Death of a musical hero. And thank you for the music that changed me from a boy to a man.

There are days you never expect and today was one of them. The death of a real artist always upsets me, as it's a piece of colour taken from the world. But, when someone dies who in their own way inputted into the development of your life as a teenager, whose musical band changed the way you viewed the world, it really can shake you. Yesterday, one of the founder members of, arguably, by me, the greatest bands in the world, Pink Floyd, Rick Wright died of a short lived battle against an unnamed form of cancer.
Pink Floyd almost blew up my world as a fifteen year old when, late on evening I was up just watching some crazy television, when I came across a film which intrigued me because it documented the life of a pop musician, whose father died in the war and then descended into madness. The film was called the Wall, a film by Pink Floyd of the eponymous album and I was hooked as it was a masterpiece of sound and the story was so thoughtful. It was this film that caused me to search out the Pink Floyd back catalogue and I became an addicted fan to their undoubted musical greatness. Rick wright helped found the floyd in the late sixties and progressed them from Pschydelic underground legends into mainstream driven by the lyrical genius of roger waters and the musical strengths of wright and gilmour. Wrights keyboard skills underpined so much of the floyds sound in the 70's until Waters removed him from the band pre-the wall. To me his greatest moments were from the Dark side of the moon and wish you were here. The two strongest musically the band released. Here is Wrights major contribution to the wish you were here album, from 1975.



I was fortunate enough to be at these Pulse concerts at Earls court in 1994, it was my first ever concert. They were my favourite band and I never felt I could recreate that feeling, that night was amazing. wrights haunting keyboard on this song just used to be able to make the hairs on my neck stand up.

From the dark side of the moon, He wrote the following song, another Floyd classic, and a little piece of trivia here, the great gig in the sky was voted by austrlian males as the song of choice when they have sex.



The work and genius of Rick Wright, will no doubt be buried unfairly under the two other creative giants that led, and ultimately destroyed the Pink Floyd, Dave Gilmour and Roger waters. But without the input of Rick Wright then they would have sounded an awfully lot different and would never have reached the heights, especially in the 1970's that made them a supergroup, he gave them a professionalism and his importance cannot be underestimated. He was a naturally shy man and that's one of the reasons he was fired from the band by rogers and bought back by gilmour for a momentary lapse in reason and the division bell. Rick Wright was a musician of the highest order and a fine man. I am saddend by his loss. Thank you for the music and thank you for providing that young boy with an insight into how the world wasn't perfect and how it needs questioning.