Wright's richly textured keyboard layers were a vital ingredient and a distinctive characteristic of Pink Floyd's sound. In addition, Wright frequently sang background and occasionally lead vocals onstage and in the studio with Pink Floyd (most notably on the songs "Time", "Echoes", and on the Syd Barrett composition "Astronomy Domine"). ... He wrote significant parts of the music for classic albums such as Meddle, The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here, as well as for Pink Floyd's final studio album The Division Bell.
So, I am ashamed to admit that if you had asked me who Richard Wright was, I'd say it was an African American author who wrote a famous novel, Native son. This is especially galling since Time & Echoes are 2 of my top 5-6 PF songs and Meddle, The Dark Side of the Moon, and Wish You Were Here are my 3 favorite PF albums. (The Wall, A Momentary Lapse of Reason, and Division Bell come a distant 2nd for me. Somehow, I never really got into some of their early stuff like The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, A Saucerful of Secrets, and Atom Heart Mother; albums in which Syd was still involved and which true PF fans would consider PF's best work.
How is it I did not know about Richard Wright before today! Maybe it is because, like this article
points out, he was unostentatious and unknown to many...
Richard Wright, who died on Monday at 65, was the mystery inside the enigma of Pink Floyd. If his profile had been any lower, he could have been reported missing. He was the unostentatious exception to the rule of rock stardom, rarely recognised beyond the obsessive fan base of a group so huge that they have sold three million albums in the UK this decade, without even making a new album for 14 years. He liked that anonymity just fine.
Time magazine's obit also remembers him as a "Shy, gentle and very private, (who) was proof that not every rock star feels the need to act like one."
Even so!! I suppose I never paid attention to who was at the piano with Gilmour's band when I saw them live in Ames. That concert was the tour for Division Bell (released later as The Pulse album, which I also surprisingly bought though I already had DSotM, WYWH, DBell, which formed a majority of the tracks in Pulse --- goes to show how besotted I was with Pink Floyd in mid-90s. And it all started with sampling some DSM from a friend's collection in 1993 or 1994.)
That concert, btw, remains my first and last concert. (I have of course attended Toumani Diabate and some other music concerts - but not rock/pop concerts). I keep telling myself that after that mind-blowing concert, every concert is going to be lame. I have wanted to see U2 though...but I passed on an opportunity to see them because I thought $200 or so for some unideal seat behind a column in the stadium (I think it was here in Boston) was not worth it; even though both my wife and I really wanted to see Bono and co. (especially Edge's guitar playing) live. Their 3D movie was playing at the big IMAX at the Boston Aquarium earlier this year but I missed that too amidst India trips and life's unexpected coup de main.
Anyways, although I have not listened to Pink Floyd so much in the last decade or so -- was a passing phase between 1994-98 -- it is time now to go listen to Echoes first and then DSotM and then WYWH. I'll leave you with...
... a recent performance of what is my favorite Pink Floyd song - Comfortably Numb -- at the 2005 London Live 8 concert where Roger Waters played again with David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright after decades of acrimonious bickering. (I prefer the performance of this song on The Pulse album to this one but prefer to post this here since this one had the whole PF band from the 70s, which is who I first enjoyed listening to in the 90s.)
... and the words of those who knew Richard best (although, given the contentious relationship between various members of the group, at least one of them (Waters) may have had some differences with Richard in the past.)
David Gilmour said:
No one can replace Richard Wright. He was my musical partner and my friend. In the welter of arguments about who or what was Pink Floyd, Rick's enormous input was frequently forgotten. He was gentle, unassuming and private but his soulful voice and playing were vital, magical components of our most recognised Pink Floyd sound. I have never played with anyone quite like him. The blend of his and my voices and our musical telepathy reached their first major flowering in 1971 on 'Echoes'. In my view all the greatest PF moments are the ones where he is in full flow. After all, without 'Us and Them' and 'The Great Gig In The Sky', both of which he wrote, what would 'The Dark Side Of The Moon' have been? Without his quiet touch the Album 'Wish You Were Here' would not quite have worked. In our middle years, for many reasons he lost his way for a while, but in the early Nineties, with 'The Division Bell', his vitality, spark and humour returned to him and then the audience reaction to his appearances on my tour in 2006 was hugely uplifting and it's a mark of his modesty that those standing ovations came as a huge surprise to him, (though not to the rest of us). Like Rick, I don't find it easy to express my feelings in words, but I loved him and will miss him enormously.Roger Waters issued a statement:
I was very sad to hear of Rick's premature death, I knew he had been ill, but the end came suddenly and shockingly. My thoughts are with his family, particularly [his children] Jamie and Gala and their mum Juliet, who I knew very well in the old days, and always liked very much and greatly admired. As for the man and his work, it is hard to overstate the importance of his musical voice in the Pink Floyd of the '60s and '70s. The intriguing, jazz influenced, modulations and voicings so familiar in 'Us and Them' and 'Great Gig in the Sky,' which lent those compositions both their extraordinary humanity and their majesty, are omnipresent in all the collaborative work the four of us did in those times. Rick's ear for harmonic progression was our bedrock. I am very grateful for the opportunity that Live 8 afforded me to engage with him and David [Gilmour] and Nick [Mason] that one last time. I wish there had been more.Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason told Entertainment Weekly:
Like any band, you can never quite quantify who does what. But Pink Floyd wouldn’t have been Pink Floyd if [we] hadn’t had Rick. I think there’s a feeling now -- particularly after all the warfare that went on with Roger and David trying to make clear what their contribution was -- that perhaps Rick rather got pushed into the background. Because the sound of Pink Floyd is more than the guitar, bass, and drum thing. Rick was the sound that knitted it all together... He was by far the quietest of the band, right from day one. And, I think, probably harder to get to know than the rest of us... It's almost that George Harrison thing. You sort of forget that they did a lot more than perhaps they’re given credit for.RIP, Richard; coming back to us through your music.
Update @ 1.45am the next day: Though I own both Division Bell and The Pulse, like I had mentioned its been a while since I have heard PF. I had forgotten how good an album Division Bell was too. Won't embed them here but just heard two of the tracks - 1, 2 - and now I can go sleep in bliss. The second one, especially ..Coming Back to Life .. is spectacular! Amazing music and great lyrics too! Have to add this song to one-of-my-best-PF songs list!
...
Lost in thought and lost in time
While the seeds of life and the seeds of change were planted
Outside the rain fell dark and slow
While I pondered on this dangerous but irresistible pastime
I took a heavenly ride through our silence
I knew the moment had arrived
For killing the past and coming back to life
..
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