Roger Keith "Syd" Barrett (6 January 1946 – 7 July 2006) was an English singer, songwriter, guitarist, and painter, best remembered as a founder member of the band Pink Floyd. He was the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter during the band's psychedelic years, providing major musical and stylistic direction in their early work: he is credited with creating their name. Barrett left the group in April 1968 amid speculations of mental illness exacerbated by drug use, and was briefly hospitalised.
He was active musically for ten years, recording with Pink Floyd four singles, the debut album (and contributing to the second one), plus several unreleased songs. In 1969, Barrett started off a solo career with the release of the single, "Octopus", which foreshadowed his first solo album, The Madcap Laughs (1970), which was recorded over the course of one year (1968–1969) with four different producers (Peter Jenner, Malcolm Jones, David Gilmour, and Roger Waters). Nearly two months after Madcap was released, Barrett began working on his second – and last – album, Barrett (produced by Gilmour, and featuring contributions from Richard Wright), which would be released in late 1970, before going into self-imposed seclusion lasting until his death in 2006. In 1988, an album of unreleased tracks/alternate takes, Opel, was released by EMI with Barrett's approval.
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