Wright’s baroque suite features extended brass sections and piano curlicues that dance atop the melody. Side One of the album was devoted to the 23-minute title track, whereas the flip side followed in the general Ummagumma mold, with Waters, Gilmour and Wright each spearheading a track. The work eventually takes a left turn into Stockhausen-inspired mayhem, but in the calm before the storm, Wright exemplifies his knack for blending the somber with the nostalgic.Īppearing on Side Two of 1970’s Atom Heart Mother, “Summer ’68” is Wright’s most ambitious and successful solo credit. Wright’s “Sysyphus” is a four-part suite, which he later deemed “pretentious.” It starts out with an ominous orchestral overture, which leads into a beautiful, impressionistic piano piece that sounds like something out of the Debussy songbook. On the solo tracks, o ne can suss out what each member contributed to the band’s energy and sound. On Piper, Barrett sings lead while Wright provides a higher vocal harmony live, Wright sings the main melody while Gilmour takes on the harmony. Ummagumma memorably opens with a live take of “Astronomy Domine,” which just two years earlier kicked off their debut. The double album, their second release of 1969, was built around an interesting conceit: the first LP was a live album and the second, at the suggestion of Wright, had the four artists each split a half-side to make “real music,” a solo work without the involvement of any other member. Pink Floyd were on a roll in the late Sixties, and fewer than five months after More, they released Ummagumma. Wright sings lead and contributes piano, Farfisa organ, xylophone and mellotron, while Gilmour and producer Norman Smith provide languorous backing vocals. “See-Saw” is a dreamy ballad of childhood bliss gone awry. In the early days, he had a fondness for what Mason termed “wistful songs, very much in the Barrett tradition.” Two such tunes appear on A Saucerful of Secrets, the band’s second studio album, and last to feature Barrett. Wright only received sole writing credit on 10 of Pink Floyd’s 217 songs. “Paint Box” is a rare musical glimpse into the personality of the man his bandmates described as “quiet, introverted.” The song, which was originally released as a B side to Barrett’s “Apples and Oranges” single and later appeared on the compilation album Relics, is a somber psychedelic affair in which Wright recalls a drunken evening of feeling out of place, singing, “But in the scene I should have been/Far away.” Toc H.” The song features early examples of beat-boxing and other out-there vocal effects, but its main melody comes via Wright’s improvisational piano playing, which eventually gives way to a more tense organ freakout. were equally driven by experimental urges, which are on full display on the first of Piper ’s two instrumental tracks, “Pow R. “They were God-like figures to us,” Mason said of the Fab Four, who let Floyd watch as they recorded “Lovely Rita.” Back behind the controls, Barrett & Co. Next door, the Beatles were working on Sgt. It was 1967, and the Floyd were holed up in Abbey Road recording their debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. “ In the welter of arguments about who or what was Pink Floyd, Rick’s enormous input was frequently forgotten.” Here we revisit 12 great moments in Wright’s career. “He was my musical partner and my friend,” Gilmour said. Wright’s jazzy piano and organ lines, his early songwriting credits and his venerable vocal performances were all hallmarks of Pink Floyd’s sound. “It is hard to overstate the importance of his musical voice in the Pink Floyd of the Sixties and Seventies,” Waters said at the time in a statement. Wright, who co-founded the Floyd in 1965 and played on all but one album in the band’s discography, died 10 years ago today at the age of 65 after a battle with cancer. With Barrett, Waters and Gilmour commanding the spotlight, both in the band and in the press, it’s easy to undervalue the contributions of the other two members, drummer Nick Mason and keyboard player Richard Wright. Syd Barrett reigned over the madcap, bluesy space-rock era Roger Waters ruled the proggy, introspective concept-album days and David Gilmour ran the atmospheric, textured and sometimes instrumental later phase. Three of those men had their turn helming the project, each one inflecting it with a unique flavor. Throughout Pink Floyd’s three-decade-plus history, the band employed only five full-time members.
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