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LONDON — A Pink Floyd spokesman says founding member Richard Wright has died. He was 65.
Wright died Monday after a battle with cancer at his home in Britain. His family did not want to give more details about his death. The spokesman is Doug Wright, who is not related to the artist.
Richard Wright met Pink Floyd members Roger Waters and Nick Mason at college and joined their early band Sigma 6.
Sigma 6 eventually became Pink Floyd and Wright wrote and sang some of the band’s key songs. He wrote “The Great Gig In The Sky” and “Us And Them” from Pink Floyd’s 1973 “The Dark Side Of The Moon.”
He left the group in the early 1980s to form his own band but rejoined Pink Floyd for their 1987 album “A Momentary Lapse of Reason.”
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Thanks for posting this, Sammy. This was pretty shocking news. I don’t think his illness was ever made public.
His premature death aside, Wright struck me as one of those Luckiest Men in Rock types. I didn’t know he wrote “Us and Them”, which is an eminently listable song for a non-fan of the Floyd. He wrote and sang some of those Syd-like songs collected on that “starter-set” oddities collection from the ’70s, no? I’m thinking of the album with “Bike” and other Syd-era numbers that were not well known in the age of the flying pig. Once the Pink Floyd Machine got underway, though, his keyboard parts seemed to be, shall we say, subtle. For a band with a lot of long instrumental sections, only Gilmour’s solos ever stand out, and even he’s understated.
Richard was a team player. Just because he didn’t show off his licks doesn’t mean he wasn’t integral to the band. His talents also often fell into what Eno called “treatments.”
I really liked his playing. When I was first getting into the classic Floyd albums, I thought that the keyboards were what made them sound so sophisticated (to my 14 year old ears).
On the other hand, although I’m a fairly average guitarist, David Gilmore is one of the few famous guitar players that I’m not musically intimidated by. I feel like I could adequately fill in for him if the Floyd (read: Nick Mason at this point) needed a guitarist to cover a gig. All I need is a strat, a delay pedal and about a week’s worth of rehearsals. Don’t get me wrong, I think that his playing is really tasteful and well done and it serves the songs well but he strikes me as a solid guitarist who had the good fortune to find a great vehicle that frames his playing in the most positive light.
Does any huge band have a more subtle group of musicians than Pink Floyd? No one seems to play anything spectacularly. No one sings that well. No one kicks out the jams. And before you think I’m being critical, I think it’s actually a testament to…something…that they were able to communicate to so many listeners while expending so little energy and chops.
If it weren’t for Bono, you could say the same about U2, maybe.
I always thought Gilmour was a great guitarist and fine singer, especially for the pastoral stuff I dig. But I’m famously conflicted about this band.
Yeah, I think Gilmour is strong too, but like cdm said, his solos are never intimidating. What is it about those guys that spoke to so many teens? I have two sons who one day, I hope, will enter their teen years and face these temptations.
U2 is a good runner-up if you could remove the larger-than-God Bono from the equation.
The Mod says: “I always thought Gilmour was a great guitarist”
I say: Perhaps, but if so, I think the key to his greatness is knowing what not to play and keeping things as simple as possible.
Off topic: Is that a picture of Janis that occasionally appears in the banner at the top of the page? It looks like she’s about to shake one out of the pant leg.
No, Oats said “great guitarist”; I merely said things like “strong.” Have you seen his muscles?
I’m not recalling a banner image that might be Janis… I’ll keep an eye out for which one you might mean. Maybe The Back Office knows.
REM in the years I liked them were pretty subtle. I think Mills is a good bassist but it’s counterpoint and not riff-based stuff he does, Buck never really solos, just does a byrds jangle, and Berry is a monotonous drummer. I’d hardly call Stipe a good singer either, though he’s distinctive somehow.
Here’s another Floyd-related thought I’ve been having lately.
Don’t Magazine kinda sound like Pink Floyd with a non-sucky rhythm section? Maybe they don’t sound alike per se, but there seems to be some similar ingredients. Devoto is the vaguely hectoring Waters-like singer (but so, so much cooler). There’s some spooky synths, plus single-note guitar phrases. Now just add a rhythm section that listened to dub and reggae, and had enough chops to do their own version. Discuss.
Mod,
Please accept my apologies
REM’s like U2 in that they’ve got a HUGE presence leading all that subtle playing.
Wow, I haven’t listened to Magazine in so long that I’ll need to revisit them to see what you’re saying, Oats. I’ve always thought Wire’s 154 album sounded like what Pink Floyd might have done had Syd stayed with the band and they all made it into the late-70s, full of piss and vinegar.
cdm, apology accepted!
Three reasons for Pink Floyd’s success
1) They had a signature sound which they kept experimenting with–each album sounds a little bit different than the last.
2) They knew their way around the studio.
3) They were better than average songwriters: check out, for example, the chord progression to “Brain Damage.”
I wonder if cdm means the pic of Rory Gallagher!
Pink Floyd’s strength was in their expansive sound. Cinematic, if I can use that crutch. How many teenagers who are rock-inclined can completely resist that lure, the kind of huge-sounding rock custom made for sitting in your room alone staring at trippy posters; an experience that can easily be transferred to live settings where you sit alone in a crowd staring at flyin’ pigs or planetarium laser shows?
They knew how to make that big, spacey sound, which involves a lot of instrumental white noise, the keyboards and multi-tracked vocals and choruses, and then Gilmour’s guitar was made to cut right through it, like an audio laser beam. To build on Dr. John’s third point, they knew how to effectively steer their songs to certain points. Think about the “and you run and you run to catch up with the sun” part in Time. No individual part there stands out as specifically doing anything out of the ordinary, and yet they manage to convey at that moment the sense that the song has upped the stakes.
hurrndi said “I wonder if cdm means the pic of Rory Gallagher!”
I say: Maybe. Is he wearing a mini skirt so short that you can see his panties (which appear to conceal a lump of some sort)?
Yeah, whose vaguely disturbing cooter is that?
Those are Linda Rondstadt’s panties. Rory’s the guy who looks like Ebenezer Scrooge, heaving and straining to drop a steaming pile of Christmas Goose on Boxing Day morning.
Vaguely disturbing? I half expected that kind of behavior from Janis but come on, Linda? I’ll never look at old photos of her the same way again.
Thanks for clearing that up about Rory. That’s the face that I imagined Elvis made right before he went on to his ultimate reward.
You know the boiled chicken feet that they serve in Cantonese dim sum places? It looks like she has one of those secreted in her pants. That’s not vaguely disturbing to you?
Much more than vaguely.
…and now I’ve lost my taste for Chinese.
Thanks, Rock Town Hall, for making me laugh heartily in the face of an otherwise crappy day at the office!
Dr. John, I hear you. I’m glad that we’re taking the time to discuss Pink Floyd in more depth that we typically allow ourselves to do.
Finally, Young Linda’s wearing old-fashioned cotton undies in that shot, no? The image stays!
I think Floyd reached a relatively similar demographic to Black Sabbath, actually. Stoned, suburban, half-assed. I’m not saying the music of either band sucks; I’m saying their sound appeals to a who-gives-a-shit view of life. I have sympathy for that view myself, without agreeing with it in any significant way.
You’ve hit on something, Mwall. Although wasn’t it actually a “who-gives-a-shit-on-the-outside-but-I’m-cryin’-for-something-more-on-the-inside” view of life?
I wonder, if I could have gotten through to my stoner Floyd friends, what music I might have recommended they listen to, knowing what I know now. Could I have helped them attain the next step of enlightenment, still retaining the style of music they’d already come to love?
Well, I think the question related to your question is: how many of them by age 25 were listening to country?
You got thru to me by starting with Piper, going to Syd and finally PIL…all in them same night.
Oooh, that was slick move in 1982! I had no idea I got that far with you that night. That was pretty early into our relationship, right?
I don’t think this is the right forum to be discussing how far you got with me that night.
For shame.
In all fairness, I already owned a healthy supply of Talking Heads, Elvis Costello and The Clash.
Still pretty impressive though.
My problem with the Floyd is that I just can’t get behind the post-DARK SIDE albums lyrically. I simply lack the relevant misanthropy. I mean, I had more than my share of teenage angst, but my brand was much more internally directed. I was much more “I SUCK!” than “THE WORLD SUCKS!,” y’know? And once I got past that whole thing, I think I’m just fundamentally too cheerful a person to groove on side two of ANIMALS.
The Great 48 comes through with another KEY distinction between teenagers who dig the Floyd and those who don’t. I’m with you, Great One.
Mod a good question about your stoner friends who were Floyd fans. But I’m not sure there is a satisfactory answer.
On the one hand, I put Band on the Run in the same context as Dark Side in that it has a loose theme and killer hooks. But I doubt your friends would see it that way.
On the other, the band that is really close to Floyd is Can; however, even their most approachable record, Flow Motion, would be too far out for your friends.
It wopuld be easier to answer the question now. The recent records of Spiritualized, though they cut their space rock with VU, still has enough of that cosmic trip to satisfy the laser show crowd.
Good point great 48. Even as a kid, I thought “Sheep” was rather pretentious. Although I did enjoy the venom of “Pigs (Three Different Ones).”