| Bob Klose | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Rado Robert Garcia Klose |
| Also known as | Bob Klose |
| Born | 1945 (age 66–67) |
| Origin | Cambridge, Cambs |
| Genres | Rock, Blues, R&B, Jazz, Psychedelic, Electronic |
| Occupations | Musician, Photographer |
| Instruments | Guitar |
| Years active | 1964–present |
| Associated acts | Pink Floyd, David Gilmour, Syd Barrett, Smith & Mudd |
Rado 'Bob' Klose (born 1945 as Rado Robert Garcia Klose) is an English musician and photographer. He was one of the earliest members of the rock band Pink Floyd, playing lead guitar, but left the band before they recorded their first released single, "Arnold Layne".
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"The Abdabs" (also known as "The Screaming Abdabs"), with Roger Waters (lead guitar), Richard Wright (rhythm guitar), Nick Mason (drums), Clive Metcalfe (bass guitar), and Keith Noble & Juliette Gale (vocals), performed rhythm & blues under various names ("Sigma 6", "The Meggadeaths", and the Abdabs variations above) during their run with manager Ken Chapman, who also wrote some early material for the band.
Metcalfe, Noble and Gale left the band (though Gale would go on to marry Richard Wright in 1969). By the time they left, the line-up included Syd Barrett (rhythm guitar and vocals) and Bob Klose (lead guitar and vocals), with Roger Waters on bass and vocals and Richard Wright on organ and vocals. This new group used various names, often fluctuating between "Tea Set" and "The Pink Floyd Sound" (named after two old Carolina bluesmen, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council). The word "Sound" was dropped from the band's name, with the definite article disappearing a few years later.
Klose was more focused on his studies than on the band and was more interested in jazz and blues than Barrett's psychedelia and pop, so he left the band sometime around July 1965. Barrett assumed lead guitar, lead vocals, and the bulk of the songwriting, while Klose went on to become a photographer and print maker.
'While we were at the Poly (Regent Street Polytechnic) we had various people in and out of the band and one particular, very good guitar player Bob Klose. He was really a far better musician than any of the rest of us. But I think he had some exam problems and really felt that he had to apply himself to work, whereas the rest of us were not that conscientious. And so he was sort of out of the band and we were looking for another guitar player and we knew that Syd was coming up to London from Cambridge and so he just, well he was just co-opted into the whole thing.'
Klose confirmed in John Edginton's BBC documentary The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story that his guitar can be heard on the unreleased early acetate single "Lucy Leave/"I'm a King Bee". In the documentary he also talked about Syd Barrett: "If you had said to a young Syd, ‘Look, this is your bargain in life, you know, you’re going to do this fantastic stuff, but it won’t be forever, it’ll be this short period. There’s the dotted line, are you going to sign for this?’ I suspect, maybe, a lot of people would sign for that, for making their mark."
In 2006 Klose appeared as a guest performer on David Gilmour's album On an Island (as mentioned in the credits in the album sleeve).
In 2007 he took part in BBC Radio 2's program “Days in the Life”, which was dedicated to Pink Floyd. In the first part of this show he spoke about early days with Barrett.
He also played on Blue River, a 2008 album by Smith & Mudd, a collaboration between Claremont 56 label owner Paul "Mudd" Murphy and Multi-Instrumentalist / Producer Benjamin James Smith.
Unreleased Songs