I was a teenager once, which means that I owned the biggest album of 1973 -- Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon. I first got hooked as a wet-behind-the-ears high-school freshman when my best friend dubbed it for me on cassette, then bought the vinyl and finally embracing my addiction to their gravity-defying psychedelic rock. I soon graduated to 1975's Wish You Were Here and 1979's The Wall. Dark Side of The Moon went on to sell over 40 million copies and spend 14 years -- years -- on the Billboard 200album chart!
Later, in college, when trying to impress the gatekeepers at my school's radio station, I whiled away hours decoding 1969's sticky, experimental Ummagumma. Had I logged as many hours studying for my finals or dumbly plucking away at the Pentatonic scale on my friend's electric guitar, it's possible I'd be an entirely different person today. A slight exaggeration, maybe, but it's hard to overestimate the influence the titans of U.K. space rock have had on my life, and the music that so frequently guides it.
Richard Wright, who died today at 65 after a battle with cancer, was a founding member and keyboardist for Pink Floyd. While not as famous in his own right as the late guitarist-vocalist Syd Barrett and guitarist-vocalist Dave Gilmour, he was instrumental in the development of the iconic Floyd sound -- the anthemic organ swells, the layered synth riffs. He wrote a few of their big hits, including Dark Side's "The Great Gig in the Sky" and "Us And Them," and worked on songs such as "Atom Heart Mother," "Echoes" and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond." Roger Waters famously fired Wright during the recording of The Wall, and Wright was relegated to session-musician status for years, during which he released two solo albums, Wet Dream, in 1978, and Broken China, in 1996. But even from the sidelines, Wright devoted most of his musical life to Pink Floyd.
Chances are good that you or your friends experienced some sort of Pink Floyd phase when you were younger. I hope so. All I will add is, thanks for helping open those doors, Richard. And hope to see you one day at that great gig in the sky.
