Monday, 15 September 2008 16:59 UK

Floyd founder Wright dies at 65

BBC News

 

Pink Floyd keyboard player and founder member Richard Wright has died aged 65 from cancer.

 

Wright appeared on the group's first album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, in 1967 alongside lead guitarist Syd Barrett, Roger Waters and Nick Mason.

 

Dave Gilmour joined the band at the start of 1968 while Barrett left the group shortly afterwards.

 

Wright penned songs on classic albums including Dark Side Of The Moon and Wish You Were Here.

 

Wright's spokesman said: "The family of Richard Wright, founder member of Pink Floyd, announce with great sadness that Richard died today after a short struggle with cancer.

 

"The family have asked that their privacy is respected at this difficult time."

 

Your thoughts on this very sad news?

 

 

I can't believe no one has commented on this....

 

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 wrote 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 were 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").

 

Pink Floyd - Time (1973)

 

Pink Floyd - Echoes (1971)

 

Pink Floyd - Intersteller Overdrive (1967)

 

And his most famous composition and now most apt......

 

Pink Floyd - The Great Gig In The Sky (1973)

 

Very sad to hear of his death, Pink Floyd were one of the best bands in the late 60's and 70's. Will dig out my old LP's and play them again. RIP

gotta be online to comment richard :)

 

well any news of a death is sad, especially when the person concerned has enriched your life with something they have done.

 

but, im not overly fussed, i never knew him and im no fan of most of pink floyds music at all....

It is indeed very sad news. I listened to The Greatest Gig In The Sky last night after hearing the news and it was a very fitting tribute to the man. I suppose the lack of comment is a reflection of the age profile of most members here.

 

David Gilmour is due to be on Later... next week so there should be a suitable tribute there.

I created another thread (that now is inside Specialist Music) without knowing that such big announcements have to be inside so small forums :cry: Agreed that maybe the first Buzzjack page does not concern anyone, but this is such a sad thing that persons over Buzzjack should really read and at least listen to a Pink Floyd song before saying: Oh well, britney is still alive :D

 

Last Saturday, inside the club where I am resident there was a themed night for Back To School... And the frist track I selected was "Another Brick In The wall"... Sadly after 2 days the founder of the group died, and I cannot tell all of you the athmosphere this song created in the club twice that it was played :teresa:

RIP Rick , considering this is the main htread where at least a few persons understand music on buzzjack :( xox.

. I suppose the lack of comment is a reflection of the age profile of most members here.

 

...or maybe because we aint fans..

...or maybe because we aint fans..

 

Even if I know you well because of your posting life on Buzzjack, I.M.O. that it's sad to hear these words :(

If a person does not know the original at leat from "The Wall", you might remember Prydz's remix at the beginning of 2007 :o

Pink Floyd is one of the biggest bands in the music universe B) Even if you're not a fan (so I'm worried what you're a fan of...)

 

gotta be online to comment richard :)

 

well any news of a death is sad, especially when the person concerned has enriched your life with something they have done.

 

but, im not overly fussed, i never knew him and im no fan of most of pink floyds music at all....

 

I'm a pacient person so I kinda read all the thread beforen editing my post :D He did not make our life better, he just changed the life of a planet :P At least, even if you're not a fan, think about this about the artists that you're a fan of, and when they'll die, nobody is gonna care about (at least I used Pink Floyd as an opening song last Saturday :unsure: *sad thingy*).... How about you fancy artists? Some Dj will open a night 30 years from now? :D xox.

Edited September 18, 200816 yr by Cornholio

Even if I know you well because of your posting life on Buzzjack, I.M.O. that it's sad to hear these words :(

If a person does not know the original at leat from "The Wall", you might remember Prydz's remix at the beginning of 2007 :o

Pink Floyd is one of the biggest bands in the music universe B) Even if you're not a fan (so I'm worried what you're a fan of...)

I'm a pacient person so I kinda read all the thread beforen editing my post :D He did not make our life better, he just changed the life of a planet :P At least, even if you're not a fan, think about this about the artists that you're a fan of, and when they'll die, nobody is gonna care about (at least I used Pink Floyd as an opening song last Saturday :unsure: *sad thingy*).... How about you fancy artists? Some Dj will open a night 30 years from now? :D xox.

 

m8...get over it, i dont like pink floyd (post 1970), im old enough now to have witnessed many rock/pop stars untimely death, so the death of this geezer whos work i PERSONALLY didnt like isnt going to move me one bit. dont preach to me about floyd... i was there, i grew up with them, i am fully aware of their impact and popularity on rock, but simply put... i dont like them!

A founder member of one of the world's greatest bands of the late 60'/70

 

R.I.P. Richard

 

Arnold Lane - the first single peaking at #20 in 1967

 

See Emily Play - the top 10 follow-up

Edited September 18, 200816 yr by Euro Music

A founder member of one of the world's greatest bands of the late 60'/70

 

R.I.P. Richard

 

Arnold Lane - the first single peaking at #20 in 1967

 

See Emily Play - the top 10 follow-up

 

... i wont argue against those sound tracks though... 'arnold layne' was cutting edge, tackling transvesticism, and the stealing of underwear of washing lines .... how bizarre! itd be rather risque even today.

gotta be online to comment richard :)

 

well any news of a death is sad, especially when the person concerned has enriched your life with something they have done.

 

but, im not overly fussed, i never knew him and im no fan of most of pink floyds music at all....

 

i suppose in this case it could be said that there are more important people to have died this week....*

 

Norman Whitfield - Guardian Obit

He co-wrote and produced some of Motown's greatest hits

 

by Dave Laing The Guardian, Friday September 19 2008

 

The success of the Motown "hit factory", founded in the 1960s by Berry Gordy, was built on the creative contributions of a large team of songwriters, musicians and producers - of which Norman Whitfield, who has died aged 67 of complications associated with diabetes, was arguably among the half-dozen most vital members. He co-wrote such classics as I Heard It Through the Grapevine, War, and Papa Was a Rollin' Stone, and among those whose records he produced were Gladys Knight, Marvin Gaye and the Temptations.

 

Whitfield was born in Harlem, where his main achievement was to become a skilled pool player. He told later interviewers that his family had settled in Detroit after their car broke down there while returning from an aunt's funeral in California. After high school, he exchanged pool for music and produced records for the small Thelma Records label, including one by Richard Street, a future member of the Temptations. He also hung around the Motown studios, observing the production process until Gordy was persuaded to give him a job.

 

A former car worker, Gordy borrowed the idea of a quality control department from the automobile industry, and in 1961 Whitfield became its first head. He was paid $15 a week to lend a critical ear to new recordings by Motown staff, a job he said "consisted of being totally honest about what records you were listening to". He graded the tracks for Gordy's monthly staff meeting, where decisions were made on which should be released.

 

Soon dissatisfied with quality control, Whitfield fought to be allowed to create records himself. This involved competing with such established figures as Smokey Robinson, but he got his first opportunities in 1964 with lesser Motown groups, co-writing and producing Needle in a Haystack by the Velvelettes and Too Many Fish in the Sea by the Marvelettes. These records brought him the chance to work with the Temptations, already one of Motown's elite groups. After one of Robinson's productions flopped, Whitfield took over for Ain't Too Proud to Beg, a No 1 R&B hit in 1966 that was later recorded by the Rolling Stones.

 

For the next couple of years, he and Robinson shared production duties until Whitfield became the Temptations' sole producer in 1968. This heralded a six-year run of scintillating records with the group, many written with Barrett Strong, whose 1960 hit Money was covered by the Beatles in 1963.

 

Strong and Whitfield skilfully merged newer soul and psychedelic influences with Motown's traditional instrumental and vocal strengths. Although Whitfield had his overall concept of each song, it would be created as a studio recording through controlled experimentation and improvisation by the musicians under the producer's guidance. "It took a lot of research and I really consider myself somewhat of a perfectionist," he told writer Nelson George. "I don't like to speculate and I don't like to take chances with my guys."

 

A typical example of Whitfield's Motown-soul approach was I Wish It Would Rain, a 1968 Temptations hit, which found the group's Jimmy Ruffin emoting like a southern soul virtuoso with seagull and thunderstorm sound effects added by Whitfield. But the greatest of Whitfield and Strong's songs was undoubtedly I Heard It Through the Grapevine, first released by Gladys Knight and the Pips in a tambourine-driven version in 1967 and recreated in equally dynamic versions in 1968 with Marvin Gaye and the Temptations.

 

The psychedelic Cloud Nine in 1968 (Motown's first Grammy-winning record) was in many ways a homage to Sly Stone, who Whitfield said showed him that record production was "the science of sound". This was followed by Psychedelic Shack and Ball of Confusion (both 1970) and Papa Was a Rollin' Stone (1972). The lyrics of these songs concerned social and political issues of the day, though not always so coherently as War, the Whitfield-Strong protest anthem memorably sung with strategic grunts by Edwin Starr in 1970.

 

By the mid-1970s, Motown had moved its operations to California and many of its leading figures had left. In 1974, Whitfield joined the exodus after Warner Bros offered to finance his own record label. He took with him his last Motown "acid-soul" group, the Undisputed Truth, but the Whitfield label initially yielded few hits. His greatest post-Motown success came when he was asked to create the soundtrack for the 1976 film Car Wash. He wrote the lyrics of the disco-styled title song on a Kentucky Fried Chicken wrapper after watching a basketball game and used Rose Royce, a group of former Motown singers and musicians, to perform it. Both song and film were massive hits, and Whitfield produced several more hits for the group.

 

In the 1980s, he went into semi-retirement, occasionally appearing at music industry functions. He returned to the spotlight in 2005 when he pleaded guilty to tax evasion charges. The case revealed that even in the late 1990s he had been earning more than $500,000 a year from royalties as his songs were reissued, re-recorded and used in more than 50 film soundtracks. He was sentenced to six months in prison and fined $25,000, but was spared jail in favour of home detention on account of his failing health.

 

· Norman Jesse Whitfield, songwriter and record producer, born May 12 1941; died September 16 2008