Rick Wright: Overrated or Irreplacable?

My post from the Unsung Heroes thread....

I nominate Rick Wright

All the kudos in Floyd goes to Gilmour and Waters and while they were probably the fulcrum around which the most creative aspects of Floyd swung, Rick's contribution was always phenomenal.

Check out his synth work on 'Animals' - it totally informs the cold, stark and often vicious ambience of the whole album and IMO is as crucial to the feel of that great album as Gilmour's outstanding guitar playing.

His playing on Echoes is awesome - understated yes, but always atmospheric, fluid and beautful.

His hammond, piano, clavinet and synth washes on Shine On are simply superb and always 'on message' - there's not a stray chord or note on there, everything he does is tasteful and clever. Perfect prog 'minimalism'.

And to have contributed Great Gig in the Sky and Us and Them to one of prog's key recordings makes him a true unsung hero.

Not the most technically gifted player, Wright makes up for a lack of showy (for that often read pointless) chops with taste, a considered style and a brilliant sense of when less is more. Great ear for melody too.

Rick Wright unsung hero

Rick was/is indeed highly talented, and a key part of PF around the time of DSOTM. Unfortunately, he did rather let the band down later, appearing to become completely disinterested in contributing anything towards "The wall".

Now I know that was very much Roger's baby, but given the icy relationship betwen Waters and Gilmour at the time, it is significant that they agreed that Wright was out of order.

His solo albums show him to be immensly creative, but he does seem to have been his own worst enemy at times.

Hi Everybody,

I think the matter here is the Style of each keybordist.

The style of Mr. Wright is complettely differnet of Wakeman's or Emerson's. The great quality of Wright is "build climax"(I don't know how to express this in English), but his keyboard is not a vituoso faster solo style, but makes the pillar of the sound of Pink Floyd.

To be original is very important to me, and he is ! He doesn't copy any other keybordist. He just plays Rick Wright's Pink Floyd sound, and he is brilliant !

Best Greetings

It appears the people seem to underestimate the value of Rick Wright to Pink Floyd. Just look at the differences between The Division Bell and Wright-less albums like The Final Cut and A Momentary Lapse of Reason. TDB has so much more atmosphere then its recent predecessors, like on Marooned or Cluster One. Wright was probably the leading contributor to the Pink Floyd sound. I doubt Pink Floyd could have recovered from the loss of Syd Barrett without Rick.

maani wrote: He was an important contributor from the start.  However, by the time of Dark Side and Wish You Were Here, his contributions were absolutely critical.  And, as many have inferred, there  simply would not have been an "Animals" (my favorite PF album) without him. It is also interesting that no one has mentioned The Wall: for all the drubbing it gets, Wright's contributions are my favorite part, especially his amazing organ work.  Indeed, his work on "Babe, Don't Leave Me Now" is among the spookiest, most amazing keyboard work on any PF track. Peace.

I think you are giving credit where it is not due there Maani. Wright by his own admission barely contributed a note to "The wall". Dave Gilmour says that "an awful lot of the keyboard parts were done by me, Roger, Bob Ezrin, Michael Kamen (and) Freddie Mandell". Waters wrote keyboard parts for Wright to play, but Wright declined the offer to come in and record them, hence he was fired by Waters.

The section on "The wall" in the recent Q magazine special on Pink Floyd has the full story of the album in the words of the four band members. While their opinions differ, their recollections of what happened and who did what, are surprisingly consistent.