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| Birth name | George Roger Waters |
| Born | (1943-09-06) 6 September 1943 Great Bookham, Surrey, England, United Kingdom |
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| Years active | 1964–present |
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| Website | roger-waters.com |
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George Roger Waters (born 6 September 1943) Singer, songwriter, bassist, and composer. In 1965, he co-founded Pink Floyd with drummer Nick Mason, keyboardist Rick Wright, and guitarist, singer, and songwriter Syd Barrett. Waters initially served as the group’s bassist, but following the departure of Barrett in 1968, he also became their lyricist, co-lead vocalist, and conceptual leader.
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 (along with Gilmour, and at times, Wright), and would remain the band’s dominant creative figure until his departure 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. Every Waters studio album since The Dark Side of the Moon has been a concept album. With lyrics written entirely by Waters, The Dark Side of the Moon was one of the most commercially successful rock albums ever.
Amidst 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. 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: “if I hadn’t, the financial repercussions would have wiped me out completely”
In 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 23-minute set consisting of “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.
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 1970 when it was stolen along with the rest of the band’s equipment in New Orleans.[22] He began using Fender Precision Basses in 1968, originally alongside the Rickenbacker 4001, and then exclusively after the Rickenbacker was lost in 1970. 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. Waters endorses RotoSound Jazz Bass 77 flat-wound strings. Throughout his career he has used Selmer, WEM, Hiwatt and Ashdown amplifiers but has used Ampeg for the last few tours, also employing delay, tremolo, chorus, stereo panning and phaser effects in his bass playing.
Waters experimented with the EMS Synthi A and VCS 3 synthesisers on Pink Floyd pieces such as “On the Run”, “Welcome to the Machine”, and “In the Flesh?” 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”, also from Animals, “Southampton Dock” from The Final Cut,[147] and on “Mother” from The Wall. A Binson Echorec 2 echo effect was used on his bass-guitar lead track “One of These Days”. Waters plays trumpet during concert performances of “Outside the Wall”.
According to vintagevinylnews.com, Waters had the 9th widest vocal range on a list of over 150 singers, with a total range of B1-C7.
Bass Stuff 