1967. che guevara was executed; Charlie Chaplin’s last film was released, the Summer of Love began in San Francisco, the Vietnam War raged, Jimi Hendrix let loose Are You Experienced?, the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Julia Roberts was born and Vivien Leigh died, the world was on the verge of a new high. And. Pink Floyd cut their first album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, and gave credence to the sound of psychedelia.

Exactly forty years since the band made its recording debut, the album has come to be recognised as a milestone of cultural history that prised open new horizons for music and mind.

As a strapping young photographer, surfing the swinging streets of London in 1967, India-born Vic Singh was in the thick of things when he first met the band members of Pink Floyd — guitarist-vocalist Syd Barrett, bassist Roger Waters, drummer Nick Mason and keyboardist Richard Wright—at an event in London’s Piccadilly. “At that time they were a new and comparatively unknown band. We chatted and they said they were making their first album,” he says.

The album cover of The Piper at the Gates of Dawn that the Lucknow-born photographer went on to create after getting a call from Floyd’s manager has since then assumed significance in multiple ways. After the critical success of their debut album — an unlikely proposition then, says Singh, “since it had a completely alien sound when the trend was set by Elvis, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones” — the band never featured their faces on the cover of their forthcoming albums.

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