The strange case of the many uncredited musicians on Pink Floyd albums

Over the course of their 15 studio albums, Pink Floyd established themselves as titans of progressive and psychedelic rock, and despite a handful of personnel changes over the years, they were relatively consistent in who they had appearing on their records. For the most part, it was simply the core band members, and they never saw fit to invite lots of external help into the studio to work with them.

At least, that’s how it seems if you take a look at the credits for their records closely. However, quite often you’ll hear a vocal that doesn’t belong to any of the members of the band, or an instrument that isn’t one any of the group were known for playing, and if you’d picked up an original copy of the album at the time of its release, you may have been left wondering who those involved were because of the band’s decision not to provide the correct credits for any additional personnel that worked on their albums.

Of course, there’s the famous debate over the songwriting credits for ‘The Great Gig In The Sky’ from The Dark Side of the Moon, which features a now iconic improvised vocal take from Clare Torry. Torry, who was invited into the studio for one day to contribute to the track, only received a measly £30 as her session fee at the time, and didn’t receive any royalties for the song until after she filed a lawsuit against the band in 2004. Now, and justifiably so, she shares the writing credits with keyboard player Richard Wright, who wrote the piano riff heard accompanying Torry’s wails.

However, it’s not just guests who didn’t get the right credits either, as internal power struggles towards the end of the 1970s meant that certain members of the band were left out of the credits on tracks that they claim to have been a part of. Wright left the band shortly before the band recorded The Final Cut, citing his lack of desire to continue working alongside Roger Waters, and then Waters would depart the band in 1985 after the release of the album, allowing room for Wright to come back into the David Gilmour-led incarnation of the band.

The hidden hands behind Pink Floyd’s most famous albums

However, it was often Waters who won these battles, and despite some of the songs on their classic 1977 having been written collectively as a group, Waters’ name appears as the sole songwriting credit, and there is a whole host of additional contributors who weren’t originally credited until they kicked up a fuss. Chiefly among these was hired producer Bob Ezrin, who was allegedly told by Waters that he could write whatever he wanted for the album, but not to expect any credit.

When asked in a 1992 interview why he credits all of the musicians and personnel he uses on his solo records, but has less information available on Pink Floyd’s albums, Waters tried to clear this discrepancy up once and for all, but to little avail. “I don’t know,” he declared. “I can’t answer that. There was a whole big thing about credits on The Wall, and I think we were fighting such serious internal battles that we didn’t have time for anybody else’s feelings, you know? Andy Fairweather-Low was out to dinner the other day; I gave him the first of the CDs and he said, ‘I think finally we’ve got the credits right.’”

While there may have been understandable tensions between band members, failing to acknowledge the efforts of session players who contributed to their records, not least their most infamous ones, is frankly a disgusting oversight. If Waters is to be believed, and all additional personnel are now correctly credited, then justice has been served, but you get the feeling that there are probably still some disgruntled individuals out there who haven’t been given the credits they deserve.