KeithHandy.com

R.I.P. Richard Wright

I still have the beat up, scratched-to-hell LP of Wish You Were Here that I received on my 12th birthday in 1981, and spun incessantly on a cheap portable record player in my blue-carpeted, plaid-wallpapered, upstairs bedroom on Ostrander Road in Elma, New York. The palette of synth textures emerging again and again from those grooves was like porn for the ears, instilling in me a life-long, lustful attraction to anything with knobs and a keyboard.

Today, the passing of Floyd founder and keyboardist Richard Wright took me by surprise. I simultaneously received emails from my friend Garrett and my sister Heather, plus an instant message from another friend Paul. I guess I’ve failed to keep secret how big a role the music of Pink Floyd has played in my life (as it has for many others), and I feel a strange gratitude for being remembered when news like this hits.

To me, Wright seemed to be at his most prolific during an awkward phase of Floyd’s career, starting with his contribution to the ill-fated early singles, as Syd was being phased out. Not only did these ditties tank commercially, but in all likelihood the band could never have pulled them off live, and probably had no desire to try. Yet there’s something endearing about songs like Paintbox and the later (but single-like) Summer ‘68, in their earnest aspiration to be “hip”. Just by virtue of featuring Rick on lead vocals, they were already a step towards the smoother, warmer Floyd sound that we’re more familiar with today, albeit with some stylistic fluff that would start to get trimmed back as the four members — briefly, anyway — came into closer agreement about their artistic vision.

In the grand scheme of things, while none of the four individuals grabbed the spotlight to be “rock stars” — leaving that to the cover art and light shows — Rick Wright grabbed it even less. You could kind-of-sort-of call him the George Harrison of the band, although analogies like that break down quickly under scrutiny. Some writers of obituaries will inevitably overstate his contribution to the band, as well as the band’s contribution to music, and that’s to be expected. All I know is, in the Pink Floyd music that made the biggest dent in my impressionable teenage ears and mind (and drove my family up the wall, no pun intended) — particularly Atom Heart Mother, Meddle, Dark Side of the Moon, and Wish You Were Here — his playing was an indispensable part of the sound, and the magic.

R.I.P., Rick, and thank you.

Edit 10/4/08: Here is a better obituary, care of my friend Vic in Ohio.