A Tribute to Richard Wright

 “Pink Floyd is like a marriage that's on a permanent trial separation” 

Rick Wright, the guy always in the shadows of the two warring leaders of Pink Floyd. The essential component to their sound, yet never much acknowledged. The guy, after whose death David Gilmour swore never to perform echoes again.

In the world of progressive rock you may come across many insanely talented keyboardists, wizards who will dazzle you by showing of their skills of speed and complex tune making. Rick Wright was kind of the odd one out. Let’s face it, he was not as insanely talented and would stand no chance if a competition was held amongst them. However, his specialty was subtlety, a trick most progressive rock bands could never hope to pull off.

Take the start of echoes for example. The one ping that rules them all is Mr. Wright at his finest. All you need to do is look at the live performances, where frail old Richard plays the ping and the crowd goes wild, transported to the days of Floyd’s glory. Gilmour knew that he could never do echoes without him, it just wouldn’t be the same.

His other contributions to Floyd songs include the classics One of these days, Astronomy Domine, Echoes, Us and them, Great gig in the sky and Mudmen among many others.

His contributions were increasingly pushed to the background as Waters’ authoritarian rule began, however, fans shall always cherish his keyboard work that gave Floyd the ‘sound’ along with Gilmour’s guitar. He was a hope to all that insane talent was not needed sometimes; sheer hard work and effort took him far.

I raise my metaphorical hat to the quite and subdued dreamer and hope we have more like him to cherish.

-Aditya Dave

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