Vale Rick Wright

The world lost another great rock icon this week with the passing of Rick Wright.

Wright was a founding member, and keyboardest of Pink Floyd, along with Roger Waters, the late Syd Barrett and Nick Mason. In the early days, he was the "other" songwriter, after Barrett. About the time that Barrett left the band (OK. Was booted out) he started to take more of a back role in the day to day songwriting, although he's probably best remembered for a piece off The Dark Side Of The Moon called "The Great Gig In The Sky".

Wright sang lead vocals on a few Pink Floyd tracks, "Astronomy Domine" being one, "Time" being another. He had, if not the best voice in Pink Floyd, the nicest one. But in later years, Wright's contributions became less and less as bassplayer Waters and guitarist Dave Gilmour fought it out for creative control of the band.

It's often been argued that Wright was the first casualty of this battle, when he became the second member of Pink Floyd to be sacked, after the recording of The Wall. In reality, Wright and Waters were not the best of friends at this point, and Wright's escalating cocaine problem just gave Waters the excuse to get rid of him.
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Maybe because of this, Gilmour chose to re-hire him again during the recording of A Momentary Lapse Of Reason - Waters was by now suing Gilmour and Mason for ownership of the name Pink Floyd, and the message that Wright was back in the band could only be interpreted as perfect spiteful timing.

Now clean, Wright returned to songwriting on The Division Bell, Pink Floyd's last studio album.

He also played with Waters again at their one-off reunion gig last year.

He will be missed. RIP.