Роджер Уотерс / Roger Waters

Pink Floyd's guiding genius walked away as stardom beckoned. On his 60th birthday, John Robb analyses his iconic status and speaks to those who remember him best
Published: 07 January 2006
One of the key figures of the Sixties - and the original acid casualty - was 60 years old yesterday. How he celebrated, no one can be too sure, for Syd Barrett has been seen by virtually no one except his mother for many of those years.

With the handful of songs he wrote while fronting Pink Floyd in 1966 and 1967, Barrett was at the forefront of British psychedelia. He changed the way pop music was listened to and played, fusing childlike, whimsical songs with wild freak-outs, forging a vibrant whole that set the template for the late 60s and beyond.

His unique style - off-the-wall slide guitar shoved through an echo unit - took the guitar away from plain riffing. It was like listening to the colour of sound even before Jimi Hendrix arrived in London. The post-Barrett Floyd operated in his shadow, while a host of contemporary musicians are still in awe of his plaintive and original songs. It has been 35 years since his last interview and more than 30 years since he released an album, but the legend continues to grow, though the man himself disappeared into a reclusive life in Cambridge.

Barrett had it all - he was innovative, artistic and surrounded by beautiful women. But he imploded months after the band's breakthrough, a victim of the hectic touring, the pressure to come up with new songs and his drug experimentation that put intolerable pressure on an already fragile psyche. In autumn 1967 he started behaving oddly on TV shows in America, and at gigs would stand onstage stock still and not playing a note.

In early 1968, the band drafted in Dave Gilmour to cover. The plan was for Barrett to be a Brian Wilson figure, writing the songs but not playing live. But after five weeks, in the face of increasingly erratic and unreliable behaviour, they decided, reluctantly, to on without him.

Barrett returned to the studio to cut two solo albums of sad, lilting off-the-wall songs, fragments of genius that have become precursors to modern day lo-fi indie rock - highly personal music poured on to tape. But he was now starting to withdraw from the world, and for the next few years he lived in virtual seclusion in his London flat, then, at the end of the 1970 went back to the family home in Cambridge.

Syd Barrett could have been one of the pantheon of rock legends, alongside Bob Dylan, John Lennon or the Rolling Stones. Instead he bailed out early, leaving those who knew him still touched by his genius four decades later.

Dave Gilmour, Pink Floyd guitarist

He was a truly magnetic personality. When he was very young, he was a figure in his home town. People would look at him in the street and say, "There's Syd Barrett," and he would be only 14 years old.

In my opinion, [his breakdown] would have happened anyway. It was a deep-rooted thing. But I'll say the psychedelic experience might well have acted as a catalyst. Still, I just don't think he could deal with the vision of success and all the things that went with it.

[On working with Barrett later]: Roger [Waters, Pink Floyd's bassist] and I sat down with him after listening to all his songs and said: "Syd, play this one. Syd, play that one." We sat him on a chair with a couple of mics in front of him and got him to sing. The potential of some of those songs... they could have really been fantastic. But trying to find a technique of working with Syd was so difficult. You had to pre-record tracks without him, working from one version of the song he had done, and then sit Syd down afterwards and try to get him to play and sing along. Or you could get him to do a performance of it on his own and then try to dub everything else on top. The concept of him performing with another bunch of musicians was clearly impossible because he'd change the song every time. He'd never do a song the same twice, I think quite deliberately.

Pete Jenner, Pink Floyd co-manager 1966-68

My first contact with Pink Floyd was at the Marquee in June 1966. I had this label and we were looking for a band that could sell records. I was not really into pop, but I did like the way the band improvised. I remember walking round the stage at the Marquee because the stage stuck out, trying to work out where the noise came from.

All the stuff on Floyd's first album he wrote in autumn, 1966. In fact, nearly all the songs he ever wrote were in that six months, and a lot of the songs cropped up on his solo albums.

The autumn after the first US tour, there were problems. He'd been wobbling out all sorts of weird shit, and from there on in it was a real struggle keeping it together - keeping him together. We were all saying: "We need more songs" - everyone was putting pressure on him. In the end, it became obvious that it couldn't go on working, and that's when Dave Gilmour came in as the fifth man. Did Syd know what was happening? I don't know... I think in a way he had removed himself from the band.

Andrew King, Pink Floyd co-manager 1966-68

Syd told me it took him weeks to perfect the lyrics for "Arnold Layne" [Pink Floyd's debut single]. There was a lot of intellectual effort involved. I miss him every day off my life, really. He had everything. He was a songwriter, painter, actor, charmer. I don't want to talk about him in the past. I just want to say, "Happy birthday, Syd".

Duggie Fields, musician And Barrett's former flatmate

I went to their early gigs. They also used to rehearse in the flat - I remember it was the twists in their music more than the blues they played that made them interesting. Syd was certainly the major creator in the band - he was the one everyone would look to at gigs. Then he obviously became dysfunctional, but the person I saw was not dysfunctional by a long shot. I looked at their touring schedule a few years ago and was shocked by it - such a crazy schedule. Throw in a bit of drug abuse, and it would be enough to freak anyone out.

Eventually, he withdrew more and more. There would be curtains permanently on the windows, no fresh air... it seems like in retrospect he was withdrawing, though it didn't seem like that at the time. I have very fond memories of Syd.

Jeff Dexter, deejay at London's legendary psychedelic club, UFO

In the summer of '66, I went to one of these Sunday spontaneous underground things at the Marquee. I didn't get Pink Floyd at that time. I was into more straight rock 'n' roll. The International Times party at the Roundhouse [15 October 1966] was a key event. I was more enamoured by the event than by any particular band, but I did speak to Syd. I was intrigued by all the birds round him. At the time, everyone was spaced out, and Syd was no different.

At UFO, they were on every other week with their light show. It wasn't like watching an average rock band - there were people lying on the floor, people dancing round or just waving their arms about.

John Leckie, record producer

I saw Pink Floyd at All Saints Church Hall in Powys Terrace [30 September 1966]. They were fantastic. The hall was minute - it was a nursery school with little chairs. Everyone sat on the chairs, and now and then people would get up and idiot-dance. And musically it was great - Syd's guitar was really loud, with lots of improvisation.

In 1974, they'd released his solo albums, Barrett and The Madcap Laughs, as a double album in America and they had done well. So EMI wanted him in the studio. Pete Jenner said: "Syd's going to come in, he's not in very good shape, and we're just going to see what we can get." So Syd came in with new guitars. He had six Stratocasters - his flat must have looked like a music shop. He still looked like Syd - long hair, bit unkempt but still looking good. He seemed bit vacant, a bit shell-shocked. Still, every day he would turn up with a different girl. But there were no lyrics, nothing at all. I'm not sure if he even had any songs.

Every day if he walked out of the studio and turned left he would come back again, and if he turned right he would disappear. On the last day he left and turned right, and that was the last we ever saw of him.

Mick Rock, photographer

I was studying modern languages at Cambridge. It was New Year's Eve 1966, and I had mutual friends saying: "You've got to come and see Syd with his band." I went along and yes, indeed, it was one of those unprecedented things! Completely out of stage left! There was nothing else quite like them. I wonder if it had something to do with the chemicals... After, there was a party at Syd's mother's house, where I first met Syd. He had a very attractive girlfriend. I thought "Wow! he has got everything!"

Syd was very friendly. I always remember him laughing a lot - if you look at pictures I took later in 1971, in the garden in Cambridge, there was a lot of laughing in them as well. We had a good rapport. The chemicals help initially with creative people but then the hindrance sets in. The impression I got when I interviewed him in 1971 was that he didn't want to be a pop star anymore.

Daevid Allen, guitarist, The Soft Machine

I first saw them at the IT festival. I was obviously influenced by what he was doing, sliding things up and down the neck of guitar. He was pretty - I met him at [the club] UFO and he would stare right at you. His naive, childlike songs were for people who wanted to reject the old ways - the generation which hadn't grown up with the war. It was a glorification of the innocence of childhood. In the end, Syd ran out of freshness. It got boring, it wasn't fun any more, so he stopped.

John Robb's "Punk Rock: The Oral History", will be published shortly by Ebury
http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/features/article337008.ece

Родж сыграл джем с Ричи Самборой из Бон Джови и Джимми Баффеттом в местном ресторане в Карибах
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Greetings Echoesians,

Quite an unusual sighting to report, but apparently on
Saturday, Jan. 7th, Roger Waters was vacationing on
St. Barths in the Carribbean. He was hanging out with
Jimmy Buffett and Richie Sambora (guitarist from Bon
Jovi) and, after a long lunch, the three of them
decided to play an impromptu set that night. So they
did. It was at La Vela restaurant, right on the harbor
in Gustavia. About 100 people or so were lucky enough
to be there. Richie played lead guitar, Waters played
bass, and Jimmy played rhythm guitar and did the
lionshare of the singing. Word is that they didn't do
any Floyd songs; mostly reggae cover tunes.

I've heard about this second hand, so I don't know
what the set list was, if they had a band backing them
or if it was just the three of them, and most
importantly, if it was recorded. Certainly, if someone
was lucky and smart enough to record this, it needs to
be treed immediately. So, everyone, put your feelers
out, and let's hope someone - anyone - can come up
with something!

Good luck, may the force be with us all on this one.

JV

(Echoes Digest)

by Jumpin' Jeff Walker"Another Brick in the Wall" (part 2)Pink Floyd

This legendary band still holds the record for having an album stay on the charts the longest with 1973's "Dark Side Of The Moon." But their biggest song came a few years later with "Another Brick In The Wall."
The song is an integral part of the double album, "The Wall", which was an indictment of mass crowd psychology and the nature of humans to act as lemmings with little original thought of their own. The song's writer, Roger Waters, felt this type of thinking was ruining the creativity of musical artists.
But what about the whole "brick in the wall" reference? The "wall" is used as a metaphor for the band's growing separation from their audience as they became more and more popular. Waters, in particular, was feeling the strain of too much touring, too little sleep and too much attention and adulation from their fans. The stress overcame him one night in Montreal. Waters snapped and spit on a fan in the front row. Later, as he brooded over his fame and where it was taking him, the concept album "The Wall" was born. Ironically, the song's success catapulted Pink Floyd to even greater heights.
"Another Brick in the Wall" became, quite literally, another brick in the wall separating the band from its audience as it shot to #1 and stayed there for an amazing four weeks in February of 1980.
Source: Billboard Book of #1 Hits, Fred Bronson, Copyright 2003 Billboard
http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/entertainment/13596254.htm

Friday, January 06, 2006
Pink Floyd's Waters has high hopes

Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters is hoping that a new year will bring new opportunities for his opera, Ca Ira. The singer/songwriter/bassist has staged the French Revolution saga just once so far, in November in Rome, but he hopes to put it on in other venues this year, including North America. Waters told us there's a certain amount of salesmanship involved in finding support for the endeavor: "It's just a question of persuading various, you know, towns to take it on as a project. It's inevitably subsidized in some ways, and to persuade them that they should do is this rather than an evening of Brahms or Beethoven or something is a bit of a stretch."

Waters spent more than a decade working on Ca Ira.

His Pink Floyd bandmate, David Gilmour, will release a solo album titled On An Island on March 7th. He begins a world tour on March 10th in Germany, with a 10-date North American swing kicking off on April 4th in New York City.

Both members have denied interest in a full-fledged Pink Floyd reunion, even after their masterful performance at the London leg of Live 8 concert in July.
The Rock Radio online

http://www.therockradio.com/2006/01/pink-floyds-waters-has-high-hopes.html

This morning, former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters was interviewed on the BBC's HARDtalk Extra - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/hardtalk/ , in a fascinating 23 minute chat.

The show is broadcast in many countries on the BBC World TV channel, and is scheduled to air TODAY (Friday 13th Jan) at 04:30; 08:30; 11.30; 15:30; 19:30 and 00:30 GMT. It can also be seen in the UK and certain parts of Europe on BBC News 24, again today, at 23:30 GMT. For those who miss it, or cannot receive either channel, the BBC aim to host every interview on their website following broadcast - so keep an eye on the HARDtalk Extra site.

Interviewed by Gavin Estler at Home House, in London, it found Roger in candid and entertaining form, talking about the Live 8 reunion (and what the future might hold), his opera Ca Ira (including the proposed productions in France and Poland), and his future plans in music.

Of the reunion, and the initial call to David Gilmour, he reiterated how easy it all was - even the initial call itself (once he had David's telephone number from Geldof)! He also didn't rule out doing it all again - either as a one-off, or as "a last hurrah".

Talk then turned to Ca Ira. In expansive mood, he even took the comments about Andrew Lloyd Webber in good spirit. Naturally, Rome was mentioned, with a question from the interviewer as to why Paris wasn't used for the premiere. He replied that Paris are now very keen to stage a performance, mentioning the Thйвtre du Chвtelet as the likely venue. Obviously, as we get more info on that, we'll let you know!

Roger also talks of the proposed performance of Ca Ira in Poland this July. He said: "The mayor, the director of the opera, and a young director from Poznar in Poland, were in Rome, and they are absolutely determined to do a REAL production next summer - a fully staged production with costumes. They even claim that they've got - I probably shouldn't be telling you this, because I haven't checked it, but sod it! I'm so excited about it!

"They also say that in Poland that there is a troup that is very like Cirque du Soleil, and THEY want to be involved. So they are absolutely determined to realise the vision that is appended to the libretto and the stage directions that I wrote. I'm sure that they won't follow them entirely, because the director has all sorts of ideas which I really liked (I had a meeting with him in Rome).

"But the reason that they want to do it next summer, is that it is the 50th anniversary of the Polish uprising against the Russian occupation in Poland. And the guy's listened to the thing, and not withstanding the fact that it is rooted in the history of the French Revolution, he said that 'this is our story, and so we want to do it!'

Finally, he is asked if he would write another opera. Whilst not ruling it out altogether, he did say that "unfortunately we don't live forever, and I feel that time is no longer really on my side" and that he was hoping to finish off his two rock albums - one about love, the other, political. He mentioned how he had been struggling to get form and definition to both of these, and how he's made lots of recordings with his band, some of which go back as far as 1987, for these two albums.

Our thanks the Warren Loveridge and Farhad Mozafar for their help with this story.



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Brain-Damage.co.uk/

Friday morning, former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters was interviewed on the BBC's HARDtalk Extra, in a fascinating 23 minute chat.

The show was broadcast in many countries on the BBC World TV channel, and in the UK on BBC News 24. For all those who missed the show, we now have details of how you can view the full interview via the BBC website.

Interviewed by Gavin Estler at Home House, in London, it found Roger in candid and entertaining form, talking about the Live 8 reunion (and what the future might hold), his opera Ca Ira (including the proposed productions in France and Poland), and his future plans in music. Full details of what was covered can be read in our news story of January 13th.
( http://www.brain-damage.co.uk/news/0601131.html ).

To view the entire interview, simply click here to launch it ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsa/n5ctrl/progs/06/hardtalk/waters13jan.ram ). It is in Real Media format. The interview is not yet showing on the HARDtalk homepage, and is not expected to be there for another few days. However, the content is there and ready to watch, so we thought we'd let you know!

Our thanks to Eric van Dorland for his help with this story.



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Date news posted: 15 January 2006

Brain-Damage.co.uk/

How Roger Waters helped Slowhand rediscover his roots
by Gaetano Villari
"I've never come across music like that, or had to play that way before in my life. It really was off the beaten track for me. That gig was like playing John Cage or Stockhausen--wearing headphones with click tracks going on, being ready for cues, and things like that.
"I like to have the time where I can get away from being in the lead. It's like having a little holiday in a way. It gives you a sense of reality. If you lead your own band and you do a lot of promotion work and interviews yourself, you become wrapped up in yourself too much. And my ego tends to fly off the handle too easily. I get wrapped up in believing that what I do is faultless and I walk down the street and say, 'Hey, everyone feel all right? I'm feeling great'. So when you work with someone else you really have to learn how to slot in a band and make it sound good."
This is what Eric Clapton said about touring with Roger Waters soon after working together on The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hikingalbum and tour in 1983 and '84, in performances that provided what many of Eric's fans consider some of the most superb playing of his career.
Several forces have shaped Clapton's long, illustrious career. There is an ever-present desire to be faithful to (and respectful of) his traditional blues roots. At the same time, there is a certain restlessness that keeps him seeking for a new way to express himself. Finally, there is a certain tension between the 'guitar hero' status thrust upon him and his own desire to fade into the background as a member of a band, rather than stepping forward as the leader.
Clapton has always found his own stardom to be a source of great conflict, and it was not until the 1990s that Clapton would fully come to terms with his fame. To fully appreciate the role that Pros and Cons played in getting him to that point, we must examine his past.
• • •

The first choice in Clapton's musical path was his commitment to playing guitar, an instrument he noticed daily in a shop's window on his way to school. He taught himself to play, painstakingly reproducing the riffs he would hear on blues records. "I had to copy to learn," Clapton told biographer Ray Coleman, "and I'm still copying sometimes. I never had a teacher. I just heard a good song on the radio or on a record, and thought the chord changes sounded nice, so I picked up the guitar and copied them. So when I was learning, I had no technique whatsoever, and I never learned a thing properly. I made my business to copy, to mimic, as much as I could."

From then on, the foundation of Clapton's musical identity has been the blues, even as he has grown and developed in other directions. The blues have been a constant model both for the necessary emotion and structure of his guitar playing. The blues also provided a 'social' and moral model for Clapton--the model of a man standing alone with his music against life's adversities. Clapton has often used that image when describing himself in interviews, and recalls the image in his recent projects, such as his Me and Mr. Johnson and Sessions for Robert J, which detail his inspirational debt to the legacy of legendary bluesman Robert Johnson.
After cutting his teeth with a couple of London blues bands (first the Roosters, and later Casey Jones and the Engineers), Clapton joined the Yardbirds, a band that was to become a breeding ground for other giant figures in rock such as Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. The Yardbirds gave Clapton his first taste of fame, but he eventually quit the group--whose main goal had been to have a hit record--because they had chosen a 'too commercial' pop song to release as a single.
John Mayall then asked him to join his Bluesbreakers, a band firmly committed to playing Chicago-style blues. The album Bluesbreakers helped put the electric guitar at the forefront of popular music. Eric took rock guitar from being merely an instrument of excitement and used it as a means of serious expression, and it was during his Bluesbreakers days that the 'Clapton is God' catchphrase first took off. Though Clapton's blues technique was exemplary, it was still fairly academic. He could faithfully reproduce the sounds of Otis Rush, Albert King, and the like, but he brought very little of his own identity to his playing. He was so concerned about authentically recreating the blues sound that there was very little room for his own interpretation.
At the same time, the restless Clapton longed to explore new territory, and quickly grew tired of Mayall's formulaic approach. "I wanted to go somewhere else, you know... put my kind of guitar playing in a new kind of pop music context." With Cream, he found a vehicle to do just this. As Coleman writes, "While the blues would always be the core of his playing, he could see himself planting that seed within a wider style. A new kind of rock 'n' roll, with a strong blues bias, its potential audience far wider than the club world, perhaps with a nod towards high fashion, and certainly with fresh lyricism, was needed to absorb Eric's energy."

Cream helped define an era of British blues-rock. The ten-minute solo, the drum solo, the bluesy vocals, everything that would be taken for granted in the next decade was here in its formative setting. Eric's improvisations "were lessons in inspirational creativity. He formulated a unique style, a feel for the blues in a modern-day framework," according to Coleman. "In a surprisingly short spurt of less than three years, Cream had given some of the most stunning performances, through the exceptional chemistry of three musicians who came together at the right time."

Blind Faith--Clapton's next group--failed to live up to its 'supergroup' expectations, but the group's tour of America was important to Clapton's musical development. During that tour "he met Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett. Delaney and Bonnie's brand of funky rhythm-and-blues was attractive to musicians because it was loose and enjoyable to play. There were fewer strictures than in the more conventional bands; the formula allowed players to stretch out without getting in each other's way. (...) When Blind Faith collapsed, he purposely ambled into a less organized lifestyle, he says. His direction through Delaney and Bonnie and Derek and the Dominos was not particularly fruitful for his career. But it was an essential diversion for his life. As a musician, he wanted to merge with others rather than command the limelight." This kind of thinking eventually helped set the stage for Clapton's playing backup to a dominating ego like Roger Waters'.
With Derek and the Dominos, Clapton returned to lengthy guitar solos that highlighted a fabulous collection of blues classics and original material. Nowhere was this more evident that on "Layla". Clapton poured an especially emotive quality into his lyrics and playing. "Almost overnight," says Coleman, "the power and delivery of the song transformed Eric Clapton from the guitar-hero syndrome into a singer-guitarist-songwriter of world stature."
The Seventies provided a turbulent but rich harvest for Clapton the musician. He recorded a number of classic songs, but by the end of the decade he had lost touch with his blues roots. His long experimentation with 'lighter' drugs--in what had been partly a bond to his artistry--had led to heroin addiction, causing him to spend three years in seclusion. He then shifted to alcohol as his drug of choice, which proved far more dangerous to him. He collapsed onstage near death while touring USA in 1981, seemed to lose his musical inspiration, and had difficulty leading a band.
But the hiring of a new band for his new album sessions--Money and Cigarettes was released in 1983--marked something of a fresh start for Clapton's solo work. In addition to other influences, the inspiration of the blues was more evident in his playing, and his songwriting skills shone through on a few tracks.
• • •

Eric Clapton had always been fascinated by Pink Floyd's music. In 1968, then with Cream, asked about his preferences on the groups performing on the British scene, he had immediately mentioned Pink Floyd. That band, he had said, was working differently from any group he had seen in America. This was actually a big compliment, in a moment in which Clapton was attracted by the psychedelic scene going on in the States, and his own band was among the most momentous in rock. So, in 1983, when Waters was planning his first solo album, The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, Eric accepted his offer to play on it.

According to Clapton biographer Harry Shapiro, "Having worked so long with Dave Gilmour, Waters felt that much as he wanted to do everything himself, he still needed a strong guitarist. For his part, Eric was at a low ebb; he was not especially happy with Money And Cigarettes and generally felt he was losing direction. Despite the inspiration of Muddy Waters, rather than being lost in the blues, Eric felt he had lost touch with the blues."

Clapton's guitar and dobro sound gave a fine quality to Waters' epic, open-space music. "Roger was directing Eric back to what he did best," said composer Michael Kamen, who played keyboards on the album. "It was a horrible syrupy time for pop music at that point... And Eric, like most vital pop stars, was looking for this place in that market. What Roger succeeded in doing was getting Eric to refocus on the blues and on one particular track, 'Sexual Revolution', Eric played great blues. He was especially pleased with his playing on that track and actually said, 'You know, I think that's the best I've ever played on a record. If you take this on the road, I'll go with you'." (Of note, Clapton historians do not completely agree on whether or not he deliberately offered to join the tour rather than being asked to do it.)
The Pros and Cons sessions took place in August 1983, right after Eric's last American shows for his 'Money and Cigarettes' tour, while preparing for a couple of charity gigs, such as the Action Research into Multiple Sclerosis (ARMS) benefit and for the Prince's Trust, both taking place in September at London's Royal Albert Hall.

Clapton has always been keen to do benefit gigs, and the ARMS show was one of the first all-star charity gigs in rock history. It turned out as particularly meaningful and rewarding in many respects, boasting an incredible line-up of stars playing together as a band, rather than performing individually. Everyone had such a great time that it was decided to take the whole show to America for a further nine dates, with a marvellous spirit and atmosphere binding the musicians together, both on- and offstage.
The ARMS experience and Clapton's renewed enthusiasm for live performance probably were strong reasons for him to confirm his role in what would turn out to be Waters' much stiffer, overly-organised and less 'appropriate' tour in 1984. Eric was as good as his word and indeed joined Roger Waters in England to rehearse for the Pros And Cons tour of England, Europe, and America.

Recording with Waters had been an extremely pleasant experience for Clapton. He had been again in the background, happy to let his own artistic ego fade into somebody else's work, without any pressure to act as a leader or having to make important decisions. But Clapton did make the choice to take part in the tour, and he did it against the advice of manager Roger Forrester, who felt (according to Ray Coleman) that "Clapton was far too established to play what amounted to second fiddle around the world on a project with which neither he nor his music had anything in common. But he loyally followed through, and did European and American dates, having told Waters he would."
In Forrester's view, the move didn't make any sense: why should Clapton suddenly play in someone's backing band after having been his own boss since the early Seventies? However, many people did go and see the shows on the strength of Clapton's name, and were rewarded with some magnificent playing. He had at last found the fire that had been extinguished for so long. Clapton is the first to say that art feeds on personal suffering. It is possible that the continual pain caused by his marital problems--his marriage was in those same days on the verge of collapse--along with the freedom of being out on the road, submerged in a band led by someone else and without any leadership responsibilities, gave him that extra edge.

The band consisted of Roger Waters on bass and lead vocals, Clapton on lead guitar, Tim Renwick on guitar, Michael Kamen on keyboards, Andy Newmark on drums, Mel Collins on sax, Doreen Chanter and Katie Kissoon on backing vocals, and Chris Stainton on keyboards. The stage set-up was quite elaborate, with three huge screens behind the band playing various film sequences and Gerald Scarfe's animations illustrating the music being performed on stage. The show was divided into two parts. The first half consisted of well-known Pink Floyd songs with Eric particularly shining on "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" and "Money". In the second half, the band performed the entire Pros And Cons album, with Clapton delivering a breathtaking solo on "Sexual Revolution". It was hard to imagination that the man ripping out these notes from his guitar was the same that had been churning out so many pleasant but uninspired solos over the previous few years.

Of course, Clapton's incendiary playing on the tour was positively affected by his increasing recovery from alcohol addiction, and consequently by his new confidence in himself as a man. It's difficult not to notice a close link between the stunning work performed live with Waters and the ripping guitar playing included in some numbers from Clapton's own Behind the Sun. These had already been 'tested' live earlier in 1984 during a short solo tour in which Eric had been the sole guitarist for the first time since the Derek and the Dominos days--a testimony to his maturing self-assuredness as a musician and band leader as he approached his 40th birthday.
Ironically, the man who had left the Yardbirds because he thought they were too commercial found himself in much the same position at this time. His record label (Warner Brothers) turned down much of the Behind the Sun material (while Clapton was on tour with Waters) on the grounds that there were 'not enough singles' included. As Clapton told Q Magazine in 1987, "I suddenly realised that the Peter Pan thing was over. Because just before that Van Morrison had been dropped--mightily dropped--and it rang throughout the industry. I thought if they can drop him they can drop me. There was my mortality staring me in the face."

These events help to better define the context of Clapton's identity and professional path at the time of his association with Roger Waters, as well as the meaning of Pros and Cons to Clapton's later career. According to some, the Pros and Cons tour was probably the weakest career move Clapton ever made. Apart from the lack of responsibilities, the live experience was not too satisfactory, as Forrester had predicted. He hadn't worked as a sideman for fifteen years and he found the live performance with Waters quite demanding both on a musical and personal level, having to fit into the band and to put his ego back into perspective. Clapton didn't like the 'star-system atmosphere' of the show, which he considered bleak and pretentious, and soon got bored of it.

Harry Shapiro writes: "It was more like a travelling five-star hotel, with a mental distance between the players, a sharp contrast with the camaraderie he enjoyed in his own band. Tensions developed. Eric felt lonely, exposed. (...) Musically, as well as socially, Clapton was utterly unsuited to the Waters show. By far the finest musician on the stage, he had no natural place in the theatricality and posturing of it all. For many thousands of genuine music enthusiasts, the show came to life only when Eric played. But he looked uncomfortable, bored, and smoked endlessly to relieve what he saw as the dreariness of the stage show. Fed up from the start, he could hardly wait for the tour to end. The icy coldness of the music and the bad vibes of the touring entourage depressed him."

Socially, Eric never fit in at all--upscale restaurants had never been his style--and he was glad to leave the tour at the end of July to prepare for his own trip to Australia. Ray Coleman writes: "Once, in Stockholm, at an after-the-show dinner hosted by Waters' record company at a luxury restaurant, a hungry Clapton grew tired of waiting ages for food from obsequious waiters. He said to Nigel Carrol, 'I could do with a Big Mac and French fries'. Carroll left and returned with the fast food fifteen minutes later. Eric enjoyed watching the expressions on the faces of the dinner guests as he tucked into his burger at the table while they still waited for their culinary delights."

Clapton made an impromptu appearance with Bob Dylan and others at Wembley Arena between the European and American legs of Waters' tour. Dylan's show, with its spontaneous jamming and immediate roughness, was especially close to what Clapton had been used to until then, and it clashed, in his experience, to Waters' technological approach on stage. (Dylan even started one number, and then showed Clapton the chords as they went along.) And shortly after completing the 1984 Pros and Cons tour, he also jammed alongside Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, and Robert Plant at Collins' wedding reception, again seeming to enjoy performing live without any previous rehearsal. These must have been among the main reasons for Clapton not to re-join the band when Waters added more shows to his tour in 1985.
• • •

Clapton did take a few notes from his time with Waters. Compared to the slick, conceptual Pros and Cons album, Clapton's latest release (1983's Money and Cigarettes) sounded decidedly accessible and commercial. And Clapton may have adopted some of Waters' careful, methodical production style for Behind the Sun, which shows an increased aesthetic tension in trying to provide a different feeling and a smoother kind of sound.

Waters' obsession for technical perfection and multimedia showmanship might have helped Clapton deal with some of the new directions imposed by the record company, including the shooting of a video. The other significant change was in Clapton's stage show, which soon incorporated a professional lighting system to enhance Clapton's live music; this was done to great effect during "Badge" and "Let It Rain", when hundreds of circular, laser-thin beams of light hit the stage and the audience at varying speeds depending on the tempo of the song.

Clapton's collaboration with Waters also led to some fruitful collaborations with other Pros and Cons bandmates. Tim Renwick joined Clapton's band in February 1985 to play rhythm guitar for the successful Behind The Sun tour. Katie Kissoon was featured regularly as one of Clapton's backing vocalists for another 10 years. Above all, Michael Kamen would become a close friend of Clapton's. He collaborated with Clapton on several motion picture soundtracks. Kamen recalled "Eric got a call from the BBC to do music for Edge of Darkness and he was eager to do it, but needed some help. He didn't know the mechanics of film writing or what to do, realised it was just a guitar-playing score and asked me if I'd be interested. Of course I said I was, because he's my hero--and now my friend, but my hero above everything else"

Coleman tells an anecdote that sums up with importance of Clapton's presence in Waters' band. In late 1984, after seeing Eric "change the colour of the atmosphere" by his playing at one of Waters' shows, Pete Townshend told Eric and said, "Well, it's true, after all these years, Clapton is God". Pete felt stunned at the fact that he'd said it, but he stands by it. "This was Eric making communication from heart to heart. It was divine".

Gaetano Villari is a guest contributor to Spare Bricks.
http://sparebricks.fika.org/sbzine26/features.html

так, видимо никого не заинтересовала столь роско шная статья :/

ну что ж...

вот ещё одна...

Про Са Иру.

Обсуждение стилистики произведения и пр.
=======================================
Make your choice, find your voice

After years of delays, Waters finally delivered his opera. Or did he?
by Christopher Hughes
From the opening ambient sounds of Madame Antoine's garden to the musical snippets of "The Overture", two things become clear: Ça Ira is going to have ample Waters touches throughout, and it is a full-on opera, not just some half-baked wishful thinking from an old rocker.

For those who have listened to it, the first aspect--that Waters' sound that was born during his days with Pink Floyd and continued into his solo career--is both obvious and good. Even folks unfamiliar with Pink Floyd or Roger Waters have commented on the way sound effects (from bird noises to guillotines) are both unexpected and effective. The second aspect--that it is an opera--has, however, produced the opposite situation, with a wide spectrum of opinions on whether or not it is an opera, and following from that, whether or not it's any good. It was this varied interpretation that somehow became stuck in my head, so I abandoned my plan to write a straightforward review and decided to present these various ideas and answer the question: "Is Ça Ira an opera?"
The simple answer to this question is "Yes". In most cases, the people I have asked have happily said "yes", and as if it is so obvious that the question need not be asked. A few others, however, have similarly stated that it is obvious that it isn't an opera. One--who didn't know what she was listening to--went so far as to comment, "I didn't know Andrew Lloyd Webber was releasing something".
It would seem I had a problem. So my first stop on this journey was to answer this seemingly simple question: "What is an opera?" I thought I knew, I must admit. I had a few 'classics' on CD; Il Trovatore, Carmen, The Magic Flute. I have seen a half dozen or so, performed by both the Queensland and Australian Opera Companies. So I'm not tremendously experienced, but probably more experienced than most Roger Waters fans. But I put aside my own convictions and headed for the people who would know: those who did this sort of thing for a living.
First off, let's be general... from Jean Peccei I received so good a summary:
If you're looking for a set of characteristics all of which a work must have to qualify as an opera, you won't find one. Likewise you won't find a set of characteristics which allow you to definitely exclude other works from the 'opera category'. It's even worse than the old philosophical problem of defining a chair. At least with chairs everyone pretty much knows if they're sitting on one. With the major operas in the canon, yes pretty much everyone in the audience agrees that they're at an opera. But go a little outside that and well... then the polemics begin.
A combination of music, singing, drama meant to be performed on the stage? A drama set to music? So are musicals.
The work although a combination of the above three, has the music as its driving force? I suppose this might set opera off from musicals, but I'm not sure about that. Certainly there is a convention that musicals are often 'listed' by both the composer and the librettist/lyricist (if they are two different people)--Rogers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Lowe. Operas aren't. It's Verdi's Forza del destino, not Verdi and Piave's.
Through-composed? So are Evita and Phantom of the Opera.
Recitatives instead of dialogue? Both Carmen and The Abduction from the Seraglio have long stretches of dialogue, and everyone agrees they're operas.
Profound subject matter and themes? So then where does opera shade off into operetta? Besides I'm not sure that the themes in South Pacific are any less profound than those of Maskerade or even La Fanciulla del West.
And defining 'profound themes' is another can of worms which starts getting into the realm of literary criticism as well as aesthetic judgement as does...
'Is its music profound and complex?'
There seems to be a school of criticism today that for contemporary opera, if the music is 'accessible' and 'melodic', it is by definition not profound. Hence the exclusion of modern musicals from the genre.
Performed in opera houses? The Washington Opera is putting on Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, as has La Scala. The Royal Opera House and Chicago Lyric Opera have put on Sweeney Todd. La Scala has even put on West Side Story.
Must be sung with operatically trained voices and without amplification? Leonard Bernstein called his Candide a musical for operatically trained voices. I note that the cast for the Ça Ira recording has opera and classical singers in the major roles--Bryn Terfel, Paul Groves, and Ying Huang.
However, one British critic after grappling with the issue through an entire article, threw up his hands and said that if an opera house performs the work on the stage, it's an opera. Another said that when it comes right down to it, it's an opera if the composer says it's an opera and not if he/she says it's not.
Wikipedia has quite a nice round-up discussion of the various kinds of operas and sub-classes of opera, as well as its history and evolution.

After a little more discussion, Peccei happily added:
"Well, a lot of people on opera groups can get awfully snotty, and I think the fact that Ça Ira was written by someone who's mainly a rock musician is probably enough for them. I think they'd have to have actually heard it before they could make a categorical judgement that it's not an opera. Mind you, when some people say 'This isn't an opera' it often simply means 'This is a bad opera'. I was in the audience for Nixon in China once (which I loved). A man near me hated it and kept saying to his wife, 'This is not an opera!'"

Finding good comments about Ça Ira has been relatively easy. Around the world, it seems all and sundry are happy to give the positive kind of press that musicians dream about on debut, let alone it's No. 1 status on the US opera charts. So to make it easy, I'll just add some quotes here.

"As readers of these commentaries know, we here at OperaOnline.us have been critical of contemporary composers who have distanced themselves from the melodic style and, instead, opted for the avant-garde rhythms that usually end in things 'onics' as in diatonic, or some variation of it. As we have asked time and again, where are the contemporary composers who can write melody? Roger Waters may seem an unlikely candidate to fit the bill and show 'em what we mean. But then, again, nobody doubts he can write music. What may very well distinguish Waters from all the rest is that he can write melody that is 'unashamedly emotional'." (www.OperaOnline.us)

"While Ça Ira may sound like the sort of pretentious nonsense that only rock stars with too much time and money would undertake, it is actually one of the most melodic and memorable modern operas to emerge for years." (Jonathon Wingate)

"It was another eight years before he committed to an English translation of the piece, which is proudly at the accessible end of the operatic scale, with titles such as 'I Want to Be King' and 'France in Disarray'." (Paul Sexton, Sunday Times)

"A far cry from my beloved otto cento operas, but what a rare treat for a modern work. Very accessible and with a melodic and dramatically interesting flow worthy of the name Opera." (John Schweger, Opera-L)

On the negative side, finding opinions has been both hard and easy. Finding negative press has been impossible, although I'm sure it's out there. Finding private criticism has been quite easy. One such e-mail communication I received called the work "Blah Ira(tating)"; another described it as a "turgid mess". A stunning insult! Another negative review, if it could be called that, is the silence that has befallen the various Pink Floyd and Roger Waters e-mail groups that abound on the Net. As expected, most fans won't even consider listening to it, and it seems the few that have are suspiciously quiet in their opinions. I can only assume we'll never know why. In fairness, it should be noted the same goes for fan groups of the performers in Ça Ira. So I'm stumped on that one.

My next port of call was Ça Ira itself. And it was my last port of call as well. If for no other reason, I wasn't about to track down a whole bunch of other "non-operas" to compare it with. So I will happily admit at this point that I'll have to take the negative examples as they come and leave them untested. They very well may be right and I know only too well that anyone's writings, including mine, will have no effect on influencing such an opinion. Folks think what they think and nothing will change it.

From beginning to end, Ça Ira has everything that is required of an opera. Firstly, it has the full orchestra being given a thorough workout for the entire 100+ minutes, with numerous musical highlights apart from the vocalists. A prime example of this is most of "The Commune de Paris", as we are left to imagine 'the plot' unfold.

Secondly, a cast, if not of thousands, at least of scores has us chopping and changing from ring centre to the circus audience and back again throughout. Cleverly constructed, the opera's choruses are the circus audience looking on as the main characters slowly but surely reveal the plot.

The third major piece of the puzzle is the libretto. Sung throughout--with the exception of a young Madame Antoine and a few soldiers' commands--the libretto goes beyond the description of the mundane (as Waters explains in the accompanying documentary) to describe and assess the 'how's and 'why's of the French Revolution. Originally written by Etienne and Nadine Roda-Gil in French, Waters had this translated, then worked into an English version at the insistence of Sony Music. Luckily for us the French version had been recorded so we now have both... but more on that a little later. In the new version, Waters openly admits to taking a few historical liberties for the benefit of artistic expression.

Waters talents as a composer, never in doubt from a fan's perspective, has always been, by popular opinion, continually outclassed by his lyrical ability. In Ça Ira we see this lyrical talent shine yet again, but for me, the music wins out. Without beating the listener over the head, he sets the stage clearly with what happened during the French Revolution, and who was at fault. Yet at the same time he manages to let the listener make up their own mind, even bringing sorrow to the demise of the villains of the piece, and that eternal question we all ask ("what if?") when it all goes wrong.

But like Pink Floyd themselves have shown over time, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts when it comes to Ça Ira. It took more than Waters' musical ability and the talents of the likes of Bryn Terfel (Jean-Luc Chaignaud in the French version), Paul Groves, and Ying Huang. Added to the melting pot are the artwork of Nadine Roda-Gil, the orchestration of Rick Wentworth, and the performances of the various musicians involved... and overall you have a perfectly delivered piece.

How complicated it was for Waters to pull off (and why it took 16 years) is best seen in the DVD released with the Deluxe edition. Even for non-opera fans, this film by Adrian Maben (of Live in Pompeii fame) is a worthy purchase in itself, as we get a fascinating insight into Waters' daily professional life as well as glimpses of his private life. Added to that, Maben draws the viewer deeper into Ça Ira itself, through the writing and recording sessions. Just as with Pompeii, this is a film in its own right, not just a "making of" exercise, and one that has you watching it over and over. One of many highlights was an audio glimpse of the demo that Waters presented to President Mitterrand back in 1989. If ever there was a demo I want to hear in full, it is this one. Played on a computer and sung entirely by Waters, in French, I can only imagine how it all must sound... especially the female parts and notes well beyond his range!