Rick Wright died today.

Richard William Wright (28 July 1943 - 15 September 2008) was a self-taught pianist and keyboardist best known for his long career with Pink Floyd. Though not as prolific a songwriter as his bandmates Syd Barrett, Roger Waters and David Gilmour, he did write significant parts of the music for classic albums such as Meddle, Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here, as well as for Pink Floyd's final studio album The Division Bell. 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," "Echoes," and on the Syd Barrett composition "Astronomy Domine"). Wright died on 15 September 2008, following a short battle with cancer.

I was a big fan way back when. Floyd was a real trendsetter and their albums still hold up well. Last I heard "Dark Side of the Moon" was one of the most popular albums ever and it still sells. No music collection is complete without one or two Pink Floyd albums.

Wright is dead but the music of Pink Floyd will live on.

Animals
Wish You Were Here
The Wall
The Division Bell

I actually don't care too much for their other albums.

Dark Side of the Moon
Wish You Were Here
A Momentary Lapse of Reason
The Wall
Echoes

Are the ones I like the most.


The Division Bell is OK but not the best work they have done.

I bought this really strange album when I read 'Carefull with that axe Eugene.' I knew my older, pre Beatles and Beach Boys brother would hate it.

My first 8 track in the cutting edge aftermarket player stuffed into my MGA coupe was Dark Side of the Moon. It was playing the night I barreled into a unplanned 4 wheel drift on the Old Pass Road and almost took out some of the Manson Gang walking stoned down the middle.

That was replaced by a LP and cassette tape.

I finally upgraded to a CD one day at Borders Books. The cashier, adorned with multiple facial piercings and stovetop blacking for hair colouring looked at it while chewing Beetle Nuts. She mumbled some unrecorded tribal patois of english about my buying the CD for my kids. i said something in my patois and walked out.

I went to the last independant music store locally.
The owner had the ponytail and personality like the comicbook salesman on the Simpsons. he said " cool, where were you when you first heard it?"

Wasn't 'Careful with that axe Eugene' also a song on one of their albums?

I rooted around a bit here but couldn't find it:
http://www.pinkfloyd-co.com/disco/disc_idx.html

On the other hand it is a neat site. It reminded me of my albums many years ago. Good times. I had all the albums through "The Wall".

I would record them onto 90 minute cassettes, anyone here remember cassettes, so it was one album per side. Cassettes were a big improvement in convenience and portability over albums.

I wore out the cassette with "dark Side of the Moon" on one side a "Wish You Were Here" on the other three or four times. Always making a new one when one wore out.

Funny thing is a while ago a kid heard me listening to "Wish You were Here" and started getting into it. She turned to me and said they must be a 'new group' because she hadn't heard of them before. I neglected to point out that yes, they were new, twenty years before she was born they were new. LOL.

Ummagumma was released in 1969 with CWTAE one of the tracks. Syd Barret was still into rather interesting music before mental illness overcame his creativity.
I found the album at the start of my High School days when everybody else was turning summer of love Hippycrite.
I stuck with these wierd brit bands like The Kinks. My mother thought LOLA was 'A sweet song' and never really listened to the lyrics closely.

In 1974 I was attending Arctic Survival School. I managed to smuggle a box of hershey bars in my Parka and two cassete tapes: Floyd and Hendrix. My CPO somehow brought a BOOM BOX and Frank Sinatra.

I traded chocolate for playing time in between Old Blue Eyes (who I've appreciated ever since.)
We were sitting out, watching the Northern Lights, eating contraband Hershey bars and drinking also verboten Jack Daniels.

Sometime between ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER, NEW YORK NEW YORK and SET The CONTROLS FOR THE HEART OF THE SUN, every snowbunny, squirrel, ptarmigan ,mouse and vole within 25 miles caught a plane for Seattle.

Those poor USAF and Navy guys starved trying to catch something in those deadfall traps. Us Coasties just kept a very strong disciplined rationing of JD, Chocolate and fruitcake behind the Spruce treees. I've never really put much effort into snares since then.

Amazing what you could sew into those old issue parkas!

I _LOVE_ Ummagumma. Put on Granchester Meadows, and I just chill. Astronomy Domonie - ahh. Meddle is also great. What can be said about Dark Side and Wish you were here. Animals is also great, but I'd say 1/2 step down.

Now, you know a real PF fan when they have albums like Atom Heart Mother (Fairly good) and Obscured By Clouds (which I have, but really don't like)

Gees, back aboard ship in the IO, I had my own boombox and a collection of cassette albums of various gendres. One of my favorites was the Cheech and Chong collection I was amassing then. My problem was that when I would play one of those cassettes, the deck division would gather and huddle around in adoration (deck division in the late 70s and early 80s being comprised of mostly those who could well associate with the Cheech and Chong lifestyle). So to avoid having the JG confiscate my player, I would alternate out to a Pink Floyd or Alan Parsons or Roxy Music album and most of the deck apes would straggle off, leaving behind the cliff diggers as we called them in Sandoggy, or acid heads. They were no count anyways, having traded away their ambition to try and find a way to cope with the monotony of doing circles in the sea.

For some reason, those acid heads really enjoyed the Ummagumma cassette, especially the track "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict". I thought it was interesting, but they were always captivated by it. Go figure.

Sad news...Strangely I'm wore a Pink Floyd T-shirt to work today...

Ummaguma, Meddle, Atom Heart Mother - all early, trend-setting stuff, but it wasn't until Dark Side came out that Pink Floyd really took off...and never landed.

The Wall was good, previously Wish You were Here was fantastic, Animals, The Division Bell, (Echoes I have not heard)... what a great band, paving the way for same era ELP, Yes, and Genesis, and even for the later, more obscure, Hawkwind.

Now, these are memories.... Good Thread!

Echoes is a best of CD.

Pink Floyd was not my cup of tea. I was more into Iron Maiden and neoclassical shred guitar heroes like the Swedish guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen that I would listen in my bulky yellow weatherproof Sony Sports walkman. It's been replaced by a small iPod Shuffle lately.

Frankie

I thought Echoes was the B side of Meddle.

Not forgetting of course, Pink Floyds 'The Final Cut' album with ' Two Suns in the Sunset (WARNING utterly depressing) and The Fletcher Memorial Home. This is one of Pink Floyds most underated albums along with 'Obscured by Clouds'.

It has stuff from the Wall, Wish You were Here Dark Side of the Moon and others.

I'm not keen on their earlier stuff. For me Atom Heart Mother is getting there, and with Meddle (with Echoes) they've arrived. I like everything they've done since. I saw The Wall in concert at Earl's Court when they first toured with it. I think The Division Bell is among their best work.

(I also like Yes, and mid-period Genesis. People go on about their decline after Peter Gabriel left, but for me A Trick of the Tail is one of their best albums.)

A Trick of the Tail was one of their best, I think, and Peter Gabriel continues to produce good music. It seemed to me though that Pink Floyd was on the front end of that style of "off the wall", somewhat synthesized, music. If they didn;t necessarily pave the way, they were abreast of the others that did!

It's funny that, while there were plenty of good, solid, American rock-and-roll bands, there were so very many British bands that really set the mark for good music... and in many ways, they paved the way and set the tone for American bands.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b008hs1m

Good documentary.

I'll just say that my dog is named Seamus.