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The man
behind The Wall, Roger Waters founded Britain's
maiden psychedelic band, Pink Floyd, in 1965 with cohorts
Syd Barrett, Richard Wright and Nick Mason. Solely a
bassist at first, Waters grabbed the songwriting reigns
from Barrett in 1968, when the erratic, schizophrenic
frontman checked himself into a mental hospital. Passing
the torch did not alter Pink Floyd's dark, mystical
formula. Waters went on to pen albums like Saucerful of
Secrets and Ummagumma, which charted the
singer/songwriter's fall into bitter territory.
Pink
Floyd ascended from the ranks of British cult band to
international sensation in 1973, the year The Dark Side
of the Moon debuted on the charts. Waters wrote every
lyric and a good chunk of music for that groundbreaking
work, which would remain on Billboard's Top 200 album
chart longer than any other release in history. The fire
burned even brighter on The Wall, the mind-altering
1979 album about the mental tribulations of a successful,
suicidal rocker. Waters sang most of the lead vocals on
this simultaneous cult, critical and mainstream
phenomenon.
Fame bore
down on Pink Floyd after The Wall, causing rifts so
deep between Wright and Waters that the keyboardist split
from the band. Water's bleakest, darkest work would follow
with The Final Cut, "a requiem for the postwar
dream" that became a final farewell for Pink Floyd as
well Waters left the band shortly after completing the
album.
In 1984
Waters released his first solo effort, The Pros and
Cons of Hitchhiking. This was followed two years later
by a lawsuit against Mason and guitarist David Gilmour,
asking the court to dissolve the band's one-time
partnership and bar them from using the name Pink Floyd.
Waters lost the suit and was forced to watch as Pink
Floyd's Momentary Lapse of Reason climbed the
charts in 1987. Busy with his next solo project, Radio
K.A.O.S, Waters stood by empty handed as his former
bandmates grossed $30 million touring in support of that
album.
Waters
assembled an all-star cast, including Sinead O'Connor,
Joni Mitchell and Van Morrison, in 1980 to perform a
version of The Wall at the site of the Berlin Wall
-- a feat that was chronicled in The Wall -- Live in
Berlin. In 1992, Waters released his third solo
record, Amused to Death. In the meantime, Pink
Floyd raked in millions of dollars with its 1994 tour for Division
Bell.
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