Vaknade tråkigt nog till nyheten av Richard Wright, en av grundarna av samt organist och tidvis låtskrivare i Pink Floyd, gått bort efter en kort tids kamp mot cancer. Rick blev 65 år gammal. Jag brukar inte beröras överdrivet mycket när “kända människor” går bort, men detta var en av mina stora hjältar. Hans insats i episka Echoes, som för övrigt är en av mina absoluta favoritlåtar alla kategorier, kommer alltid att sitta djupt inetsat i mitt hjärta. Den bittra sanningen är väl tyvärr att många av de största inom musikvärlden sakta men säkert börjat gå bort nu. Den egoistiska sidan av mig sörjer så klart även att jag inte hann se honom live, men det känns inte fullt så viktigt på det stora hela.
No one can replace Richard Wright. He was 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.
David Gilmour
Monday 15th September 2008
Det är dags för Rick att avnjuta sitt Great Gig In The Sky nu, vila i frid.
