Roger Waters

Roger Waters

George Roger Waters (born 6 September 1943) is an English musician and singer-songwriter who gained fame as the bass player, lyricist and co-lead vocalist of the rock band Pink Floyd. The band achieved worldwide success in the 1970s with the concept albums The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, and The Wall. Following the departure of fellow founding member Syd Barrett in March 1968, Waters became the band's lyricist, principal songwriter and conceptual leader until his own departure from the band in 1985, when he decided to leave the band and start a legal battle with the remaining members regarding their future use of the "Pink Floyd" name and material. It is estimated that as of 2010, Pink Floyd have sold over 200 million albums worldwide including 74.5 million units sold in the US.

His 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, on the vacant terrain between Potsdamer Platz and the Brandenburg Gate, with an estimated 200,000 people in attendance. In 1996, Waters 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 other members of Pink Floyd—Nick Mason, Richard Wright, and David Gilmour—for the 2005 Live 8 concert in London's Hyde Park, Pink Floyd's only appearance with Waters since their performance of The Wall at Earls Court in London 24 years earlier. In April 2010, he announced The Wall Live tour, which began in Toronto on 15 September 2010 and will tentatively end in Europe in June 2011.

In 1969, Waters married his childhood girlfriend Judy Trim; their marriage produced no children and was dissolved in 1976. Later that year he married his second wife, Lady Carolyne Christie, the niece of the Marquess of Zetland. His marriage to Christie produced a son, Harry, a musician who has played keyboards with his father's touring band since 2006, and a daughter, India, who has worked as a fashion model. Waters and Christie divorced in 1992. In 1993, he married American actress Priscilla Phillips, and they had a son, Jack Fletcher, in 1997. The marriage ended in 2001, and as of 2005, he is engaged to filmmaker Laurie Durning. His 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. He often plays bass using a pick but is also known to play fingerstyle. Not only a bassist and vocalist, Waters has experimented with the EMS Synthi A and VCS 3 synthesizers and has played electric rhythm and acoustic guitars in recordings and in concert.

Early years (1943–1964)

Waters was the younger of two boys born to Eric and Mary Waters in Great Bookham, near Leatherhead, Surrey. His father, Eric Fletcher Waters, was the grandson of a coal miner and prominent labour party leader. Eric (or Fletcher, as he was known) was a teacher who fought in the British army in World War II as a member of The Royal Fusiliers Company C, and who died in combat at Anzio Italy in January 1944, when Waters was four months old. After the death of his father, his mother, also a teacher, moved with her two sons to Cambridge, where the boys grew up.

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

He attended the Morley Memorial Junior School on Blinco Grove, Cambridge, and later the Cambridgeshire High School for Boys (now Hills Road Sixth Form College), with future bandmate Syd Barrett, while fellow future band member David Gilmour lived on the city's Mill Road, and attended The Perse School. At 15 years old, Waters was chairman of the youth section of the Cambridge YCND, having designed its publicity poster and participated in its organisation. He was a keen sportsman at Cambridge High School and a highly regarded member of the cricket and rugby teams. He grew up with Barrett and Gilmour in Cambridge, and met future Pink Floyd founding members Nick Mason and Richard Wright at the Regent Street Polytechnic school of architecture.

Pink Floyd (1965–1985)

Formation

Main article: Pink Floyd

Waters and Mason first played music together in a group formed by Keith Noble and Clive Metcalfe. The group featured Noble's sister Sheilagh on vocals and was later joined by fellow student Richard Wright. They took the name Sigma 6, and included Waters on rhythm guitar, Wright on any keyboard he could find, and Mason on drums. In the early years the band performed during private functions and rehearsed in a tearoom in the basement of Regent Street Polytechnic. In September 1963 Waters and Mason 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 Syd 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. It was during Dennis's tenure that the band was first referred to 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 1965 and Barrett became the group's frontman. Sometime during the late summer to early autumn of 1965 Waters co-founded Pink Floyd with Barrett, Wright and Mason.

Early period

By the end of 1965, and though 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.

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, 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 World War II. 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, "[H]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, "[B]y 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, "[W]asn'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, "[H]e 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 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 [together] collaboratively.

David Gilmour

Waters brought in Bob Ezrin to co-produce the album, and Ezrin earned a writing credit on the album's final climax, The Trial. The last band performance of The Wall was on 16 June 1981, at Earls Court London, and 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 then Conservative Party government 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, 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 "[I]ssued 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 "[B]ecause, 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 [the Astoria] 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 [O'Rourke], 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. As with Wright’s, Waters's departure from Pink Floyd was never officially announced to the press. 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 "[T]he 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 "[S]trangely static, faintly hideous record", Rolling Stone rated the album a "[R]ock bottom" one star." Mike DeGagne of Allmusic praised the album for its "[I]ngenious symbolism" and "[B]rilliant 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 meters tall and 170 meters 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. 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 girlfriend 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

Template:Image stack On 2 July 2005, Waters reunited with Nick Mason, Richard Wright, and David Gilmour for what would be their final performance 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 (IPA: [sɑ irɑ], 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. 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.

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 and/or 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.

Marriages and children

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, who has worked as a fashion model. Waters and Christie divorced in 1992, and in 1993 Waters married actress Pricilla Phillips. They had a son together, Jack Fletcher, in 1997. Their marriage ended in 2001, and as of 2005, Waters is engaged to filmmaker Laurie Durning.

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, Fireglo with rosewood fretboard, which he used from 1966 to 1969. It was stolen in 1970 from an equipment van in New Orleans, and in the same year he switched to Fender Precision basses, including a 3-colour sunburst "rosewood-neck" model with a tortoise shell pickguard and a black "maple-neck" model with a white pickguard.

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. During The Wall sessions and tour Waters had three basses. He often plays with 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 synthesizers 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 synthesizer 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".

Solo discography

For his work with Pink Floyd, see Pink Floyd discography between 1967 and 1983

Albums

Year	Album	UK Albums Chart	US Billboard 200
1970	Music from The Body (with Ron Geesin)	–	–
1984	The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking	13	31
1986	When the Wind Blows (various artists soundtrack)	–	–
1987	Radio K.A.O.S.	25	50
1990	The Wall – Live in Berlin	27	56
1992	Amused to Death	8	21
2000	In the Flesh – Live	170	136
2002	Flickering Flame: The Solo Years Volume 1	–	–
2005	Ça Ira	1 (UK Classical Chart)	5 (US Classical Chart)
"–" denotes a release that did not chart.

Singles

Year	Single	UK Singles Chart	US Billboard Mainstream Rock	Album
1984	"5:01am (The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking)"	76	17	The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking
1984	"5:06am (Every Stranger's Eyes)"	–	–
1987	"Radio Waves"	74	12	Radio K.A.O.S.
1987	"The Tide Is Turning (After Live Aid)"	54	–
1988	"Sunset Strip"	–	15
1988	"Who Needs Information"	–	–
1990	"Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" (with Cyndi Lauper)	82	–	The Wall – Live in Berlin
1990	"The Tide Is Turning" (with Joni Mitchell, Cyndi Lauper, Bryan Adams, Van Morrison and Paul Carrack)	–	–
1992	"What God Wants Part One"	35	4	Amused to Death
1992	"The Bravery Of Being Out of Range"	–	–
1993	"Three Wishes"	–	–
2004	"To Kill the Child/Leaving Beirut"	–	–	— Web Release
2007	"Hello (I Love You)"	–	–	— from The Last Mimzy
2010	"We Shall Overcome"	–	–	— Web Release
"–" denotes a release that did not chart.

References

• Blake, Mark (2008). Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd (1st US paperback ed.). Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-81752-7, 978-0-306-81752-6. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Fitch, Vernon (2005). The Pink Floyd Encyclopedia (Third ed.). London: Collector's Guide Publishing, Inc. ISBN 1894959248,978-1894959247. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Mabbett, Andy (1995). The complete guide to the music of Pink Floyd (1st UK paperback ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 0-7119-4301-X, 978-0-7119-4301-8. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Manning, Toby (2006). The Rough Guide to Pink Floyd (1st US paperback ed.). Rough Guides Ltd. ISBN 1-84353-575-0, 978-1-84353-575-1. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Mason, Nick (2005). Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd (1st US paperback ed.). Chronicle Books. ISBN 0-8118-4824-8, 978-0-8118-4824-4. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Povey, Glen (2008). Echoes: the complete history of Pink Floyd (2nd UK paperback ed.). 3C Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-9554624-0-1, 978-0-9554624-1-2. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Povey, Glen; Russell, Ian (1997). Pink Floyd: in the flesh, the complete performance history (1st US paperback ed.). St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-19175-8, 978-0-9554624-0-5. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Schaffner, Nicholas (1991). Saucerful of Secrets: the Pink Floyd odyssey (1st US paperback ed.). Dell Publishing. ISBN 0-385-30684-9, 978-0-385-30684-3. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Simmons, Sylvie (December 1999). "Pink Floyd: The Making of The Wall". Mojo Magazine. 73. Emap Metro: pp. 76–95. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help)

Further reading

• MacDonald, Bruno (1997). Pink Floyd: through the eyes of – the band, its fans, friends, and foes (1st US paperback ed.). New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80780-7, 978-0-306-80780-0. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Miles; Mabbett, Andy (1994). Pink Floyd : the visual documentary. London: Omnibus Press. ISBN 0-7119-4109-2, 978-0711914445. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Watkinson, Mike; Anderson, Pete (1991). Crazy diamond: Syd Barrett & the dawn of Pink Floyd (1st UK paperback ed.). London: Omnibus Press. ISBN 1-84609-739-8, 978-1-84609-739-3. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)

External links

• Roger Waters Official website
• Roger Waters Facebook page to support The Wall live tour 2010–2011