| Richard Wright (musician) |
Article Index for Richard Wright |
Website Links For Richard Wright |
Information AboutRichard Wright (musician) |
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 Roger Waters and David Gilmour , 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" and "Echoes"). BIOGRAPHY Pink Floyd career 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 (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 (along with Syd Barrett , the band’s chief songwriter at the time) was seen as the group’s dominant musical force and he wrote and sang several songs of his own during 1967 – 68 . 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 ''. '']] Using songs which included material that was considered unsuitable for Pink Floyd's ''''.
Modern days 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 as 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: 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" 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 2007).
However, Rick has stated that he has no desire to perform with Roger Waters as Pink Floyd again, stating that the Live 8 concert was nice as a "one off." 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. Personal Wright has been married to his third wife Millie (whom he dedicated his third album Broken China to) since 1996 and they have one child named Ben, who currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia, and goes to the Paideia School. 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. INFLUENCE 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. EQUIPMENT In the early days of the band, Wright dabbled with , Wurlitzer and Hohner Electric Piano s, VCS 3 , Minimoog , ARP Solina , ARP Quadra and Prophet 5 Synthesizer s. Since 1987 Wright has favoured Kurzweil digital synthesizers for reproducing his analogue synthesizer sounds, even though he still uses a digital incarnation of his favourite Hammond B-3 organ. DISCOGRAPHY ''For his work with Pink Floyd, see Pink Floyd Discography between 1965 to 1980, and between 1987 to 1995 Solo albums
Zee albums With David Gilmour
With Syd Barrett
FOOTNOTES EXTERNAL LINKS
|
|
|