The musician dismissed as Roger Waters “not famous enough”
For most musicians, performing alongside each other typically depends on how well everyone can hold their own under the spotlight. Even though an artist might be able to pull off sweeping runs on the guitar, the chances of them turning in a masterclass song alongside a tone-deaf singer is practically a lost cause. While Roger Waters may have been willing to work with many different people once he left the confines of Pink Floyd, one of his biggest post-Floyd shows made him ditch Paul Carrack because of his credentials.
Ever since Syd Barrett shuffled away from Pink Floyd in the late 1960s, Waters had always been the person in charge of the ideas in the band, usually being responsible for any overarching concepts that the band were working on. As much as the band were willing to follow his visions on albums like Dark Side of the Moon, the nightmarish developments when making The Wall led to Waters turning into a tyrant in the studio.
Outside of firing Richard Wright during production and replacing Nick Mason during recording, Waters would rule the band when taking the project out on the road. While everyone played to the best of their abilities, Waters was convinced they had reached the end of the line together, only sticking around for The Final Cut before leaving for a solo career.
Although Waters would engage in a lengthy battle with the rest of his bandmates over using the name ‘Pink Floyd’, he would secure the rights to The Wall, leading to him performing the album in full on various occasions. After Waters had his fill of solo material working on albums like Radio KAOS, he would eventually bring The Wall back to the stage after it was announced that the Berlin Wall would be torn down in Germany.
Instead of having his bandmates by his side, Waters would assemble a star-studded cast of people to perform alongside him, from Thomas Dolby playing the role of the teacher on ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ to Levon Helm of the band lending his singing talents to the song ‘Mother’. Despite having many star players for the first part of the performance, Carrack was asked begrudgingly to contribute to the show.
Years before he had been a part of Mike and the Mechanics, Carrack had been friendly with Waters and had even contributed to a handful of his live solo gigs. Even though he was one of the first people in mind to sing the song ‘Hey You’ for the performance, Waters said that his level of fame wasn’t what people were looking for.
In the book Pigs Might Fly, Carrack remembered how he was given the reluctant okay from Waters to perform in Berlin that night, saying, “Roger gave me this whole spiel about how it was going to be the biggest concert of all time…Finally, he asked me: did I have Huey Lewis’s phone number. I gave it to him, then I asked, ‘What about me, Roger?’, and he just said, ‘You’re not famous enough.’”
Even though Carrack understood then, he would eventually find himself onstage when Lewis dropped out, calling out from beyond the brick wall onstage for some kind of human contact. Despite saying it was one of the scariest moments of his life playing along that stage, Carrack proved to everyone that he had the vocal range to go toe-to-toe with any of the big names on the bill that night.
