Richard Wright made a decisive contribution to Pink Floyd’s epic, cosmic sound with his many keyboards. He helped define Pink Floyd’s sound, from their early psychedelic experiments to glorious stadium concerts. But the keyboardist was always a figure shrouded in mystery, choosing the shadows instead of the spotlight.
Rick Wright died in 2008, at the age of 65, from lung cancer at his home in London.
He left all the drama and dynamics to the other instruments and created these harmonious and glacial backgrounds. He was truly underrated.
– Robert Wyatt, Mojo, 1999.
In 1974, a year and a half after the release of ‘Dark Side of The Moon,’ an album that achieved tremendous sales worldwide, Rick Wright was seen as a keyboard virtuoso and a complete mystery. Richard William Wright, Pink Floyd’s all-time keyboard player, always had a low profile he cultivated throughout his career.
In this regard, Rick Wright declared to Mojo in 2007, when Pink Floyd’s eponymous album ‘The Piper At The Gates of Dawn’ turned 40, that “None of us were desperate to be pop stars. Fuck that. That was the whole point of the light show. It was the norm in those days that stages would be lit so audiences could see the lead singer. When we performed, you couldn’t really see anybody. We liked to hide.”
This lack of prominence doesn’t mean that his contribution to Pink Floyd’s career wasn’t decisive:
The greatest Pink Floyd moments are the ones where he is in full flow.
– Robert Wyatt, Mojo, 1999.
Richard Wright Contributed Decisively To Some Of Pink Floyd’s Essential Albums
Pink Floyd’s debut album was released in 1967, at the height of the psychedelic explosion, and it was the only one with Syd Barrett leading the troops. ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ opens with “Astronomy Domine,” a Syd song to which Richard Wright also contributed vocals; a 60’s masterpiece.
1968 – A SAUCERFUL OF SECRETS
“Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” is another landmark of Roger Waters’ signature psychedelics, but it features decisive keyboard work by Rick Wright, who wrote three songs for the album (”Remember a Day,” “A Saucerful of Secrets,” and “See-Saw”).
1970 – ATOM HEART MOTHER
With their feet firmly planted in progressive rock, after their psychedelic adventures, Pink Floyd put a cow on the cover of Atom Heart Mother (another of many iconic covers in the band’s discography) to shake off the psychedelic image. Rick Wright also wrote “Summer ’68,” which opens with his piano work.
1973 – THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON
Arguably the best album in Pink Floyd’s discography, Dark Side of the Moon, is one of the most successful ever. It includes the song “Great Gig in the Sky,” driven by Rick Wright’s piano and marked by the voice of Clare Torry, a session singer whose performance on this song guaranteed her immortality.
1977 – ANIMALS
In the year of the punk explosion in England, with the Sex Pistols triggering an earthquake that would shake the record industry forever, Pink Floyd signed a conceptual progressive rock album about capitalism. ‘Animals’ was the first Pink Floyd album not to contain a composer’s credit for Richard Wright – Roger Waters dominated – but he did sign some solos, as in the case of “Dogs” and “Sheep.”
1994 – THE DIVISION BELL
Wright’s relationship with Pink Floyd became complicated during the Roger Waters era. But alongside Gilmour, Richard once again lent his voice to the band (the first lead vocal on a Pink Floyd album since 1973’s ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’). His work contributed to ‘The Division Bell’ having a more spatial atmosphere. It was the last Pink Floyd studio album to be composed of entirely new material.
10 Songs That Show How Important Richard Wright Was To Pink Floyd’s Sound
On Pink Floyd’s best albums, the Farfisa Duo, which Rick Wright used to create gliding passages, helped the group establish itself on the British psychedelic scene. The Mellotron, a primitive sampler keyboard in which each key triggered a pre-recorded tape loop, is used, for example, in songs like “See Saw” and “Sysyphus.”
Another example of the equipment Wright preferred was the Korg VC-10 Vocoder used during the recording of ‘Animals.’ Live, Wright used the traditional Hammond C3 and a Yamaha acoustic piano.
In the 1970s, during the tours that established Pink Floyd as icons of arenas and stadiums, the Farfisa was replaced by instruments considered more “modern,” such as the Fender Rhodes, Wurlitzer, and Hohner electric pianos, as well as legendary synthesizers like the EMS VCS 3, Minimoog, Arp String Ensemble and Prophet 5, true classics of electronic music.
In the following decade, in the 1980s, when Pink Floyd released ‘The Final Cut’ and ‘A Momentary Lapse of Reason,’ analog synthesizers were replaced by Kurzweil digital ones, making Richard Wright’s setup more portable.
