RIP: Richard Wright
Richard Wright, one of the founding members of one of my favorite bands, Pink Floyd, passed away yesterday at the age of 65. He played keyboards and contributed to songwriting at times.
Though he was a “quiet” member of the band, his rich keyboards can be heard throughout Pink Floyd’s music. He did clash with Roger Waters (who didn’t) and left the band for a period, but Wright came back with David Gilmour and Nick Mason to continue Pink Floyd after Waters left.
Some of Wright’s more notable compositions and songs were “Us and Them,” “Shine on You Crazy Diamond,” and sang on “Astomomy Domine,” which was written by Syd Barrett.
Richard, you will be missed and I hope you and Syd are happy up there in the “Great Gig in the Sky” (which Wright wrote, too.).
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This entry was posted on September 16, 2008 at 1:31 pm and is filed under In Memorium, Music with tags dark side of the mood, david gilmour, keyboads, pink floyd, richard wright, roger waters, syd barret. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 19, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Richard Wright did NOT wrote “The great gig in the sky”, wich is
told by himself at the dvd “The making of: “Dark side of the moon”
but primary written by Roger, the genius who wrote 99% of all the Pink Floyd music, as you know.
October 19, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Funny, I read in quite a few different sources, including ones that cite the DVD you have listed, that Wright did compose the song with Clare Torry, the woman who did the vocals on the song. Here are some references.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gig_in_the_Sky
http://www.pinkfloydonline.com/bios/richardwright/
http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Music/09/15/obit.wright.ap/
I find it funny that many, many more places cite Wright as the composer. Perhaps you heard wrong, but I’m more inclined to relate to reliable sources.
I know Waters wrote most of the music Pink Floyd, but was also abusive towards his fellow band members? I guess that’s why he left and the rest carried on. Don’t discount the David Gilmour and Rick Mason. Pink Floyd wouldn’t have been anything without their contributions.
April 2, 2009 at 5:41 am
Floyd is such an enigma because it’s so hard to pin down who was responsible for the shifts in musicality. Personally, I found Syd-Floyd to be, yes, psychedelic, but not very musically intricate. I think without Syd, Waters was able to push the band to harder limits, which would now be possible because of Gilmour’s ridiculously awesome playing. But yeah, Waters was a bitch, and of course the band ended up sounding kind of sub-par after Dark Side of the Moon (with a few notable exceptions).
I find it funny that when Syd first suggested they bring in girl vocals and saxophones, they all laughed. Then they made millions on Dark Side of the Moon.
April 2, 2009 at 8:37 am
I agree with you comments since the band’s changing make-up actually shaped them as they progressed. That is interesting about the girl vocals and saxes on Darkside was originally Syd’s idea. I didn’t know that.