Richard Wright, a founder member of Pink Floyd, has died at the age of 65 after battling cancer, his spokesman said.
Wright played the keyboard with the legendary band and wrote music in classic albums such as Dark Side Of The Moon and Wish You Were Here.
His spokesman said: "The family of Richard Wright, founder member of Pink Floyd, announce with great sadness, that Richard died ... after a short struggle with cancer. The family have asked that their privacy is respected at this difficult time."
Wright's spokesman did not say from what form of cancer the star had been suffering.
The self-taught keyboardist and pianist met fellow band members Roger Waters and Nick Mason while at architecture school.
He was a founder member of The Pink Floyd Sound in 1965, and the group's previous incarnations, such as Sigma 6.
This is terrible. No more Pink Floyd ever.
Syd Barrett was important of course but Richard Wright was the Floyd of the years when they became a legend.
I was hoping they'd do a last tour but that's it.
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"The computer can't tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what's missing is the eyebrows " ~ Frank Zappa
... Wow, I just got back from the café where I work.. We actually lit candles and played The Dark Side Of The Moon tonight... and we didn't know about this.
Bon voyage, Richard.
Thank you.
I'm looking forward to that great gig.
__________________
...it must have been one of them unidentified flying cupcakes.
I was coming back home from work a couple of hours ago when a friend of mine sent me a text message telling me such a sad news. I was shocked and I'm still devastated. I really feel bad and miserable. Remember that great gig in the sky. Thank you for everything, Rick. RIP.
By Ian Youngs
Music reporter, BBC News
Published: 2008/09/15 19:00:43 GMT
As a keyboardist and songwriter, Richard Wright helped create the pioneering psychedelic sound that made Pink Floyd one of the world's greatest groups.
His atmospheric, jazzy organs and synthesisers were at times at the forefront of their songs, and at others provided a dreamy undercurrent upon which the rest of the band could drift.
Wright was studying architecture at the Regent Street Polytechnic in London when he met fellow students Nick Mason and Roger Waters.
They formed the Architechtural Abdabs in 1965, before art student Syd Barrett joined and the group became Pink Floyd.
They made their names on London's artistic underground scene, "playing music which the record companies could not understand", as Wright later put it.
"We never had a desire to be famous, to be rock 'n' roll stars," he said.
The musical style of jazz greats like Miles Davis influenced his keyboard playing the most, he said.
Barrett was the leading creative force in the early days, but drug use soon led to his mental deterioration.
The rest of the band, though, did not partake in heavy drug use.
Wright took two acid trips - one before he was in the band, which was "quite enjoyable", and a more unpleasant experience that put him off for life.
"It's a mistake thinking that drugs supplied Pink Floyd with the inspiration," he said.
"The ones who took drugs were the ones who came to see the shows."
Redefined sound
Wright (right) and the band were central figures in swinging London
After Barrett left, and with new guitarist Dave Gilmour on board, the band started to redefine themselves in the late 1960s and early '70s, moving away from eccentric pop to prog rock.
As well as providing backing vocals and keyboards, Wright wrote some of their songs.
They included the instrumental 13-minute Sysyphus on 1969's Ummagumma and Summer '68 from Atom Heart Mother, their first number one album.
The 23-minute Echoes, from their next long player, Meddle, centred around a single Wright piano note.
Record breaker
Gilmour (left), Mason (centre) and Wright carried on into the 1990s
Their following release, 1973's Dark Side of the Moon, was their masterpiece.
Wright co-wrote much of the album, including Breathe, Time and Us and Them, but his most significant contribution was the piano-led The Great Gig in the Sky.
The album is one of the best-selling albums of all time and stayed in the US top 200 for 15 years.
The group became one of the biggest groups of the 1970s, and continued releasing albums, while Wright also branched out with a solo career.
But band relations were deteriorating, and Waters effectively sacked Wright after the 1979 album The Wall.
Waters had threatened to withhold the album if Wright refused to quit, the keyboardist later said.
"There was this big personality clash between me and Roger, and at the end of the day I realised that I couldn't work with this person anyway - so I left."
The other band members also fell out with Waters, with Gilmour and Mason starting work on a new Pink Floyd album without him in 1986.
Wright rejoined the splinter group as they continued to record and tour as Pink Floyd - after a lengthy legal battle with Waters.
They made two more Pink Floyd albums and played more than 100 shows on the Division Bell tour in 1994, the most lucrative tour in rock history at that time.
After that, the group fell dormant. Wright released another solo album and let off steam on his 65-foot yacht in the Virgin Islands.
Sailing was his "therapy and it releases all the pressures that one does get in this business", he said.
He joined his former bandmates, with the exception of Barrett, one last time at Live 8 in Hyde Park in 2005.
There has since been continual speculation that the group could reform to tour again.
But with Wright's passing, a hugely important chapter in the story of British music has closed.
David Gilmour has put some really special words on his website
“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.”
DavidGilmour.com
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"Everyone should have themselves regularly overwhelmed by Nature"
- George Harrison
Pink Floyd has been in my top 5 best bands ever and He will be missed RIP I think its weird all these rock people dying at about mid sixties of cancer ..
His atmospheric, jazzy organs and synthesisers were at times at the forefront of their songs, and at others provided a dreamy undercurrent upon which the rest of the band could drift.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hibgal
There has since been continual speculation that the group could reform to tour again.
But with Wright's passing, a hugely important chapter in the story of British music has closed.
__________________
...it must have been one of them unidentified flying cupcakes.
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Pink Floyd member Wright dies at 65
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