Roger Keith "Syd" Barrett died on Thursday, July 13 2006 at the age of 60 from complications due to diabetes. Barrett’s immense legacy is really built upon what he didn’t create rather than the music that he did create during his brief career. Along with Roger Waters, Richard Wright and Nick Mason, Barrett was a founding member of Pink Floyd in the heady psychedelic days of ‘60s London – indeed, he named the band, originally known as "The Pink Floyd Sound," after two (still) obscure bluesmen, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. Barrett was also the guiding creative force behind the band’s 1967 debut, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, writing all but one of the album’s songs.

It became apparent sometime after the band’s debut album that Barrett, an early experimenter with hallucinogenic drugs, was becoming erratic and mentally unstable. Whether he jumped or was pushed, Barrett left Pink Floyd sometime during 1968 before the recording of the band’s sophomore effort, A Saucerful Of Secrets, although he did contribute one song, "Jugband Blues." His influence on the band would still be felt years later, however, with "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" from 1975’s Wish You Were Here serving as a fitting tribute from his former bandmates. He was replaced in the band by his longtime friend David Gilmour, whose own unique talents and chemistry with the other band members created the trademark ‘70s Pink Floyd sound that would make them one of the most commercially successful and enduring rock bands in the world.

After leaving Pink Floyd, Barrett spent the next two years recording bits and pieces of what would become two difficult and interesting solo albums, The Madcap Laughs and Barrett, both released in 1970. Assisted by Gilmour and other friends from Pink Floyd, as well as members of the British band Soft Machine, it is these two scattered and dark albums on which the cult of Barrett is built. By the time these albums were released, Barrett’s nascent schizophrenia had forced him to retreat to the comfort of his mother’s Cambridge home, where he lived out the rest of his life. He never recorded another song during the next 35+ years.

A lot has been written about Barrett’s "tragic" life and a career cut short by drugs and schizophrenia. However, it is likely that Barrett’s mental illness predated his use of powerful hallucinogens, perhaps even sparked by his father’s death when he was only 11 years old. His fleeting display of genius on Pink Floyd’s magnificent debut album and subsequent spiral into darkness recall the words of writer Neil Gaiman’s character Death: "you get what everybody else gets…you get a lifetime." For Syd Barrett, his creative lifetime was less than half a decade. In 1970, "Syd" ceased to exist except in memory, and Roger seemingly lived out the rest of his years in relative comfort and an ongoing search for obscurity. He wasn’t a "recluse" as you strictly define the word; he simply had nothing to do with the Syd Barrett of old.

Nevertheless, we should marvel not only in the music that Barrett created – The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn is thought by many to be the quintessential psychedelic rock album of the ‘60s – but also on the fine music that he inspired during the passing decades. From much of Pink Floyd’s subsequent canon to recordings from David Bowie, Robyn Hitchcock, Julian Cope and the Bevis Frond, as well as American admirers like Guided By Voices, Mercury Rev and many more, Barrett’s influence can be felt. Musically, Syd Barrett left us exactly what he was supposed to: a lifetime.

(Uncle Dave Lewis wrote this wonderful overview of Barrett’s life and death for allmusic.com, which is well worth checking out for readers wanting to know more about this enigmatic musician.)