Syd Barrett [ tickets ], Pink Floyd [ tickets ]'s original lead singer and one of rock's enduring tragic figures, died Friday (7/7) of complications arising from diabetes. He was 60.

According to his family, Barrett died peacefully at his British home in Camrbridgeshire, where he had lived a reclusive life for more than 30 years after escaping the music business in the mid-'70s.

A family spokesman told the BBC that Barrett would be buried in a private family funeral "within the next few days."

A statement from Pink Floyd said: "The band are naturally very upset and sad to learn of Syd Barrett's death. Syd was the guiding light of the early band line-up and leaves a legacy which continues to inspire."

Born Roger Keith Barrett in Cambridge, UK, in 1946, he acquired the nickname Syd when he was still in his teens. Barrett met future bandmates Roger Waters and David Gilmour while attending school in his hometown.

While Barrett was attending Camberwell School of Art in London, Waters and Gilmour went on to form The Pink Floyd Sound--as the band was originally called--and Barrett joined in time to compose the seminal Floyd classics "Arnold Layne" and "See Emily Play," as well as much of the band's 1967 debut album, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn."

Barrett's drug intake, however, soon began to affect his ability to perform with the band, just as Pink Floyd was finding its initial wave of popular success. Barrett's erratic behavior and frequent disappearances led the rest of the band to leave him behind when they played gigs or recorded. He was never officially fired from the band, and ironically turned up unbidden at Pink Floyd's recording studio in 1975, on the day the band was recording a tribute to him, "Shine on You Crazy Diamond," somehow thinking the band needed him to help record its next album.

After recording a pair of solo albums in 1970, "The Madcap Laughs," and the eponymous "Barrett" (both produced by Gilmour), Barrett became an almost total recluse, retreating to the basement of his mother's house and boarding up the windows to keep out the eyes of the press and curious fans.

In a recent interview with the UK's Guardian newspaper, Gilmour said Barrett's extreme use of mind-altering drugs only partially accounted for his breakdown and odd behavior.

"It was a deep-rooted thing," Gilmour said. "But I'll say the psychedelic experience might well have acted as a catalyst. Still, I just don't think he could deal with the vision of success and all the things that went with it."