Roger Waters’ five favourite singers
Once upon a time, Roger Waters held a burning passion for music which acted as the fuel that carried him through the day. With Pink Floyd, and despite the rag-tag crew at the helm, Waters was the captain of the ship, and his pioneering attitude was crucial to the band earning a unique position in the musical landscape.
Since childhood, music has always played a vital role in filling a void within his life. When Waters was just five months old, his father was tragically killed in 1944 during the Battle of Anzio. Sadly, they were never afforded time together, and there has always been a sense of yearning inside Waters. It became a longing that the musician would later use music to address.
While a student at university, Waters started taking music more seriously and began playing in a band. His first outfit didn’t go anywhere, but a later version became The Abdabs, which marked the beginning of his professional relationship with Syd Barrett. At the time, he was soaking up the day’s popular sounds, influencing his work and providing a bedrock of knowledge from which he would launch Pink Floyd into the stratosphere.
Although Waters has been a constant originator throughout his career, he still has a series of favourite musicians who have shaped him into the artist he is today. Notably, the singers mentioned below are figures who entered his life during this formative period, and his love for them continues.
Roger Waters’ five favourite singers
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan single-handedly changed the definition of what a song could be. Waters was one of many who Dylan inspired, and because of that, he felt empowered to break the rulebook. In an interview with Howard Stern, the Pink Floyd musician praised Dylan for proving there was a different way to create music.
He pinpointed the track, ‘Sad Lady of the Lowlands’, from Blonde on Blonde as an example of Dylan’s brilliance. “When I heard that, I thought if Bob can do it, then I can do it. It’s 20 minutes long. It’s a whole album,” Waters revealed. “It in no way gets dull or boring. You just get more and more and more engrossed as it gets more and more hypnotic the longer it goes on.”
John Lennon
Being introduced to The Beatles was a life-changing moment in Waters’ life. Although Pink Floyd were cut from a comparatively different cloth musically, they shaped him into the artist he later became, and Lennon held a special place in his heart. Unfortunately, Waters was only fortunate enough to share his company on one occasion, but he felt they were kindred spirits.
“I only met John Lennon once, to my huge regret, and that was in the control room at Number 2,” Roger Waters once told Rolling Stone. On their similarities, he added. “He was a bit acerbic. He was quite snotty – so was I!” Meanwhile, in an MSN webcast, when asked what his three wishes are, Waters passionately replied: “That the innocent should be spared, the guilty should be forgiven and that John Lennon should have been seen as right when he said, ‘all you need is love.'”
Leonard Cohen
The late Leonard Cohen was another one of Waters’ heroes. While they expressed themselves differently artistically, the Pink Floyd founder holds nothing but awe towards what the Canadian crafted during his career. During his appearance on the legendary BBC Radio 4 institution Desert Island Discs, Waters revealed there was one track by Cohen that he couldn’t live without.
“Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan were the two men who allowed us to believe that there was an open door between poetry and song lyrics,” he said during the broadcast before adding, “This song of his, ‘Bird On The Wire’, is so simple, so moving, so brilliant. I love it.”
Ray Charles
Waters also used his appearance on Desert Island Discs to declare his love for Ray Charles, who he referred to as an “extraordinary talent”. While the late jazz icon’s can of work exists within a different realm to Pink Floyd, the otherworldly ethereal element to Charles’ voice only makes Waters appreciate him more.
After selecting ‘Georgia On My Mind’ as one of his favourite songs, Waters commented: “I actually met him, fleetingly, when I was a student studying architecture in London. We were living in a squat in Cheyne Gardens—the whole block was full of squats—and Chet was squatting three doors down, and this must have been 1962. He was a junkie, and he had no teeth, and he couldn’t play anymore and I’ve seen films about him after he got himself together, but what a remarkable man. What an extraordinary talent.”
Neil Young
While Neil Young’s voice has never been refined as a talent like Ray Charles, it has its own charm and earthiness, which is undeniably irresistible. From a technical standpoint, Young wouldn’t win any awards, but he makes up for that department with his songwriting prowess and the personality which he injects into every lyric that leaves his mouth.
Waters’ favourite song by Young is ‘Helpless’, and he positively said of the song while on Desert Island Discs: “There is an honesty and a truth in everything that he’s done. You feel the man’s integrity and passion. I can feel the hairs standing up on the back of my neck now remembering the purity with which he hits the first notes of this song. It’s extraordinarily moving and eloquent.”
