duminică, 2 decembrie 2007

Roger Waters

George Roger Waters (born 6 September 1943) is an English rock musician; singer, guitarist, bassist, songwriter, and composer. He is best known for his 1965–1985 career with the band Pink Floyd (he was credited as their main songwriter, after the departure of Syd Barrett), bass player and one of their lead vocalists (along with David Gilmour and, to a lesser extent, Rick Wright). He was also the lyrical mastermind behind many of the band's concept albums, especially The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall, and The Final Cut, and their well known symbols including the Pink Floyd pigs and the marching hammers.

Following this, he began a moderately successful solo career releasing three studio albums and staging one of the largest concerts ever, The Wall Concert in Berlin in 1990. In 2005 he released an opera, Ça Ira, and joined Pink Floyd at the Live 8 concert in London, on 2 July 2005, for their first public performance with Waters in 24 years.

In 1965, Roger Waters co-founded Pink Floyd (after many different incarnations—see Pink Floyd) along with Syd Barrett, Richard Wright and Nick Mason. Although Barrett initially did most of the songwriting for the band, Waters wrote the song "Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk" on their debut LP, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. The album was a critical success and positioned the band for stardom. Barrett's deteriorating mental health led to increasingly erratic behaviour, rendering him unable to continue in his capacity as Pink Floyd's lead singer and guitarist. Waters attempted to coerce his friend into psychiatric treatment; this proved unhelpful, and the band approached David Gilmour to replace Barrett at the end of 1967. Even the band's former managers felt that Pink Floyd would not be able to sustain its initial success without the talented Barrett. Filling the void left by Barrett's departure, Waters began to chart Pink Floyd's new artistic direction. The lineup with Gilmour and Waters eventually brought Pink Floyd to prominence, producing a series of albums in the 1970s that remain among the most critically acclaimed and best-selling records of all time.

In 1970, Waters collaborated with British composer Ron Geesin (who co-wrote Pink Floyd's title suite from Atom Heart Mother) on a soundtrack album, Music from "The Body", which consisted mostly of instrumentals interspersed with songs composed by Waters. Within Pink Floyd, Waters became the main lyrical contributor, exerting progressively more creative control over the band: he produced thematic ideas that became the impetus for concept albums such as The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here, for which he wrote all of the lyrics and some of the music. After this, Waters became the primary songwriter, composing Animals and The Wall largely by himself (though continuing to collaborate with Gilmour on a few tracks).

Waters' band-mates were happy to allow him to write the band's lyrics and guide its conceptual direction while they shared the opportunity to contribute musical ideas (Gilmour described Waters as "a very good motivator and obviously a great lyricist,"[2] even at the height of the acrimony between them in 1995). Some of the band's most popular and beloved songs, including "Echoes", "Time", "Us and Them", "Wish You Were Here" and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", feature the strong synergy of Waters' sharp lyrical instincts combined with the melodic talent of Gilmour, the soft, precise drumming of Nick Mason, and atmospheric patterns of keyboardist Richard Wright ("Us and Them", for instance, began as a sweetly melodic Wright keyboard instrumental and gained poignancy when Waters added plaintive antiwar lyrics). Unfortunately, this give-and-take relationship began to dissolve: a consequence of the band's collective ennui, according to Waters. Song-writing credits were a source of contention in these difficult years; Gilmour has noted that his contributions to tracks like "Another Brick in the Wall, Part II", with its blistering guitar solo, were not always noted in the album credits. Nick Mason addresses the band in-fighting in his memoir, Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd, characterizing Waters as being egomaniacal at times. It was while recording The Wall that Waters decided to fire Wright, after Wright's personal problems began to affect the album production. Wright stayed with the band as a paid session musician while Waters led the band through a complete performance of his opus on every night of the brief tour that followed (for which Gilmour acted as musical director).

In 1983 , the last Waters–Gilmour–Mason collaboration, The Final Cut, was released. The sleeve notes describe it as being a piece "by Roger Waters" that was "performed by Pink Floyd" (rather than an actual Pink Floyd record). So, to many the album came across more like a Roger Waters solo album than Pink Floyd (similar to A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell being tagged as Gilmour solo albums). It was the lowest selling Pink Floyd album in a decade without a hit single. Gilmour unsuccessfully tried to delay production on the album until he could author more material; Waters refused, and in 1985, he proclaimed that the band had dissolved due to irreconcilable differences. The ensuing battle between Waters and Gilmour over the latter's intention to continue to use the name Pink Floyd descended into threatened lawsuits and public bickering in the press. Waters claimed that, as the original band consisted of himself, Syd Barrett, Nick Mason and Richard Wright, Gilmour could not reasonably use the name Pink Floyd now that it was without three of its founding members[citation needed]. Another of Waters' arguments was that he had written almost all of the band's lyrics and a great part of the music after Barrett's departure. However, through agreement, Gilmour and Mason won the right to use the name and a majority of the band's songs, though Waters did retain the rights to the albums The Wall (save for three of the songs that Gilmour co-wrote), Animals, and The Final Cut, as well as claiming ownership of the famous Pink Floyd pigs.

For many fans and casual listeners, the collaborative years of 1971–1979 remain the "classic" Pink Floyd years due to the albums released and prominence of Pink Floyd in music culture; a 1987 end-of-year review in Rolling Stone noted that Waters' solo effort Radio K.A.O.S. and the post-Waters Pink Floyd album A Momentary Lapse of Reason, if taken together, might have made a nice follow-up to The Dark Side of the Moon. In 2005, Waters agreed to rejoin Pink Floyd on stage for Live 8, and on 2 July 2005, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Rick Wright performed together on-stage for the first time since the June 1981 Wall concerts at Earl's Court in London.

David Gilmour

David Jon Gilmour was born on 6th March 1946 in Cambridge, England, the second child of Douglas Gilmour, a senior lecturer in Zoology at the University and Sylvia, a teacher. Best known as guitarist, vocalist and writer with Pink Floyd, he is also renowned for his solo work and collaborations with other artists including Kate Bush, Paul McCartney, and Pete Townshend.

David Gilmour and Roger 'Syd' Barrett met as children in Cambridge and later, whilst studying at the Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology, began playing guitar together. In 1965 they spent a summer hitchhiking and busking around the South of France before Syd joined Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Rick Wright to form Pink Floyd, and David continued playing with his own band Jokers Wild, subsequently touring Europe with Flowers, and later Bullitt.
David was asked to augment the Pink Floyd line up as the singer and guitarist in 1967, only for Syd to leave the group five gigs later, struggling with mental illness.

David's guitar playing and song writing became major factors of Pink Floyd's worldwide success during the 1970s, including his distinctive vocals and guitar playing on The Dark Side Of The Moon, the third most successful album of all time. As a side project, David released his first solo album David Gilmour in 1978. Featuring Rick Wills on bass and Willie Wilson on drums & percussion, the album charted in the UK and the US.

David's second solo album About Face was released in 1984, again hitting the Top 20 in the UK. David assumed control of Pink Floyd in 1985, after Roger Waters' departure, creating the new Floyd album A Momentary Lapse of Reason with Nick Mason and Rick Wright. The Division Bell followed in 1994. Both albums charted at number one on both sides of the Atlantic and were supported by sell-out world tours. A live album and video, P.U.L.S.E, followed in 1995. In 1996, Pink Floyd were inducted into the US Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, followed by the same honour in the UK in November 2005; in
2005 David Gilmour was made a CBE for services to music.

In July 2005, Pink Floyd reunited with Roger Waters for a one-off performance at Live 8 in London's Hyde Park, which was regarded by many as the highlight of an astonishing show. In 2002, following a concert for Robert Wyatt's Meltdown Festival, three semi acoustic concerts were performed by David Gilmour and friends at London's Royal Festival Hall, with one critic remarking that a "reinvented rock god shines on as 21st century folk hero". In 2003, David donated the £3.6 million proceeds of the sale of his London house to Crisis, the charity for the homeless of which he is a vice-president. David Gilmour's position in the canon of rock guitar players can be construed from his headline billing at the 2004 Wembley concert celebrating 50 years of the Fender Stratocaster guitar. He was also voted
Best Fender Guitar Player Ever' in a poll in Guitarist magazine, beating such greats as Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton.

On 6th March 2006, David released his third solo album, On An Island, which entered the UK Charts at Number One, subsequently hitting the top position in the pan-European Charts, as well as hitting multi-Platinum around the world, including countries as diverse as Canada and Poland. On An Island was accompanied by tour dates in the US and Europe, performed by a stellar list of musicians including Pink Floyd's Richard Wright, Roxy Music's Phil Manzanera, and regular Floyd musicians Dick Parry, Guy Pratt, and Jon Carin. Summer concerts in Europe included a one-off performance in front of 50,000 in Gdańsk's historic dockyards, featuring a 40-piece orchestra conducted by noted Polish composer Zbigniew Preisner, who had written the orchestrations for the On An Island album. The live show at London's Royal Albert Hall was filmed in High Definition by
conducted by noted Polish composer Zbigniew Preisner, who had written the orchestrations for the On An Island album.

The live show at London's Royal Albert Hall was filmed in High Definition by award-winning director David Mallet for DVD release. Entitled Remember That Night – Live At The Royal Albert Hall, it was released in Europe on Monday 17th September 2007 and the following day in North America, immediately hitting the No. 1 spot in many countries around the globe. Featuring the whole concert on Disc 1 (of the 2-disc set), the second DVD contains bonus material from the Royal Albert Hall shows, and eight other musical tracks including the previously unreleased Island Jam 2007. In addition, there are three documentaries and a photo gallery.

"Now or then, it's still the perfect show" The Sunday Times (UK) was a typical comment from the world's press.

Remember That Night is scheduled for release in the high-definition Blu-ray format in November 2007.

http://www.davidgilmour.com/