This is the latest from The Bluesmobile’s C.C. Rider, who spends her life venerating the founding fathers of the blues. She’s walked the crooked highways of this singing country to resurrect the voices of the past. With the dirt of the Delta on her hands, she sleeps in the shadow of the giants on whose shoulders popular music now stands.
Pink Anderson
(February 12, 1900 – October 12, 1974)
What’s the name Pink Floyd mean? Ever wonder where it came from? How did those two words come together? What if I told you the origin of the name Pink Floyd is buried in the blues…
It was early 1965, when a group of Cambridge art students needed a new name for their band. Front-man Syd Barrett was checking out the inside of a Blind Boy Fuller record in his collection when he came across the names “Pink Anderson” and “Floyd Council.” He combined the two and the rest is rock n roll history.
The Pink that inspired Pink Floyd was a man born Pinkney Anderson in 1900 in South Carolina. We don’t know that much about him, but we do know he was a finger-picker and a medicine show huckster.
Medicine shows are crucial in the history of the blues. Popular at the turn of the century, they were made up of traveling horse and wagon teams that peddled “miracle cures” between variety show acts. Many of the best early blues performers cut their teeth on the medicine show circuit. Pink Anderson was one of ‘em.
Pink didn’t record much before his rediscovery in the 1950’s, but he left a legacy during the folk-blues revival. And of course, he lent his name to those psychedelic Brits. Here’s one of those rare early Pink tracks. Pink Anderson, “C.C. & O Blues.”
