Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett dies at home

Syd Barrett in January 1970 (Barry Plummer)

Syd Barrett, the founding member of Pink Floyd, has died aged 60 at his Cambridgeshire home where he became a recluse 30 years ago.

The inspirational guitarist, singer and lyricist founded the band in 1965 and was one of its biggest songwriting talents in the group’s early days.

But his behaviour became erratic during the psychedelic drug haze of the 1960s and he split with the band in 1968. He has since lived reclusively in Cambridge.

A spokeswoman for Pink Floyd said: "He died very peacefully a couple of days ago." It has been reported that he died last Friday from complications related to diabetes.

The band said today that they were "very upset" to learn of his death and that he was the "guiding light" of the early days.

A spokesman said: "The band are naturally very upset and sad to learn of Syd Barrett's death. Syd was the guiding light of the early band line-up and leaves a legacy which continues to inspire."

His brother Alan confirmed his death, saying only: "He died peacefully at home. There will be a private family funeral in the next few days."

Pink Floyd formed in the 1960s and became one of the most successful groups ever, with worldwide album sales of more than 200 million.

Known as an album band they had only one No 1 in this country, their iconic hit Another Brick in the Wall.

Pete Paphides, The Times’s Chief Rock Critic, said that Barrett could be seen in the same context as Van Gogh - a genius who saw things differently to other people.

"He will be remembered fondly and seen as someone who created compellingly disturbing work. He was a troubled, tortured genius who saw the world differently from the rest of us and we will always be intrigued by that.

"With his two solo albums you get a real sense that he was someone who was processing what he saw and how his senses perceived things in a different way to the rest of us.

"Technically he was not a great musician but he was a great artist and one of a kind who deserves his iconic status."

Barrett is said to have come up with the name for the band by fusing the names of bluesmen Pink Anderson and Floyd Council in 1965. He created Pink Floyd with his old friend Roger Waters, and became a huge star at the age of 21. But he could hardly perform during his final days with the band, because he was taking so much LSD.

When his drug-fuelled behaviour became too much, the band drafted in Dave Gilmour as guitarist, and decided not to pick Barrett up for gigs.

The song Shine On You Crazy Diamond, written by Waters and performed during the band’s 1974 tour, is an appreciation for the contributions Barrett made to the band.

It includes the lines "Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun. Shine on you crazy diamond. now there’s a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky".

Gilmour said in an interview earlier this year that he thought that Barrett's breakdown would have happened anyway. He said: "It was a deep-rooted thing. But I'll say the psychedelic experience might well have acted as a catalyst. Still, I just don't think he could deal with the vision of success and all the things that went with it."

After a period of hibernation, Barrett re-emerged in 1970 with a pair of albums, The Madcap Laughs and Barrett, which featured considerable support from his former bandmates.

With increasing psychological problems, Barrett withdrew into near-total reclusion after these albums and never released any more material and rarely appeared in public.

Born Roger Keith Barrett in Cambridge in 1946, he acquired the nickname Syd aged 15.

He left Pink Floyd in 1968, just as the band was about to achieve worldwide recognition, and lived in the basement of his mother Winfred’s semi-detached house where he boarded up the windows to keep out the eyes of both the press and fans.