Syd Barrett was MAJOR creative force behind Pink Floyd and a lot of the cool things happening in the thriving British music scene of the mid-late 60's. Read his obituary here in the BBC.
I read a decent biography, whose name I can't find at the moment, a few years back and was very interested to learn of the early Pink Floyd's big inspiration in Syd. He seemed to have made the Floyd was it was, and IMO a listen to the earlier Floyd shows them to be inspired, creative, weird and open like no other band. As time passed and Barrett's influence seemingly waned, the band seemed to become cliched and predictable, although their live shows were supposed to be spectacular.
Barrett's reputation is that he kind of went over the deep end on a psychedelic wave at some point and left the band when they were still new. He lived the rest of his life as a recluse. There's a story about a recording date of the later Floyd where a fat bald guy showed up and said he was there to add a guitar part. Folks at the studio laughed him off as a local nut job, but band members caught a glimpse of him as he left and shouted, "Hey!! That's Syd!"
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