Get our 1971 interview with Syd Barrett, by Mick Rock, and hear a playlist of Barrett's best tracks, selected by David Fricke.

Syd Barrett, the original frontman of Pink Floyd who wrote much of their early material, died July 7th in Cambridge, England, from complications related to diabetes. He was sixty.

Born Roger Keith Barrett in Cambridge, the son of a renowned pathologist, Barrett changed his name to Syd at age fifteen in honor of local drummer Sid Barrett. In 1965 he joined up...

Hear a playlist of Syd Barrett's best tracks.

LONDON -- If you tend to believe what you hear, rather than what is, Syd Barrett is either dead, behind bars, or a vegetable. He is in fact alive and as confusing as ever, in the town where he was born, Cambridge.

In 1966-67, Barrett was playing lead guitar with Pink Floyd. He'd named the band and was writing most of their music, including the only two hit singles they ever had. His eerie electronic guitar style and gnome-like stage...

Is this still really Pink Floyd? That seems to be the question, as it has been since Roger Waters left the band in 1985 to dip deeper into the sci-fi soup. Waters has since missed no opportunity to slag his former band mates as incompetent fakes. He would suggest that he was Pink Floyd, although judging from his overwrought, concept burdened solo albums, that notion should be put to...