My only ambition was: this is fun, I hope we can make a living out of this
- Rick Wright 1942 - 2008

15 Sep 2008
The family of Richard Wright, founder member of Pink Floyd, announce with great sadness, that Richard died today after a short struggle with cancer.

The family have asked that their privacy is respected at this difficult time.

Richard Wright
Born 28 July 1943 (65)
source: pinkfloyd.com

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
source: davidgilmour.com

John Peel’s involvement with The Pink Floyd and their Free Sound goes right the way back to the beginning. Notable moments include the time he played Dark Side of The Moon in it’s entirety and HMV in Oxford St. sold out of blank cassettes. Though this might be an urban myth!

In addition to playing with Pink Floyd, Rick also released two solo albums:
Wet Dreams (1978) and Broken China (1996)

There are a ton of sites out there catering to Pink Floyd including those that both list and share many unreleased live recordings, demos and out-takes, but if you’d rather hear the band in documentary form try this one from BBC radio made by 1992 Wish You’d Been Here – The History of Pink Floyd. You’ll even have a chuckle as Bob Harris continually refers to records as rekids! It’s a DJ thing – he’s always done it. Also read this Rick Wright interview from 1986.

Elsewhere:

• Fades in Slowly
• Teenage Kicks
• Kat’s Karavan audio: Top Gear including Pink Floyd session (1967)
• BigO audio: Peel’s in Concert (1971)
• Pink Floyd live at Madison Square Garden (1977) audio: 278.38 MB