, British rock band at the forefront of 1960s psychedelia who later popularized the concept album for mass rock audiences in the 1970s.
The principal members of Pink Floyd were lead guitarist Syd Barrett (original name Roger Keith Barrett; b. January 6, 1946, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England—d. July 7, 2006, Cambridge), bassist Roger Waters (b. September 6, 1943, Great Bookham, Surrey), drummer Nick Mason (b. January 27, 1945, Birmingham, West Midlands), keyboard player Rick Wright (in full Richard Wright; b. July 28, 1945, London—d. September 15, 2008, London), and guitarist David Gilmour (b. March 6, 1944, Cambridge).
Quick Facts
Awards And Honors: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum (1996) Grammy Award (1994)
Notable Works: “A Saucerful of Secrets” “Meddle” “The Dark Side of the Moon” “Wish You Were Here”
Date: 1965 – c. 1994
Formation and debut album
Formed in 1965, the band went through several name changes before combining the first names of a pair of Carolina bluesmen, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. Their initial direction came from vocalist-guitarist-songwriter Barrett, whose mixture of blues, music hall styles, Lewis Carroll references, and dissonant psychedelia established the band as a cornerstone of the British underground scene. They signed with EMI and early in 1967 had their first British hit with the controversial “Arnold Layne,” a song about a transvestite. This was followed by their debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, a lush, experimental record that has since become a rock classic. Their sound was becoming increasingly adventurous, incorporating sound effects, spacy guitar and keyboards, and extended improvisation such as “Interstellar Overdrive.”
The Dark Side of the Moon
Roger Waters
Roger WatersBritish musician and songwriter Roger Waters photographed in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1968, when he was the bassist for Pink Floyd.
By 1968 Barrett, who had overused LSD and was struggling with schizophrenia, was replaced by guitarist Gilmour. Without Barrett’s striking lyrics, the band moved away from the singles market to concentrate on live work, continuing its innovations in sound and lighting but with varying degrees of success. After recording a series of motion-picture soundtrack albums, they entered the American charts with Atom Heart Mother (1970) and Meddle (1971). Making records that are song-based but thematic in approach and that include long instrumental passages, the band did much to popularize the concept album. They hit the commercial jackpot with The Dark Side of the Moon (1973). A bleak treatise on death and emotional breakdown underlined by Waters’s dark songwriting, it sent Pink Floyd soaring into the megastar bracket and remained in the American pop charts for more than a decade. The follow-up, Wish You Were Here (1975), includes “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” a song for Barrett, and, though it went to number one in both the United States and Britain, it was considered anticlimactic and pompous by many critics.
Split and later albums
By the release of Animals (1977), it was clear that Waters had become the band’s dominant influence, and there was increasing internal conflict within Pink Floyd. Their sense of alienation (from both one another and contemporary society) was profoundly illustrated by the tour for 1979’s best-selling album The Wall, for which a real brick wall was built between the group and the audience during performance. After the appropriately named The Final Cut (1983), Pink Floyd became inactive, and legal wrangles ensued over ownership of the band’s name. Waters, who dismissed Wright after The Wall and took over most of the songwriting, was even more firmly in control. As a result the band split, but, much to Waters’s chagrin, Gilmour, Mason, and Wright reunited, continuing as Pink Floyd.
In the late 1980s Wright, Gilmour, and Mason
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