Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd’s reclusive co-founder, dies

Published 9:00 pm Tuesday, July 11, 2006

LONDON – Syd Barrett, the troubled Pink Floyd co-founder who spent his last years in reclusive anonymity, has died, the band said Tuesday. He was 60.

A spokeswoman for the band said Barrett died several days ago, but she did not disclose the cause of death. Barrett had suffered from diabetes for years.

The surviving members of Pink Floyd – David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Roger Waters and Richard Wright – said they were “very upset and sad to learn of Syd Barrett’s death.”

“Syd was the guiding light of the early band lineup and leaves a legacy which continues to inspire,” they said in a statement.

Barrett co-founded Pink Floyd in 1965 with Waters, Mason and Wright, and wrote many of the band’s early songs. The 1967 album “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn” – largely written by Barrett, who also played guitar – was a commercial and critical hit.

But Barrett suffered from mental instability, exacerbated by his use of LSD. His behavior grew increasingly erratic, and he left the group in 1968, five years before the release of Pink Floyd’s most popular album, “Dark Side of the Moon,” to be replaced by Gilmour.

Barrett released two solo albums, “The Madcap Laughs” and “Barrett,” but soon withdrew from the music business altogether. An album of previously unreleased material, “Opel,” was issued in 1988.

He reverted to his real name, Roger Barrett, and spent much of the rest of his life living quietly in his hometown of Cambridge, England. Moving into his mother’s suburban house, he passed the time painting and tending a garden. His former bandmates made sure Barrett continued to receive royalties from his work with Pink Floyd.

He was a familiar figure to neighbors, often seen cycling or walking to the corner store, but rarely spoke to the fans and journalists who sought him out over the years.

The other members of Pink Floyd recorded the album “Wish You Were Here” as a tribute to their troubled bandmate.

It contained the song “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”: “Remember when you were young/you shone like the sun.”

The band also dwelt on themes of mental illness on the albums “Dark Side of the Moon” and “The Wall.”

The band spokeswoman said a small, private funeral would be held.

Hugh Stubbins Jr. helped shape New York skyline

Hugh Stubbins Jr., an architect whose Citigroup Center in Manhattan with its sharply angled roof is a major icon on the New York skyline, has died. He was 94.

Stubbins, who died Wednesday of pneumonia at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, also designed such noted buildings as Boston’s Federal Reserve Bank; the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif.; and Congress Hall, now known as House of World Cultures, in Berlin.

Born in Birmingham, Ala., Stubbins graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology and received a master’s in architecture from Harvard in 1935, where he later taught.

In addition to son Hugh, he leaves two other sons, a daughter and nine grandchildren.

Jack Smith hosted ’50s show ‘You Asked for It’

Jack Smith, a singer and recording artist who hosted the popular “You Asked for It” television show, has died. He was 92.

Smith died of leukemia July 3 at his home in Westlake Village, Calif., said Dorris Halsey, a longtime friend.

Smith began a singing career in the early 1930s and worked many years in radio, but is perhaps most remembered as host of the ABC series in its final season in 1958.

The show invited viewers to send in suggestions for unusual things that they wanted to see on the air, like people with uncommon talent or seeing inside the vault at Fort Knox.

Smith’s wife of 67 years, Victoria, died in 2003.