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Roger Waters
Musical artist

George Roger Waters (born 6 September 1943) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. He is best known as the bass player, lyricist and co-lead vocalist of the rock band Pink Floyd. Following the departure of fellow founding member Syd Barrett in March 1968, Waters became the band's lyricist, principal songwriter and conceptual leader. The band subsequently achieved worldwide success in the 1970s with the concept albums The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, and The Wall. Waters' primary instrument in Pink Floyd was the electric bass guitar, although he experimented with synthesisers and tape loops and has played electric rhythm and acoustic guitars in recordings and in concert. Following creative differences within the group, Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985 and began a legal battle with the remaining members over their future use of the group's name and material. The dispute was settled out of court in 1987, and nearly eighteen years passed before he performed with Pink Floyd again. It is estimated that as of 2010, the group have sold over 200 million albums worldwide, including 74.5 million units sold in the United States.

Waters solo career has included three studio albums: The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking (1984), Radio K.A.O.S. (1987), and Amused to Death (1992). In 1986, he contributed songs and a score to the soundtrack of the movie When the Wind Blows based on the Raymond Briggs book of the same name. In 1990, he staged one of the largest rock concerts in history, The Wall – Live in Berlin, with an estimated 200,000 people in attendance. In 1996, he was inducted into the US and UK Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Pink Floyd. He has toured extensively as a solo act since 1999 and played The Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety for his world tours of 2006–2008. In 2005, he released Ça Ira, an opera in three acts translated from Etienne Roda-Gil and his wife Nadine Delahaye's libretto based on the early French Revolution. On 2 July 2005, he reunited with Pink Floyd bandmates Nick Mason, Richard Wright, and David Gilmour for the Live 8 benefit concert, the group's only appearance with Waters since their last performance 24 years earlier. In 2010, he commenced The Wall Live, a worldwide tour that features a complete performance of The Wall.

Waters has been married four times and has three children.

Early years (1943–1964)

Waters was born the younger of two boys to Mary and Fletcher Waters, in Great Bookham, Surrey. His father, the grandson of a coal miner and prominent Labour Party leader, was a schoolteacher, a devout Christian, and a Communist Party member. Fletcher was a conscientious objector who drove an ambulance during the Blitzkrieg, but objected during the first years of the Second World War. He later changed his mind and joined an infantry regiment of the British Army, and eventually died in combat with The Royal Fusiliers Company C at Anzio in Italy in January 1944, when his newborn son was four months old. Following Fletcher's death, Mary, also a teacher, moved with her two sons to Cambridge, and she raised them there.

I hated every second of it, apart from games. The regime at school was a very oppressive one ... the same kids who are susceptible to bullying by other kids are also susceptible to bullying by the teachers.

Roger Waters

Waters attended Morley Memorial Junior School in Cambridge, and later the Cambridgeshire High School for Boys (now Hills Road Sixth Form College) with Syd Barrett, while his future musical partner, David Gilmour, lived nearby on the city's Mill Road, and attended The Perse School. At age 15 Waters was chairman of the Cambridge Youth Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (YCND), having designed its publicity poster and participated in its organisation. He was a keen sportsman and a highly regarded member of the high school's cricket and rugby teams. Waters knew Barrett and Gilmour from his youth in Cambridge and met future Pink Floyd founding members Nick Mason and Richard Wright at the Regent Street Polytechnic school of architecture, where he enrolled after a series of aptitude tests indicated he was well-suited to that field.

Pink Floyd (1965–1985)

Formation

Main article: Pink Floyd

Waters and Mason first played music together in Sigma 6, a group formed by Keith Noble and Clive Metcalfe. Waters played rhythm guitar and Mason the drums, with vocal accompaniment from Noble's sister Sheilagh. The group was expanded by the introduction of fellow student Richard Wright, who played on any keyboard he could find. In the early years the band performed during private functions and rehearsed in a tearoom in the basement of Regent Street Polytechnic. By September 1963, Waters and Mason were losing interest in their studies and they moved into the lower flat of Stanhope Gardens, owned by Mike Leonard, a part-time tutor at the Regent Street Polytechnic. Mason later moved out, and guitar player Bob Klose moved in. Sigma 6 changed their name several times, from the Megadeaths, to the Architectural Abdabs, and to The Tea Set. Metcalfe and Noble left to form their own group, and in 1964 Klose and Waters were joined at Stanhope Gardens by Barrett, a childhood friend of Waters. According to Mason, the group's first recording session took place in December 1964. The band at that time included Klose on lead guitar, and was still calling itself the Tea Set. They had managed to secure some recording time through a friend of Wright's who worked at a studio in West Hampstead, and let them use some studio time for free. The four-song recording session was their first demo and included the 1957 Slim Harpo song "I'm a King Bee"; two Barrett originals, "Butterfly" and "Lucy Leave"; and "Double O Bo", a group composition which was, according to Mason, "Bo Diddley meets the 007 theme."

Waters performing with Pink Floyd at Leeds University in 1970

After the Tea Set lost Noble and Metcalfe's vocal abilities, Klose introduced the band to singer Chris Dennis, a technician with the Royal Air Force. During Dennis's brief tenure the band was regularly referring to itself as The Pink Floyd Sound, a name which was, according to Mason, created by Barrett on the spur of the moment when he discovered that another band also named the Tea Set were to perform at one of their gigs. Dennis was posted to Bahrain in January 1965, and Barrett became the group's frontman. Sometime during the autumn of 1965, the Tea Set began regularly calling itself, Pink Floyd Sound, later The Pink Floyd Sound, and eventually, Pink Floyd.

Early period

By the end of 1965 and through 1966 and most of 1967, Barrett was Pink Floyd's lead guitarist, singer, and primary songwriter. He wrote or co-wrote all but one track of their debut LP The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, released in August 1967. Waters contributed the song "Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk" (his first sole writing credit) to the album. By late 1967, Barrett's deteriorating mental health and increasingly erratic behaviour rendered him unable or unwilling to continue in his capacity as Pink Floyd's lead singer and guitarist. Although several of Barrett's friends, Waters included, tried to help him by encouraging psychotherapy with the Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing, Barrett refused to cooperate and Laing said he was unable to help. In December 1967 the band invited Gilmour to join Pink Floyd as a fifth member, with the intention of keeping Barrett as a non-performing songwriter. Working with Barrett eventually proved too difficult, so in early March 1968 Pink Floyd met with Peter Jenner and Andrew King of Blackhill Enterprises to discuss the band's future. Barrett agreed to leave Pink Floyd, and the band "agreed to Blackhill's entitlement in perpetuity" with regard to "past activities". The band's new manager Steve O'Rourke made a formal announcement about the departure of Barrett and the arrival of Gilmour in April 1968. Jenner and King, who regarded Barrett as the creative genius of the band, decided to represent him and end their relationship with Pink Floyd. In 1969, Waters married his childhood girlfriend Judy Trim. They had no children together and their marriage was dissolved in 1976. He married his second wife, Lady Carolyne Christie, the niece of the Marquess of Zetland, later that same year. His marriage to Christie produced a son, Harry Waters, a musician who has played keyboards with his father's touring band since 2006, and a daughter, India Waters.

Classic period

Filling the void left by Barrett's departure in March 1968, Waters began to chart Pink Floyd's artistic direction. He became the principal songwriter, lyricist, and co-lead vocalist, and would remain the band’s dominant creative figure until he left in 1985. He wrote the lyrics to the five Pink Floyd albums preceding his own departure, starting with The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) and ending with The Final Cut (1983), while exerting progressively more creative control over the band and its music. With lyrics written entirely by Waters, The Dark Side of the Moon is one of the most commercially successful rock albums of all time. As of 2004 it has spent 723 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart and sold over 35 million copies worldwide. It was selling over 8,000 units every week as of 2004. According to Pink Floyd biographer Glen Povey, Dark Side is the world's second best-selling album, and the United States' 21st best-selling album of all time.

Waters performing The Dark Side of The Moon with Pink Floyd at Earls Court London on 18 May 1973

Waters produced thematic ideas that became the impetus for the Pink Floyd concept albums The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, and The Wall, written largely by Waters, and The Final Cut, written entirely by Waters. He referred or alluded to the cost of war and the loss of his father throughout his work, from "Corporal Clegg" (A Saucerful Of Secrets, 1968) and "Free Four" (Obscured By Clouds, 1972) to "Us and Them" from The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), "When the Tigers Broke Free", first used in the feature film, The Wall (1982), later included with "The Fletcher Memorial Home" on The Final Cut (1983), an album dedicated to his father. The theme and composition of The Wall (1979) was influenced by his upbringing in an English society depleted of men after the Second World War. Initially his bandmates 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. This give-and-take relationship began to sour around 1979.

During the recording of The Wall, Waters, Gilmour, and Mason became increasingly unhappy with Wright's lack of contribution to the album. Gilmour said that Wright, "adn't contributed anything of any value whatsoever to the album—he did very, very little," and he "didn't seem to be pulling his weight." Mason said, "Alas, Rick's contribution was to turn up and sit in on the sessions without doing anything, just 'being a producer'." Longtime Pink Floyd studio engineer Nick Griffiths said, "by the time of The Wall, Rick Wright had lost interest in the idea of the Floyd. He was more interested in his leisure time—sailing around the Greek islands and enjoying the life of a rich rock 'n' roll star." Gilmour would later say that Wright, "wasn't doing the job he was paid to do" and he "got the boot because he wasn't contributing in any way to anything." Waters added, "he was not prepared to cooperate in making the record," and "it was agreed by everybody ... either you can have a long battle or you can agree to this, and the 'this' was you finish making the album, keep your full share ... but at the end of it you leave quietly. Rick agreed." Wright's departure from Pink Floyd was never officially announced to the press. His resignation and subsequent position as a paid session musician meant he was the only one of the four to realise a profit from The Wall Tour. The LP's sleeve art and custom picture labels by cartoonist Gerald Scarfe tied in with the album's concept, with each of the four sides showing the eponymous wall in various stages of construction, accompanied by characters from the story. During each performance of The Wall Tour, a 40 feet (12 m) high wall of cardboard bricks was gradually built between the band and audience. Gaps allowed the spectators to view various scenes in the story, as Scarfe's animations were projected onto the completed parts of the wall. Several characters from the story were realised as giant inflatables, including a pig, replete with a crossed hammers logo. The tour opened at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena on 7 February 1980. According to Waters, the group lost $600,000 on the expensive shows.

I think things like "Comfortably Numb" were the last embers of mine and Roger's ability to work collaboratively.

David Gilmour

Waters brought in Bob Ezrin to co-produce the album, and Ezrin earned a writing credit on the album's climax, "The Trial". The last band performance of The Wall was on 16 June 1981, at Earls Court London, and this was Pink Floyd's last appearance with Waters until the band's brief reunion at the 2 July 2005 Live 8 concert in London's Hyde Park, 24 years later. The Wall was written almost entirely by Waters and is largely based on Waters' life story, and having sold over 23 million RIAA certified units in the US as of 2010, is one of the top three best-selling albums of all time in America according to RIAA. "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)" was ranked number 375 on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list. As of 2006 it is estimated that Pink Floyd have sold over 200 million albums worldwide, including 74.5 million RIAA certified units sold in the US.

In 1983 the last Waters–Gilmour–Mason collaboration, The Final Cut, was released. The sleeve notes describe it as: "A requiem for the post-war dream by Roger Waters, music performed by Pink Floyd". Waters is credited with writing all the lyrics as well as all the music on the album. His lyrics to the album were critical of the Conservative Party government of the day and mention Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher by name. At the time Gilmour did not have any material for the album, so he asked Waters to delay the recording until he could write some songs, but Waters refused. According to Mason, after power struggles within the band and creative arguments about the album, Gilmour's name "disappeared" from the production credits, though he retained his pay. Rolling Stone magazine gave the album five stars, with Kurt Loder calling it "a superlative achievement" and "art rock's crowning masterpiece". Loder viewed the album as "essentially a Roger Waters solo album". Following creative differences within the group, Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985, and began a legal battle with the remaining band members regarding their continued use of the name and material.

In December 1985 Waters "issued a statement to EMI and CBS invoking the 'Leaving Member' clause" on his contract. On 31 October 1986, he initiated High Court proceedings to formally dissolve the Pink Floyd partnership. In his submission to the High Court he called Pink Floyd a "spent force creatively". Gilmour and Mason opposed the application and announced their intention to continue as Pink Floyd. Waters claims to have been forced to resign much like Wright some years earlier, and he decided to leave Pink Floyd based on legal considerations, stating "because, if I hadn't, the financial repercussions would have wiped me out completely." In December 1987 an agreement between Waters and Pink Floyd was reached. According to Mason:

"We eventually formalised a settlement with Roger. On Christmas Eve, 1987, ... David and Roger convened for a summit meeting on the houseboat with Jerome Walton, David's accountant. Jerome painstakingly typed out the bones of a settlement. Essentially—although there was far more complex detail—the arrangement allowed Roger to be freed from his arrangement with Steve , and David and me to continue working under the name Pink Floyd. In the end the court accepted Jerome's version as the final and binding document and duly stamped it."

Waters was released from his contractual obligation with O'Rourke, and he retained the copyrights to The Wall concept and his trademarked inflatable pig. The Gilmour-led Pink Floyd released two studio albums: A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987), and The Division Bell (1994).

Solo career (1984–present)

1984–1996

Template:Image stack Following the release of The Final Cut, Waters embarked on a solo career that produced three concept albums and a movie soundtrack. His first solo album, 1984's The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, was a project about a man's dreams across one night that dealt with Waters' feelings about his failed marriage to Judy Trim, sex, and the pros and cons of monogamy and family life versus "the call of the wild". In the end the character, Reg, chooses love and matrimony over promiscuity. The album featured guitarist Eric Clapton, jazz saxophonist David Sanborn, and artwork by Scarfe. Rolling Stone's Kurt Loder described The Pros And Cons Of Hitch Hiking as a "strangely static, faintly hideous record", Rolling Stone rated the album a "rock bottom" one star." Mike DeGagne of Allmusic praised the album for its, "ingenious symbolism" and "brilliant use of stream of consciousness within a subconscious realm", rating it four out of five stars. Waters began touring the new album aided by Clapton, a new band, new material, and a selection of Pink Floyd favourites. Waters débuted his tour in Stockholm on 16 June 1984. Poor ticket sales plagued the tour and some of the larger venues had to be cancelled. By his own estimate, he lost $400,000 on the tour. In March 1985, Waters went to North America to play smaller venues with the Pros and Cons Plus Some Old Pink Floyd Stuff — North America Tour 1985. In 1986, Waters contributed songs and a score to the soundtrack of the movie When the Wind Blows based on the Raymond Briggs book of the same name. His backing band featuring Paul Carrack was credited as The Bleeding Heart Band. The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, has been certified Gold by the RIAA.

In 1987, he released Radio K.A.O.S., a concept album based on a mute man named Billy from an impoverished Welsh mining town who has the ability to physically tune into radio waves in his head. Billy first learns to communicate with a radio DJ, and eventually to control the world's computers. Angry at the state of the world in which he lives, he simulates a nuclear attack. Waters followed the release with a supporting tour also in 1987. On 9 November 1989 the Berlin Wall fell, and on 21 July 1990 Waters staged one of the largest rock concerts in history, The Wall – Live in Berlin, on the vacant terrain between Potsdamer Platz and the Brandenburg Gate, with an estimated 200,000 people in attendance. Leonard Cheshire asked him to do the concert to raise funds for charity. Waters' group of musicians included Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Cyndi Lauper, Bryan Adams, Scorpions, and Sinéad O'Connor. Waters also used an East German symphony orchestra and choir, a Soviet marching band, and a pair of helicopters from the US 7th Airborne Command and Control Squadron. Designed by Mark Fisher, the Wall was 25 metres tall and 170 metres long and was built across the set. Scarfe's inflatable puppets were recreated on an enlarged scale. Although many rock icons received invitations to the show, Gilmour, Mason, and Wright, did not. Waters released a concert double album of the performance which has been certified platinum by RIAA.

In 1990, Waters hired manager Mark Fenwick and left EMI for a worldwide deal with Columbia. He divorced his second wife, Carolyne Christie, and released his third studio album, Amused to Death, in 1992. Amused to Death is heavily influenced by the events of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and the Gulf War, and a critique of the notion of war becoming the subject of entertainment, particularly on television. Patrick Leonard, who had also worked on A Momentary Lapse, co-produced the album. Bob Ezrin was also referenced, with the line, "Each man has his price Bob, and yours was pretty low" from "Too Much Rope". The title was derived from the book Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. It is Waters' most critically acclaimed solo recording, garnering some comparison to his previous work with Pink Floyd. Waters described the record as a, "stunning piece of work", ranking the album with Dark Side Of The Moon and The Wall as one of the best of his career. The album had one hit, the song "What God Wants, Pt. 1", which reached number 35 in the UK in September 1992 and number 5 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Chart in the US. Amused to Death was certified Silver by the British Phonographic Industry. Jeff Beck played lead guitar on many of the album's tracks, which were recorded with an impressive cast of studio musicians at ten different studios. Sales of Amused to Death topped out at around one million and there was no tour in support of this album. Waters would first perform material from it seven years later during his In the Flesh tours. In 1996 Waters was inducted into the US and UK Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Pink Floyd.

1999–2004

In 1999, after a nearly 12-year hiatus from touring, and a 7-year absence from the music industry, Waters embarked on the In the Flesh tour, performing both solo and Pink Floyd material. The tour was a financial success in the US and though Waters had booked mostly smaller venues, tickets sold so well that most of the concerts had to be upgraded to larger venues. The tour eventually stretched across the world and would span three years. A concert film was released on CD and DVD, named In the Flesh Live. During the tour, he played two new songs "Flickering Flame" and "Each Small Candle" as the final encore to many of the shows. His marriage to Phillips ended in 2001, and in 2004, Waters got engaged to filmmaker Laurie Durning. As of 2010, they are still together. In June 2002, Waters completed the tour with a performance in front of 70,000 people at the Glastonbury Festival of Performing Arts. Waters performed 15 Pink Floyd songs and 5 songs from his solo catalog. He was outspoken against the Hunting Act of 2004, and performed a concert for, and attended marches supporting, the Countryside Alliance:

I've become disenchanted with the political and philosophical atmosphere in England. The anti-hunting bill was enough for me to leave England. I did what I could, I did a concert and one or two articles, but it made me feel ashamed to be English. I was in Hyde Park for both the Countryside Alliance marches. There were hundreds of thousands of us there. Good, honest English people. That's one of the most divisive pieces of legislation we've ever had in Great Britain. It's not a case of whether or not I agree with fox hunting, but I will defend to the hilt their right to take part in it."

In October 2005, he clarified: "I come back to the UK quite often. I didn't leave as a protest against the hunting ban; I was following a child in the wake of a divorce." After leaving Britain, he moved to Long Island in New York with his fiancé Laurie Durning. Miramax announced in mid-2004 that a production of The Wall was to appear on Broadway with Waters playing a prominent role in the creative direction. Reports stated that the musical contained not only the original tracks from "The Wall", but also songs from Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and other Pink Floyd albums, as well as new material. On the night of 1 May 2004, recorded extracts from the opera, including its overture, were played on the occasion of the Welcome Europe celebrations in the accession country of Malta. Gert Hof mixed recorded excerpts from the opera into a continuous piece of music which was played as an accompaniment to a large light and fireworks display over Grand Harbour in Valletta. In July 2004, Waters released two new tracks on the Internet: "To Kill The Child", inspired by the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and "Leaving Beirut", "inspired by his travels in the Middle East as a teenager". The lyrics to "Leaving Beirut" contain strong attacks on former US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. After the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and subsequent tsunami disaster, Waters performed "Wish You Were Here" with Eric Clapton during a benefit concert on the American network NBC.

2005–present

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On 2 July 2005, Waters reunited with Mason, Wright, and Gilmour for what would be their final performance together at the 2005 Live 8 concert in London's Hyde Park, Pink Floyd's only appearance with Waters since their final performance of The Wall at Earls Court London 24 years earlier. They played a four-song, 23-minute set including "Speak to Me/Breathe"/"Breathe (Reprise)", "Money", "Wish You Were Here", and "Comfortably Numb". Waters told the Associated Press that while the experience of playing with Pink Floyd again was positive, the chances of a bona fide reunion would be "slight" considering his and Gilmour's continuing musical and ideological differences. Though Waters had differing ideas about which songs they should play, he "agreed to roll over for one night only". Gilmour told the Associated Press, "The rehearsals convinced me it wasn't something I wanted to be doing a lot of. There have been all sorts of farewell moments in people's lives and careers which they have then rescinded, but I think I can fairly categorically say that there won't be a tour or an album again that I take part in. It isn't to do with animosity or anything like that. It's just that ... I've been there, I've done it." In November 2005 Pink Floyd were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame by Pete Townshend of The Who.

On 26 September 2005, Waters released Ça Ira (pronounced Template:IPA-fr, French for "it will be fine"; Waters added the subtitle, "There is Hope"), an opera in three acts translated from Etienne Roda-Gil's French libretto based on the historical subject of the French Revolution. Ça Ira was released as a double CD album, featuring baritone Bryn Terfel, soprano Ying Huang and tenor Paul Groves (tenor). Set during the early French Revolution, the original libretto was co-written in French by the late Étienne Roda-Gil and his wife Nadine Delahaye. Waters had began rewriting the libretto in English in 1989, and said about the composition: "I've always been a big fan of Beethoven's choral music, Berlioz and Borodin … This is unashamedly romantic and resides in that early 19th-century tradition, because that's where my tastes lie in classical and choral music." Waters appeared on television to discuss the opera, but the interviews often focused instead on his relationship with Pink Floyd, something Waters would "take in stride", a sign Pink Floyd biographer Mark Blake believes to be, "a testament to his mellower old age or twenty years of dedicated psychotherapy". Ça Ira reached number 5 on the Billboard Classical Music Chart in the US.

In 2006, Waters began The Dark Side of the Moon Live Tour, a two-year, world spanning effort that began in Europe in June and North America in September. The first half of the show featured both Pink Floyd songs and Waters' solo material, while the second-half included a complete live performance of the 1973 Pink Floyd album, The Dark Side of the Moon, the first time in over three decades that Waters had performed the album. The shows ended with an encore from the third side of The Wall. He utilised elaborate staging by concert lighting designer Marc Brickman complete with laser lights, fog machines, flame throwers, psychedelic projections, and inflatable floating puppets (Spaceman and Pig) controlled by a "handler" dressed as a butcher, and a full 360 degree quadrophonic sound system was used. Nick Mason joined Waters for The Dark Side of the Moon set and the encores on select 2006 tour dates. Waters continued touring in January 2007 in Australia and New Zealand then Asia, Europe, South America, and back to North America in June. On 7 July 2007, he played on the American leg of the Live Earth concert, an international multi-venue concert aimed at raising awareness about global climate change, featuring the Trenton Youth Choir and his trademarked inflatable pig. Waters told David Fricke why he thinks The Wall is still relevant today:

The loss of a father is the central prop on which stands. As the years go by, children lose their fathers again and again, for nothing. You see it now with all these fathers, good men and true, who lost their lives and limbs in Iraq for no reason at all. I've done Bring The Boys Back Home in my encore on recent tours. It feels more relevant and poignant to be singing that song now than it did in 1979.

In 2007, Waters became a spokesman for Millennium Promise, a non-profit organisation that helps fight extreme poverty and malaria. He wrote an opinion piece for CNN in support of the topic. In March 2007, the science fiction film The Last Mimzy was released featuring an exclusive Waters song, "Hello (I love you)", which played over the end credits. Waters released it as a download-only single. Waters described it as, "... a song that captures the themes of the movie, the clash between humanity's best and worst instincts, and how a child's innocence can win the day." Waters performed at California's Coachella Festival in April 2008 and was to be among the headlining artists performing at Live Earth 2008 in Mumbai India on 7 December 2008. This concert was cancelled in light of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai throughout November 2008. Waters opposes the separation barrier being built by Israel, calling it an "obscenity" that "should be torn down". In December 2009, he pledged his support to the Gaza Freedom March. Waters confirmed the possibility of an upcoming solo album which "might be called" Heartland, and has said he has numerous songs written (some already recorded) that he intends to release when they are a complete album.

In June 2010, Waters released a cover of the protest song "We Shall Overcome", a protest song derived from the refrain of a gospel hymm published by Charles Albert Tindley in 1901. Waters performed with David Gilmour at the Hoping Foundation Benefit Evening on 10 July 2010. The four-song set included: "To Know Him Is To Love Him", which was played in early Pink Floyd sound checks, followed by; "Wish You Were Here", "Comfortably Numb", and "Another Brick in the Wall (Part Two)". On 12 April 2010, Waters announced The Wall Live tour, which includes a complete performance of The Wall. The tour began in Toronto, Canada on 15 September 2010.

Equipment and instruments

Waters’ primary instrument in Pink Floyd was the electric bass guitar. He briefly played a Höfner bass but replaced it with a Rickenbacker RM-1999/4001S, until around 1970 when he switched to Fender Precision basses. First seen at a concert in Hyde Park, London in July 1970, the black P-Bass was rarely used until April 1972 when it became his main stage guitar and as of 2 October 2010, the basis for a Fender Artist Signature model. Gilmour's guitar-tech Phil Taylor replaced the white pickguard with a black one around 1976; this is visible on The Wall, In the Flesh, and The Dark Side of the Moon Live tours. He often plays bass using a pick but is also known to play fingerstyle. Waters uses RotoSound Jazz Bass 77 flat-wound strings and Samson wireless systems. Throughout his career he has used Selmer, WEM, Hiwatt and Ashdown amplifiers, also employing delay, tremolo, chorus, panning and phaser effects in his music.

Not only a bassist and vocalist, Waters experimented with the EMS Synthi A and VCS 3 synthesisers on Pink Floyd pieces such as "On the Run" and "Welcome to the Machine", and he played electric and acoustic guitar on Pink Floyd tracks using Fender, Martin, Ovation and Washburn guitars. He played electric guitar on the Pink Floyd song "Sheep", from Animals, and acoustic guitar on several Pink Floyd recordings, such as "Pigs on the Wing 1 & 2", from Animals, "Southampton Dock" from The Final Cut, and on "Mother" from The Wall. He has used synthesiser and tape effects in "Welcome to the Machine" and elsewhere. A Binson Echorec 2 echo effect was used on his bass-guitar track in "One Of These Days".

Discography

Main article: Roger Waters discography See also: Pink Floyd discography

Citations

  1. Blake 2008, p. 13
  2. Schaffner 1991, pp. 15–16
  3. Manning 2006, pp. 5–6
  4. Blake 2008, pp. 14–19
  5. Watkinson & Anderson 1991, p. 18
  6. Mason 2005, pp. 12–13, 16–18
  7. Blake 2008, p. 36
  8. Mason 2005, pp. 13–18
  9. Blake 2008, pp. 38–39
  10. Blake 2008, pp. 13, 41, 33
  11. Mason 2005, p. 26
  12. Watkinson & Anderson 1991, p. 34
  13. Mason 2005, p. 30
  14. Blake 2008, p. 43
  15. Mason 2005, pp. 30–37
  16. Mason 2005, pp. 87–107
  17. Blake 2008, p. 91
  18. Mason 2005, pp. 97, 102, 129
  19. Blake 2008, pp. 90–114
  20. Cooper, Emmanuel (25 January 2001). "Judy Trim". The Independent. Retrieved 14 October 2010.
  21. Povey 2008, pp. 335–339
  22. Blake 2008, p. 258
  23. Mason 2005, pp. 106–107, 160–161, 265, 278
  24. Blake 2008, pp. 3, 9, 113, 156, 242, 279, 320, 398
  25. Povey 2008, p. 345
  26. Mason 2005, pp. 265–269
  27. Blake 2008, p. 294
  28. Blake 2008, pp. 294–295, 351
  29. Povey 2008, p. 230
  30. Simmons 1999, pp. 76–95
  31. Simmons 1999, pp. 86–88
  32. Mason 2005, pp. 246–247
  33. ^ Schaffner 1991, p. 235
  34. Simmons 1999, p. 88
  35. Blake 2008, p. 258
  36. Blake 2008, pp. 280–286
  37. Blake 2008, p. 275
  38. Povey & Russell 1997, p. 185
  39. Blake 2008, p. 260
  40. "RIAA GOLD & PLATINUM Top 100 Albums". RIAA. Retrieved 17 October 2010.
  41. "The RS 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". 9 December 2004. Archived from the original on 26 June 2008. Retrieved 23 October 2010. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; 22 June 2008 suggested (help)
  42. Manning 2006, p. V
  43. "Top Selling Artists". RIAA. Retrieved 17 October 2010.
  44. Mason 2005, pp. 264–270
  45. Schaffner 1991, p. 262
  46. Blake 2008, p. 300
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References

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