Tributes paid to Richard Wright from across the world
Written by Matt   
Tuesday, 16 September 2008

Richard Wright 1994 (pic: EMI) The very sad loss of Richard Wright yesterday has reverberated around the world, with friends and fans alike paying their heartfelt tributes to him. We've received many emails from fans worldwide, who have asked us to pass on their messages of condolences, and we are collating these now.

Through the pages of his website, David Gilmour has paid public tribute to Richard, who he called "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."

The Blog at David's site set up a page for fans' tributes to Richard, which can be seen here.

Roger Waters has also used his website for his own tribute. An array of candles against a black background, with some of them having extinguished. A simple yet poignant image.

Roger said: "I was very sad to hear of Rick's premature death yesterday, I knew he had been ill, but the end came suddenly and shockingly. My thoughts are with his family, particularly Jamie and Gala and their mum Juliette, who I knew very well in the old days, and always liked very much and greatly admired. As for the man and his work, it is hard to overstate the importance of his musical voice in the Pink Floyd of the 60's & 70's. The intriguing, jazz influenced, modulations and voicings so familiar in Us & Them and Great Gig In The Sky, which lent those compositions both their extraordinary humanity and their majesty, are omnipresent in all the collaborative work the four of us did in those times. Rick's ear for harmonic progression was our bedrock. I am very grateful for the opportunity that Live 8 afforded me to engage with him, & David & Nick that one last time. I wish there had been more."

Monday evening's Radcliffe and Maconie Show on BBC Radio 2 included a 21 minute tribute to Richard, part of which was an interview with Alan Parsons, engineer on Dark Side Of The Moon and later, musician in his own right. You can listen to it on demand for the rest of this week, through this link. You need to move forward to the 1 hour, 15 minute point in the show.

A tribute to Richard was also made on Later With... Jools Holland, which started a new series on Tuesday night. Playing Arnold Layne, when Richard, David and the rest of the band appeared on the show previously, Jools mentioned that it was hoped that David would be appearing on next week's show to pay tribute to his late friend.

Finally, to honour Richard, the respected US radio show In The Studio will present a complete, unedited never-before-heard interview by the presenter Redbeard with Richard during the week of September 29th. "Echoes: Richard Wright Tribute 1943-2008" will feature an exclusive interview from 1994 where he talks about his entire career with Pink Floyd, his favourite albums, his leaving, his rejoining late during the making of Momentary Lapse, and his hopes for the future of the band.

More details, including airing times, can be found at InTheStudio.net. Click on the tab at the top of the homepage marked "On the Radio" for the station in your area; there's a link to each station's website for exact day, time, and radio frequency. If there's not a station in your area, and remember it is only being broadcast in the US, Redbeard will post the entire interview on his website from Monday, October 6th.