R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

It's just been reported that Rick Wright of Pink Floyd
has died from cancer at age 65.

http://ukpress.google.com/article/AL...pTklrXqJB3BnmA

K

Re: R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

Thanks for all the great tunes Rick, you have made parts of my life that much better...

Re: R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

Thank you Richard for all of your timeless music.. You will never be forgotten

Re: R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

You will be sorely missed Richard Wright, rest in peace.

Re: R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

I hope you find the secret of your See Saw. Farewell.

Re: R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

Bye Rick rest in peace , cancer shan't catch your music because she is immortal

Re: R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

Shine on.

Re: R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

A great loss to music.

Go play that Great gig in the sky.

Re: R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

Another legend passes but the music shall live on...R.I.P. Rick.

Re: R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

Rick was truly a great pianist and an inspirational musician - I can't believe that he has gone. Rest in peace.

Re: R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

In a way, Rick Wright’s death today, marks the end of an era for me.

I’ve been a Pink Floyd fan almost as long as I’ve enjoyed music. Certainly the bulk of my defining teenage years were spent listening to Floyd as loud as my tinny, tiny speakers would allow.

I probably wore “Pink Floyd” shirts throughout my high school days. I scribbled Floyd lyrics on my history books instead of listening to boring lectures on the construction of the Great Canadian Railway. Some of my friends called me “Pink” in deference to my obsession with the band.

I was in mourning when I heard that Pink Floyd broke up in 1983 after the Final Cut. Thankfully that “breakup” was shortlived (well, at least as far as David Gilmour, Rick Wright and Nick Mason were concerned---but I won’t get into that here); and in 1987 I was delighted to hear that Pink Floyd were in fact putting out an album AND TOURING.

Finally at 21, I got see my favourite band of all time ™ perform live and in a way, it is ironic that the first thing I heard was the sound of Rick pinging away the introduction to Echoes.

In a way, Rick’s death means more to me than the death of the band’s founder Syd Barrett two years ago. Prolific as he may have been, Syd was always this mysterious figure who only recorded one album with the band. Rick, on the other hand, was always with the band except for the recording of The Final Cut. [He was fired by the band during the recording of The Wall—but we won’t get into that here either]. Gilmour reinstated him in 1987, feeling, no doubt, that adding Rick gave his resurrection of the band some authenticity.

It’s not that I held even a glimmer of hope that Pink Floyd would reunite some day. In fact, I didn’t really want them to---the last thing I would want is to pay some umpteen hundred dollars to see a band past its prime performing in a cold stadium to 80,000 people. But Rick’s death, in a way, puts the final nail in that Floyd coffin.
Yeah, Gilmour or Waters’s deaths would probably be more pronounced, but Wright is the first of the band to go to that Great Gig in the Sky.

And say what you want about his (lack of) contribution to the band creatively, I’ve always held that one of my favourite Floydian moments is that last bit of Shine On, that mournful, haunting keyboard solo. Always brings goose bumps that one. And, of course, that song, ironically about death, The Great Gig in the Sky, was written over one of his compositions.

I’m glad I saw David Gilmour on tour two years ago. He played small, 3-5,000 seat arenas. Rick Wright performed with him as well. And one of the moments I’ll forever cherish is watching them perform that old Floyd classic Echoes. I was close enough (weren’t we all) in Massey Hall, that veritable old concert hall downtown Toronto, to see Rick smile as he sang those eerie verses. It’s the way I’ll always remember Rick.

I’m not trying to be over sentimental. I didn’t know Rick. Never met the guy. He didn’t know me. But as I’ve said, Rick’s passing is the end of an era for me--the Pink Floyd Dude.

Re: R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

You may be gone but your music live on. May God be with you.:rockband:

Re: R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

I'll probably be listening to his best Floyd work all week, including all the one's he sang on. I feel a couple of mixed CDs coming.

Re: R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

Completely in shock about this sad news... :( All I have to say is THANK YOU RICK FOR ALL THE MUSIC YOU GAVE TO ALL OF US while you had been in Pink Floyd...I'm not familiar with your solo work ... but seriousy and without a doubt rick contributed in a large extent to progressive music and to Floyd music...

We'll keep you in our heart and for all the prog community you're not dead you're endless talent will remain everytime we hear your music...

Rest In Peace Rick...God Bless YOu...AND SEE YOU IN THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON :(

Re: R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

The weird thing is that I was singing "shine on you crazy diamond" today while driving around town. I rarely sing and when I do it's not usually PF. RIP Rick.

Re: R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

I am extremely sad about the news. I was shock when I found out. yesterday I happen to be watching a video on youtube about the Floyd. then I started reading the comments right below and some fan type Rick RIP and I was like What? I was amazed !!
we will miss you Rick!

Re: R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

Thanks Rick for all the good music. RIP

Re: R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

I'm very surprised and disappointed.

I miss you, Rick.
Thanks for your excellent play, and great songs.

Re: R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

Truly a sad day.. Farewell Rick.
Enjoy that Gig in the sky with Syd.

Whats ironic is i was listening to Summer 68' just before i heard the news yesterday.
Rick was always my second favorite member of the Floyd behind Gilmour while i admit this doesn't hit me as hard as Gilmours passing would. It still hurts a great deal.

Re: R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

what a tragic loss....

"I see you on the dark side of the moon!"

Re: R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=LlF8APEkh-E

Music lives forever RIP Rick.........

Re: R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

Richard's contribution to the world of music will beat in all of our hearts forever.
Thanks for everything my friend.

Re: R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

i would like to think that rick is in That Great Gig in the Sky, online and reading all our thanks & well wishes to him and his family.

Once upon a time someone asked me what was my favorite group, i replied i didn't really have one...but on returning home and counting the lps. i found i indeed had 3 favorites and Pink Floyd is indeed one of them.

..first lp purchased was Meddle for a best friend who assumed i didn't know who Pink Floyd was.... ed & i listened to it in his basement and freaked out my cousin who was there with me...best memory ever!!

my son even likes 'em

Re: R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

Rick's genius was in the understated/restrained manner of his style.
Unlike many contributors, he had a knowledge of what not to play.

This is one of the most difficult lessons to learn, losing the instinct
to spackle in every hole in the music.

Every musician would do well to have his image in a direct line of sight
to their work area.

He will be missed.

Re: R.I.P. Rick Wright
 

Richard Wright - Obituray from 'The Guardian' Newspaper

Richard Wright

Keyboard player and founder member of Pink Floyd

by Adam Sweeting - The Guardian, - Tuesday September 16 2008


Though Pink Floyd's performance at Live 8 in July 2005 prompted speculation about a more permanent reunion, the death from cancer of the band's keyboard player Rick Wright, at the age of 65, puts paid to the notion. Though Wright was even more publicity-averse than the rest of the Floyd, he was one of the group's founding members and, particularly in the early years, was regarded as one of its creative powerhouses, even if the spotlight tended to follow the erratically brilliant Syd Barrett.

Wright was born in north-west London, and after attending the independent Haberdashers' Aske's school, he met future bandmates Nick Mason and Roger Waters while studying architecture at what was then the Regent Street Polytechnic. Hence the first band they formed was named the Architectural Abdabs (having briefly been Sigma 6), though the addition of Camberwell Art School student Barrett prompted a name-change to the Pink Floyd Sound, in honour of American bluesmen Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. This changed into Pink Floyd.

Barrett's singular compositions such as See Emily Play and Arnold Layne became the Floyd's calling cards, and he wrote 10 of the 11 songs on their 1967 debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, but Wright sang lead on some tracks and felt inspired by Barrett's influence on the music. "It became more improvised around the guitar and keyboards," he recalled. "Roger started playing the bass as a lead instrument and I started to introduce more of my classical feel."

Barrett was eased out of the band in 1968 following an alarming deterioration in his mental state, with guitarist David Gilmour being drafted in as replacement. The Floyd's music began to move away from conventional pop-song structure towards extended instrumental pieces, with Wright co-composing the 12-minute title track of their second album, A Saucerful of Secrets (1968), as well as chipping in a couple of other songs. "Everyone assumed we were doing drugs, but that wasn't the case," Wright observed. "It's a mistake thinking that drugs supplied Pink Floyd with the inspiration. The ones who took drugs were the ones who came to see the shows."

For 1969's Ummagumma, Wright devised the four-part instrumental piece Sysyphus, which suggested he had been listening to Stockhausen and other avant-garde composers. He remained prominent among the songwriting credits for Atom Heart Mother and 1971's Meddle, co-writing the latter's prog-rock epic Echoes, which filled the disc's second side. He was also in his element when the group were commissioned to write the soundtrack to Barbet Schroeder's film Obscured By Clouds, their recording of which went to No 6 in the UK charts and cracked the American Top 50 in 1972. However, the Floyd were now moving into the Waters era, which brought them phenomenal commercial success at the expense of prolonged internal strife. The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) showcased Waters' lyrics set to music by various combinations of band-members - Wright composed The Great Gig in the Sky and Us and Them - and went on to sell 20m copies and spent an absurd 741 weeks in the American charts.

Wright contributed significantly to the band's elegy to Syd Barrett, Shine On You Crazy Diamond, from Wish You Were Here (1975), but his relationship with Waters hit rock bottom during sessions for Waters' most bombastic brainchild, The Wall. Waters threatened to scrap the entire project if Wright stayed in the band, and when the Floyd toured The Wall in 1980-81, Wright was onstage merely as a salaried session musician. Ironically, this meant that Wright was the only one to turn a profit, since the shows were ruinously expensive to stage and the losses were born by the three full band-members.

Waters and the other members parted company after The Final Cut (1983), on which Wright did not appear, but he was back behind the keyboards for the band's first Waters-less album, A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987). Wright had been pursing some extracurricular work, notably his 1978 solo album Wet Dream and a somewhat improbable collaboration called Zee with Dave Harris, from the New Romantic band Fashion, which resulted in an unsuccessful album, Identity. However, he clearly felt more comfortable in the Pink Floyd environment, and co-wrote five songs from The Division Bell (1995).

In 1996 the group were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame, the same year that Wright released his second solo album Broken China, featuring vocals by Sinead O'Connor and lyrics by Anthony Moore, formerly with avant-gardists Slapp Happy. "I wrote the tunes and sang only nonsense words," said Wright, admitting to being a nervous singer. "Then came Moore and dressed them with the lyrics." The album was dedicated to his third wife, Millie, whom he had helped through a nervous breakdown.

Wright followed his appearance with Pink Floyd at Live 8 by playing on Gilmour's solo album, On an Island (2006), and he toured Europe and America with Gilmour's band that year, contributing vocals as well as keyboards. The concerts generated spin-off CD and DVD packages recorded at London's Royal Albert Hall and in Gdansk, Poland. At the time of his death, Wright had been working on a new solo album, which was thought to comprise a series of instrumental pieces. "He was such a lovely, gentle, genuine man and will be missed terribly by so many who loved him," said Gilmour.

Wright is survived by Millie and their son Ben. He also had two children with his first wife, Juliette Gale. He divorced his second wife Franka in 1994.

· Richard William Wright, musician, born July 28 1943; died September 15 2008