Pink Floyd's Rick Wright dies at 65

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:( Rick was always my favorite.

"A cloud of eiderdown
Draws around me
Softening a sound.
Sleepy time, and I lie,
With my love by my side,
And she's breathing low.

And the candle dies.

When night comes down
You lock the door.
The book falls to the floor.
As darkness falls
The waves roll by,
The seasons change
The wind is wry.

Now wakes the hour
Now sleeps the swan
Behold the dream
The dream is gone.
Green fields are calling
It's falling, in a golden door.

And deep beneath the ground,
The early morning sounds
And I go down.
Sleepy time, and I lie,
With my love by my side,
And she's breathing low.

And I rise, like a bird,
In the haze, when the first rays
Touch the sky.

And the night wings die."

Inside I know Rick went out fearless and hope that his last thoughts on Earth didn't sound like Clare Torry but rather like the gentle touch of a piano that he gave us for decades. :)
 
Just saw this on the beeb. I am so gutted I have no words to describe my feeling. He was a really nice man and an astonishing musician. Pink Floyd would not have been the same without him. He will be dearly missed by me and I'm sure everyone here. What a legacy he's left behind - what a band he co-founded. A legend without a doubt.
 
:sad: :( :sad: :( :sad:

I was so, so shattered to hear this today. My psych teacher brought it up and I really was shattered. Such an incredibly talented musician, and he was definitely my favourite member of Pink Floyd. Criminally underrated as part of that band. Go and have a listen to Any Colour You Like, which is entirely a Wright compostion. It's magicianry. The piano part to Great Gig! Us and Them!! His work on Dark Side and Wish You Were Here is astonishing. Not to mention his vocals! The emotion he created in his two verses in Time, the double vocals with Dave on Echoes... a very sad, sad passing, and as phillyfan also pointed out, now we will never get that reunion. A very young age to die as well.

Listening to Any Colour You Like in honour of the man, and will fix the sig soon.

May he and his blessed keyboards rest in peace.
 
I still can't believe Rick's gone. :sad:

His fellow band members have begun paying their respects...

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.

David Gilmour
Monday 15th September 2008

David Gilmour | The Voice and Guitar of Pink Floyd | Official Site
Click to expand...


Roger Waters (a subtle, but fitting tribute...the screen image from "Wish You Were Here" that was used on the '07/'08 tour - and I think we can also expect to see a written statement soon)
 
I can't believe the classic rock radio morning show only dedicated a whole 15 seconds to his passing and nothing more. :down:

They were far too obsessed with putting lipstick on a pig. Literally.
 
I checked the classic rock station here 104.3 yesterday in the evening and heard nothing Floyd related. :down:
 
From the radio station's website: A fan's comment on the breaking news:
RIP Mr. Wright

i found out the horrible news a few hours age.[sic] Scince [sic] then i have not stopped listening to great pink floyd songs that Richard has helped so so much with. He wrote the music to some of my favorite Floyd songs including Us and Them, Great Gig in the Sky, and Summer of 69. i wish the best for his family and hope i can meet him in the past life.
R.I.P. Richard Wright you will always be missed

Posted By: Matt Trezza - Monday, September 15th 2008 @ 9:41pm
Click to expand...

Did anybody spot the hilarious mistake there?
 
Tiger Edge said:
I can't believe the classic rock radio morning show only dedicated a whole 15 seconds to his passing and nothing more. :down:
Click to expand...

Here in Canada, CBC Radio played out the hourly news this morning with The Great Gig In The Sky, after they played a few other song snippets, and gave a brief history of the band. It was very moving to hear that, rather than the ordinary news jingle.

Sorry to Rick's fans, friends, and family...
 
Quite the classy and fitting statement from Gilmour. Anyone who needs a reminder of Wright's understated brilliance should listen to the organ solo that closes "Cirrus Minor" - it is haunting, comforting, and elegiac at the same time.
 
I saw David Gilmour at Massey Hall in Toronto for his last album tour and was very excited to see Rick playing with him....I feel very fortunate to have seen them together.....RIP :sad:
 
I think the thing that shatters me the most is that no one band/artist in my lifetime or when I've cared has died, like I like the Beatles, but John Lennon died in 1980, not my lifetime, and George died in what was it, like 2000? When I didn't care. This is the first time someone I've liked has died.

Our local rag gave him about 20 words, which was deplorable. But the other paper wrote a huge 800-word obituary, which was fantastic, and I'm going to try and write an obituary or letter to the editor of the other paper.

Great words from Gilmour :up:

Zootlesque said:
I checked the classic rock station here 104.3 yesterday in the evening and heard nothing Floyd related. :down:
Click to expand...

Our classic rock station is 104.3 as well :ohmy:
 
GibsonGirl said:
Roger Waters (a subtle, but fitting tribute...the screen image from "Wish You Were Here" that was used on the '07/'08 tour - and I think we can also expect to see a written statement soon)
Click to expand...

"I was very sad to hear of Rick's premature death, I knew he had been ill, but the end came suddenly and shockingly. My thoughts are with his family, particularly [his daughters] Jamie and Gala and their mum Juliet, who I knew very well in the old days, and always liked very much and greatly admired.

"As for the man and his work, it is hard to overstate the importance of his musical voice in the Pink Floyd of the '60s and '70s. The intriguing, jazz influenced modulations and voicings so familiar in 'Us and Them' and 'Great Gig in the Sky,' which lent those compositions both their extraordinary humanity and their majesty, are omnipresent in all the collaborative work the four of us did in those times. Rick's ear for harmonic progression was our bedrock.

"I am very grateful for the opportunity that Live 8 afforded me to engage with him and David [Gilmour] and Nick [Mason] that one last time. I wish there had been more."

Pink Floyd news :: Brain Damage - Tributes paid to Richard Wright from across the world
Click to expand...

Haven't seen anything from Nick, yet...
 
Good to see Roger's statement. Wonder if they'll have a tribute concert or something for him.
 
I just got back off holiday last night and found out this news, im really gutted. I'm the same as COBL_04 in that this is really the first musician whose work i've really appreciated has passed away. In my view he was criminally underrated as a pioneer of psychedelia in the 60s as well as the synthesiser; and two of my favourite Floyd tracks are Summer '68 and Stay - really different to more famous Floyd work. I really hope Gilmour, Waters and Mason have the good grace to do something together to pay tribute to Rick in the same way they (almost) did at Syd's concert.

I love the quote i read somewhere earlier - heaven's house band just got a little bit better. R.I.P. Rick
 
MikeyJB said:
I love the quote i read somewhere earlier - heaven's house band just got a little bit better. R.I.P. Rick
Click to expand...

That's awesome :up:

The tribute band I saw last night didn't harp on it much actually, they just said "dedicate this show to Rick, a genius" and "this is for rick" before WYWH.
 
I remember reading on U2tours during Vertigo leg 3 that Bono gave a shout-out to Rick when he was at one of the shows, I think thats pretty cool.

I imagine any sort of tribute event will be a while off; Syd's was I seem to remember. It would be really really nice to see Mason, Gilmour and Waters just doing something together, even if its just a song. I can only imagine that losing one of the band must surely put any bitterness or rivalry in some sort of context - Nick said in his statement something about realising your own mortality.
 
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