Roger Waters

After band founder Syd Barrett suffered a mental breakdown in the late 1960s, Waters set the band's artistic direction and, along with co-writer, guitarist, and singer David Gilmour, brought Pink Floyd into the limelight, producing a series of albums that remain among the most critically acclaimed and best-selling records of all time.

Waters' relationship with Gilmour grew strained through the 1970s, however, as Waters exerted more and more creative control over the band. The last Waters-Gilmour collaboration, The Final Cut[?], was credited as being by Waters, with music performed by Pink Floyd. Shortly thereafter, a between Waters and Gilmour over the right to use the name "Pink Floyd" progressed into a lawsuit. Gilmour received the rights to the name "Pink Floyd" and a majority of the band's songs, though Waters did retain the rights to the album The Wall and all of its songs -- most of which had been written by Waters.

Waters embarked on a solo career after Pink Floyd, producing three albums that were critically acclaimed but failed to garner impressive sales. After Amused to Death[?] in 1992, Waters spent the remainder of the 1990s working on a musical opera entitled Caira. As of 2003 this production remains incomplete.

After the downfall of the Berlin Wall in the late 1980s, Waters staged a gigantic charity concert of The Wall in Berlin in 1990 to commemorate the end of the division between East and West Germany. He also toured in the late 1990s, performing live concerts of The Wall before sizable audiences.

Waters' father lost his life in World War II as a soldier in the British army, and this has been a recurring theme in many of Waters' musical works.

Solo Albums by Roger Waters

• The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking[?] (1984)
• Radio K.A.O.S.[?] (1987)
• The Wall Live in Berlin[?] (1990)
• Amused to Death[?] (1992)
• In the Flesh Live[?] (2000) (Live concert of The Wall)