Richard William Wright was born on 28th July, 1943, in Hatch End, London. His parents, Bridie and Cedric Wright had two other children, Selina and Guinevere. He quickly developed an interest in jazz and classical piano.
Studying architecture at Regent Street Polytechnic in London, he met and formed a band with Roger Waters on bass, Nick Mason on drums, Bob Klose on guitar, Syd Barrett on guitars and vocals and Rick himself on keys. Initially they played R&B, but changed style when Bob Klose left. They became one of the premier art-rock bands in London, becoming synonymous with the underground scene in the city. They took the name Pink Floyd after bluesmen Pink Anderson and Floyd Council. On their debut album, The Piper of The Gates At Dawn, Barrett was the clear leader but Wright managed to sing lead on one song, Matilda Mother and sang harmony on Astronomy Domine.
By 1968 Barrett's mind was an acid casualty, so David Gilmour was brought in to replace him. Initially the group operated democratically, with Wright, Gilmour, Mason, and Waters all writing their own compositions. Wright's trademark was playing his piano through a Leslie speaker, which, coupled with Gilmour's guitar playing, became the musical foundation for the band. On several occasions, Wright would sing with Gilmour on the same song, providing tonal variety and balance to the vocals.
Unfortunately, by 1977 Waters was starting to get power hungry, and he saw Wright as a rival for creative control of the band. Waters fired Wright in 1979, during recording sessions for The Wall. Wright retreated to southern France and recorded a solo album, Wet Dream. However, he was initially not happy with the end result and did little to promote it. It is currently out of print.
When the ambitious tour for The Wall came underway, Waters temporarily rehired Wright as a sideman. Wright agreed, as he had two children to support.
Wright teamed with Dave Harris from Fashion to form a duo called Zee. Their one album, Identity (1984), was a critical and commercial failure.
In 1987, he rejoined Pink Floyd, now minus Roger Waters towards the end of the recording of the A Momentary Lapse of Reason album. He was again, a salaried employee. For Pink Floyd's next album, 1994's Division Bell, he co wrote five songs. He also sang lead vocals on a Pink Floyd record for the first time in over 20 years. He followed that with another studio album, the ambient Broken China (1996).
In 2005, he performed alongside Gilmour, Mason and Waters when Pink Floyd reunited for Live 8.
In 2002, he made a cameo at David Gilmour's semi-acoustic shows in London, later going on to perform and sing on Gilmour's solo album "On An Island". When Gilmour toured the album in 2006, he was part of the band, alongside his son-in-law Guy Pratt. Invited by his one-time nemesis Waters to perform at one of his London shows in 2006, he declined, saying he was working on a solo album.
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
Mini Bio
Biography
Richard William “Rick” Wright (born July 28, 1943 in Hatch End, London) is a self-taught pianist and keyboardist best known for his long career with Pink Floyd. Though not as prolific a songwriter as his bandmates Syd Barrett, Roger Waters and David Gilmour, he did write significant parts of the music for classic albums like Meddle, Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here, as well as for Pink Floyd’s most recent studio album The Division Bell. Wright’s richly textured keyboard layers have been a vital ingredient and a distinctive characteristic of Pink Floyd’s sound. In addition, Wright frequently sang background and occasionally lead vocals onstage and in the studio with Pink Floyd (most notably on the songs “Time”, “Echoes”, and on the Syd Barrett composition “Astronomy Domine”).
Wright was educated at the Haberdashers’ Aske’s School and the Regent Street Polytechnic College of Architecture, where he met fellow band members Roger Waters and Nick Mason. He was a founding member of The Pink Floyd Sound (as they were then called) in 1965, and also participated in its previous incarnations, Sigma 6 and The (Screaming) Abdabs.
In the early days of Pink Floyd, Wright was seen as a dominant musical force in the group (though not as much of one as Syd Barrett, the band’s chief songwriter and front man at the time) and he wrote and sang several songs of his own during 1967–68. While not credited as a singer on The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, he sung lead on Barrett-penned songs like “Astronomy Domine” and “Matilda Mother,” as well as notable harmonies on “Scarecrow” and “Chapter 24.” Examples of his early compositions include “Remember a Day”, “Paintbox” and “It Would Be So Nice”. As the sound and the goals of the band evolved, Wright became less interested in songwriting and focused primarily on contributing his distinctive style to extended instrumental compositions such as “Interstellar Overdrive”, “A Saucerful of Secrets”, “Careful with That Axe, Eugene”, “One Of These Days” and to musical themes for film scores (More, Zabriskie Point and Obscured by Clouds). He also made essential contributions to Pink Floyd’s long, epic compositions such as “Atom Heart Mother”, “Echoes” and “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”. His most commercially popular compositions are “The Great Gig in the Sky” and “Us and Them” from 1973’s The Dark Side of the Moon. He also contributed significantly to other mid-period Floyd classics like “Breathe” and “Time”.
Wright recorded his first solo project, Wet Dream, and released it in September 1978 with little fanfare. However, the album is regarded with some acclaim among Pink Floyd fans. Battling both personal problems and an increasingly rocky relationship with Roger Waters, he was forced to resign from Pink Floyd during The Wall sessions by Roger Waters, who threatened to pull the plug on the album’s tapes if Wright did not leave the band. However, he was retained as a salaried session musician during the subsequent live concerts to promote that album in 1980 and 1981. Ironically, Wright became the only member of Pink Floyd to profit from those hugely spectacular shows, since the net financial loss had to be borne by the three remaining “full-time” members. He was the only member of the band not to attend the 1982 première of the film version of The Wall. In 1983, Pink Floyd released the only album on which Wright does not appear with The Final Cut.
During 1984, Wright formed a new musical duo with Dave Harris (from the band Fashion) called Zee. They signed a record deal with Atlantic Records and released only one album, Identity, which was a commercial and critical flop. Wright rejoined Pink Floyd following Waters’ departure. Because of legal and contractual issues from his “hired gun” status during The Wall world tour, Wright’s photo was not included in the 1987 album A Momentary Lapse of Reason and his name was listed in smaller letters than Mason and Gilmour. By the time of the Momentary Lapse world tour and the 1988 live album The Delicate Sound of Thunder, Wright was contractually a member of Pink Floyd once again. In 1994, he co-wrote five songs and sang lead vocals on one song (”Wearing the Inside Out”) for the next Pink Floyd album, The Division Bell. This recording provided material for the double live album and video release P*U*L*S*E in 1995. Wright, like Nick Mason, has performed on every Pink Floyd tour.
In 1996, inspired by his successful input into The Division Bell, Wright released his second solo album, Broken China, including contributions from Sinéad O’Connor on vocals, Pino Palladino on bass, Manu Katché on drums, Dominic Miller (known from his guitar work with Sting) and Tim Renwick, another Pink Floyd associate, on electric guitar. Broken China was considered to be a more focused and artistically successful work than Wet Dream and marked a new phase in Rick Wright’s modus operandi, with extensive use of computer-based recording and production techniques, assisted by Anthony Moore with whom he co-wrote the album’s lyrics.
On July 2, 2005, Wright, Gilmour, Mason were joined by Waters on stage for the first time since the Wall concerts for a short set at the Live 8 concert in London. Wright underwent eye surgery for cataracts in November 2005, preventing him from attending Pink Floyd’s induction into the UK Music Hall of Fame. Roger Waters, who was also unable to attend the band’s induction due to rehearsals for the opening of his opera Ça Ira in Rome, appeared in video link and stated, tongue-in-cheek:
“ Rick actually hasn’t had an eye operation, he and I have eloped to Rome and we’re living happily in a small apartment off the Via Venuti! ”
Wright contributed keyboards and background vocals to David Gilmour’s most recent solo album, On an Island, and performed with Gilmour’s touring band for over two dozen shows in Europe and North America in 2006 . On stage with Gilmour he performed piano, electric piano and synth leads with his Kurzweil K2600 workstation, Hammond organ and even his long-inactive Farfisa organ, which was resurrected especially for performing “Echoes” and a couple of Pink Floyd’s and Syd Barrett’s older numbers that Gilmour chose to revisit in his recent concerts. He also provided backing vocals and lead vocals (notably on “Echoes”, “Time”, “Comfortably Numb”, “Wearing the Inside Out” “Astronomy Domine” and “Arnold Layne” - the latter released as a live single). He declined an offer to join Roger Waters and Nick Mason on Waters’ The Dark Side of the Moon Live tour in order to spend more time working on an upcoming solo project (which may be an instrumental album released in 2008).
On July 4, 2006, Wright joined Gilmour and Mason for the official screening of the P•U•L•S•E DVD. Inevitably, Live 8 surfaced as a subject in an interview. When asked about performing again, Wright replied he would be happy on stage anywhere. He explained that his plan is to “meander” along and said about playing live:
“ …and whenever Dave wants me to play with him, I’m really happy to play with him. And [to Gilmour] you’ll play with me, right? ”
However, Wright has stated that he has no desire to perform as part of an officially-reformed ‘Pink Floyd’ again, stating that the Live 8 concert was nice as a “one off.”
Nevertheless, in a recent documentary on the band aired by the BBC, Wright mentioned that he would love to tour the band’s music again.
Wright has the lowest profile of any member of a band known for their lack of individual attention seeking. Unlike the three other surviving band members who have emerged as public figures, Wright rarely speaks in public. Oddly enough, Wright was very rarely seen in the live footage from the Live 8 reunion performance, with a few exceptions he was only shown in wide shots. Some have suggested that the director of the broadcast did not know which musician was the fourth member of Pink Floyd until the very end when they got together for a group shot.
Wright has been married to his third wife Millie (to whom he dedicated his second solo album Broken China) since 1996 and they have one child named Ben. He married his first wife Juliette Gale in 1964 and they divorced in 1982 after two children. He married his second wife Franka in 1984 and they divorced in 1994.
Wright has a daughter Gala, who in 1996 married Guy Pratt, a session musician who has played bass for Pink Floyd since Roger Waters’ exit.
Wright’s style fuses jazz and neoclassical influences that complemented the simple harmonic structures of the more blues and folk-based songs written by Roger Waters and David Gilmour. As a keyboardist, he is more interested in complementing each piece with organ or synthesizer layers and tasteful piano or electric piano passages. Unlike his contemporaries Rick Wakeman, Tony Banks or Keith Emerson, only occasionally did he opt for solo playing, notably in “Atom Heart Mother”, “Echoes”, “Any Colour You Like”, “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” Parts 1-5 and 6-9, “Welcome to the Machine”, “Dogs”, “Run Like Hell” and “Keep Talking”. Another notable solo is the first solo in Syd Barrett’s song “Love Song”. Wright is known for his ghostly atmospheric textures such as the Leslie piano arpeggios at the beginning of “Echoes”, the echoed Farfisa Organ in the live versions of “Careful with That Axe, Eugene” and “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun”, the distinctive Minimoog solos in “Any Colour You Like” and, more famously, “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” and the jazzy electric piano passages in “Money”, “Time” and “Sheep”. In “A Saucerful of Secrets” and “Sysyphus” he experimented with ‘treated piano’. “Sysyphus” also made extensive use of Mellotron sounds, something of a rarity in the Pink Floyd canon. Wright also used Indian modal scales in “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” and “Matilda Mother”. Although he is not often mentioned among the ’synthesizer greats’, it is widely acknowledged that Wright’s inventive use of keyboards and synthesizers with Pink Floyd has been pioneering.
In the early days of the band, Wright dabbled with brass before settling on the Farfisa organ as his main instrument onstage (in addition to piano and Hammond Organ in the studio). For a brief period in 1969, Wright played vibraphone on several of the band’s songs and in some live shows, and he even played trombone on “Biding My Time” (also dating from this experimental period). During the formative years of Pink Floyd with Syd Barrett, Wright relied heavily on his Farfisa organ, fed through a platter echo device called Binson Echorec to achieve distinctive sounds that helped the band gain their “psychedelic rock” edge. He started using a Hammond organ regularly onstage thereafter, and a grand piano later became part of his usual live concert setup when “Echoes” was added to Pink Floyd’s regular set-list. For tours in the 1970s centering around The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall, the Farfisa was dropped (although it was brought back when Wright toured with David Gilmour on his On An Island tour), and an array of other instruments were added to the lineup, such as: Fender Rhodes, Wurlitzer and Hohner electric pianos, VCS 3, Minimoog, ARP String Ensemble and Prophet 5 synthesizers. Since 1987 Wright has favoured Kurzweil digital synthesizers for reproducing his analogue synthesizer sounds, even though he still uses his favourite Hammond C-3 organ, although the one that he used with Pink Floyd at Live 8 and with David Gilmour is a “chopped” version (being stripped down of unnecessary weight and put into a more compact casing).
Some History
In 1968 Barrett [see entry], allegedly because of an excess of LSD experimentation, began to exhibit ever more strange and erratic behavior. David Gilmour joined to help with the guitar work. Barrett appeared on only one track of Secrets, “Jugband Music,” which aptly summed up his mental state: “I’m most obliged to you for making it clear/That I’m not really here.” Without Barrett to create concise psychedelic singles, the band concentrated on wider-ranging psychedelic epics.
From 1969 to 1972 Pink Floyd made several film soundtracks - the most dramatic being Zabriskie Point, in which Michelangelo Antonioni’s closing sequence of explosions was complemented by Floyd’s “Careful With That Axe, Eugene” - and began using its “azimuth coordinated sound system” in concert, a sophisticated 360-degree P.A.With Atom Heart Mother, they topped the British chart in 1970; stateside success, however, still eluded them.
Their breakthrough came in 1973 with The Dark Side of the Moon. The themes were unremittingly bleak - alienation, paranoia, schizophrenia - and the music was at once sterile and doomy. Taped voices mumbling ominous asides (something the band had used before) surfaced at key moments. Yielding a surprise American hit in “Money,” (#13, 1973), the album went on to mammoth long-running sales success. Ultimately remaining on the Billboard Top 200 album chart for 741 weeks, Dark Sideshowcased the talents of Pink Floyd’s chief members: Waters’ lyrics, Gilmour’s guitar. The two would continue to dominate the band but soon furiously contend against each other.
The group’s subsequent albums explored the same territory, with Waters’ songs growing ever more bitter. Wish You Were Here (#1, 1975) was dedicated to Barrett and elegized him with “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.” The Wall, Waters’ finest moment, topped the U.S. chart for 15 weeks, while its nihilistic hit, “Another Brick in the Wall,” was banned by the BBC and in 1980 became the band’s only #1 American single. Meanwhile Pink Floyd’s stage shows had become increasingly elaborate. For the Dark Side and Wish tours, there were slide/light shows and animated films, plus a giant inflated jet that crashed into the stage; for Animals, huge inflated pigs hovered over the stadiums; forThe Wall (due to enormous expense, performed 29 times only in New York, L.A., and London) there was that, plus an actual wall built, brick by brick, across the stage, eventually obscuring the band from audience view. Shortly thereafter, Wright left, due to conflict with Waters.
With The Final Cut (#6, 1983), subtitled A Requiem for the Postwar Dream, Waters penned his darkest work yet. It also marked the effective end of the original Pink Floyd, with Waters bitterly departing, and Gilmour and Mason cementing their alliance. (Two films related to the original band - minus Barrett - have been made: the documentary Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii [1971] and The Wall [1982]. The latter featured stunning animation by Gerald Scarfe - Bob Geldof starred in the live-action sequences - and illustrated music from Pink Floyd’s LP of the same name. The first remains a cult movie; the second was a massive commercial success.)
In 1978, withGilmour’s David Gilmour and Wright’sWet Dream, Pink Floyd’s members had started releasing solo albums. Mason had begun a sideline career as a producer in 1974 with Robert Wyatt; ultimately his very diverse roster included Gong, Carla Bley, the Damned, and Steve Hillage. Solo work continued into the ’80s: In 1984 came Waters’The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, Wright’s Identity, and Gilmour’s About Face (with lyrical contributions by Pete Townshend). A year later Mason releasedProfiles. Concurrently, Gilmour played sessions with Bryan Ferry, Grace Jones, and Arcadia; in 1986 he formed David Gilmour & Friends with Bad Company’s Mick Ralphs.
In 1986 Waters brought suit against Gilmour and Mason, asking the court to dissolve the trio’s partnership and to block them from using the name Pink Floyd. A year later Waters lost his suit, and the other members, as Pink Floyd, released Momentary Lapse of Reason (#3, 1987). As Waters put out his own Radio K.A.O.S., the others launched a Pink Floyd tour that grossed nearly $30 million. (Though Wright was included on the tour and album, he wasn’t legally considered an official band member but a salaried employee.) With the live Delicate Sound of Thunder, Gilmour, Mason, and Wright again billed themselves as Pink Floyd and went on to more successful touring, including a gig performed in Venice aboard a giant barge, which was televised worldwide.
In 1990 Waters presented an all-star cast, including Sinéad O’Connor, Joni Mitchell, and Van Morrison, in a version of The Wall performed at the site of the Berlin Wall (chronicled in The Wall - Live in Berlin). Two years later he released the dour Amused to Death.
With Wright rejoining Gilmour and Mason as a full band member, Pink Floyd garnered immediate success with The Division Bell in 1994. Named after the bell in the British House of Commons that summons members to parliamentary debate, the album featured songs written by Gilmour in collaboration with his ex-journalist girlfriend Polly Samson. Two weeks after its release, The Division Bell shot to #1 on the album chart, and in late spring the band embarked on an elaborate American tour. P.U.L.S.E. (#1, 1995) documented the ’94 tour, including a live performance of Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety. In 1996 Pink Floyd was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Still antagonistic with his former band mates, Waters didn’t attend the ceremonies. After a successful solo tour in 1999, he embarked upon writing a modern opera about the French Revolution, recording with an 80-piece orchestra and 100-member choir.
In the interim, Dark Side of the Moon had taken on yet new life, when certain Pink Floyd fans began playing the album while watching The Wizard of Ozand noting how the 1973 album seemed to provide an uncannily appropriate soundtrack to the 1939 film. The band itself denied that it had intended any sort of parallel between its music and the movie, but rumors persisted of an eerie connection between the two. Pink Floyd also entered the new millennium by releasing a live version, from 1980, ofThe Wall, in double-CD format, with a lavishly illustrated history.
Richard and Pink Floyd
