Richard Wright on Jools Holland - WHY?!

Discuss all things Richard Wright from his epic keyboarding to the wonderful songs he created for the band!
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oz1701
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Re: Richard Wright on Jools Holland - WHY?!

Post by oz1701 »

whilst i agree with what you say - there is still no doubt in my mind that poor foldback also played a part.

it would not surprise me considering the nature of the show - with so many bands being mixed in the same period of time.

certainly there are ways to get around poor monitoring but not when you need both hands on a keyboard.

experience would allow a musician to stay "relatively" in key. that isn't the same as actually in key though is it ?

as for the sustain on longer notes - well as you say - age is the culprit there - most vocalists deliberately shorten those notes and change the register they sing the song in to compensate. i know greg lake and pat benatar both do that.

the actual mix that we heard is not that bad - all the instruments seem keyed properly and there was enough room left for the vocals. if his voice was 20 years younger i have no doubt he would have got away with it - bad monitoring not withstanding.
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Re: Richard Wright on Jools Holland - WHY?!

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oz1701 wrote:experience would allow a musician to stay "relatively" in key. that isn't the same as actually in key though is it ?
Perhaps I should have been a little more specific on this point. By relatively in key I meant within normal human variances. There are very few people who can sing completely in key, pitch perfect, and Rick has been the member of the Floyd to come the closest to it, as he has significantly more musical knowledge than the rest, as well as a superb ear.

Bad foldback not withstanding, his failure to sustain notes was the main problem with the vocal performance. If that wasn't there, he would have sounded just fine to most.

He was clearly struggling with the vocals and I noticed two additional things upon re-hearing the performance:

1. He was short of breath in places and
2. He had the clear look of struggle and mild frustration caused by the difficulty of straining to push vocals out.

So these two things, combined with my original point of not being able to sustain notes, are all indicative of failing voice. You really can't claim bad mixing as a reason for it because they heard the same mix as we did (given that they were not wearing headphones) and they heard it several times louder at that. The instrument parts were loud enough for him to sing to. There is no doubt. Unless he is going deaf, this shouldn't have been a factor at all.
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Re: Richard Wright on Jools Holland - WHY?!

Post by oz1701 »

maybe he is going deaf - he has been in the music business for years - or maybe he has wax in his ears.

he did look a bit strained - i put that down to him not singing regularly.

what was the idea of making him sing in the first place - surely there would have been some rehearsal that would have shown up his limitations - gilmour could have sung the song instead.
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Re: Richard Wright on Jools Holland - WHY?!

Post by bpmolder »

I agree that rust could have contributed to it significantly.

As far as why he was allowed to proceed, I honestly believe it has to do with Gilmour just not giving that much of a damn.
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Re: Richard Wright on Jools Holland - WHY?!

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bpmolder wrote:I agree that rust could have contributed to it significantly.

As far as why he was allowed to proceed, I honestly believe it has to do with Gilmour just not giving that much of a damn.
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Re: Richard Wright on Jools Holland - WHY?!

Post by bpmolder »

I know that this is totally speculative and doesn't have one ounce of fact behind it, but the question is brought to my mind:

If you are bending over backwards to get your post-Floyd solo work to overshadow your work with the Floyd, what would be one way to go about it? Wouldn't butchering the classics help to turn people off?

Like I said, it's just a thought and not at all based on tangible facts, but I often wonder.
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Re: Richard Wright on Jools Holland - WHY?!

Post by Syd'sSexy »

Farbeit from me to jump into the middle of a debate, but :lol:

Rick has been a smoker for probably 40 years, if not longer, and still smokes. No doubt it has taken its toll on the quality of his voice (in addition to his age) and accounts for his shortness of breath.

I have the 2006 Arnold Layne single with Rick's vocals, and his voice sounds just fine. I'm not totally blaming the engineers, but it seems apparent to me that something could and should have been done in the control booth....
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Re: Richard Wright on Jools Holland - WHY?!

Post by snifferdog »

Maybe they didn't get a chance to record it a second time. I don't know what the recording schedule is like for Later.... but there would've been other acts to get through as well. I don't believe that David wanted Rick to sound bad, didn't care that he sounded bad or was setting out to make Pink Floyd songs sound bad :lol:

SS has a point about Rick's smoking. Who's to say either that he wasn't a bit under the weather on that day - maybe he had a cold or something.
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Re: Richard Wright on Jools Holland - WHY?!

Post by Damn!t »

It's not here a case that he sounded bad becouse he is a smoker imo.
He is just getting too old and too deaf.
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Re: Richard Wright on Jools Holland - WHY?!

Post by snifferdog »

Whaaaaaaaaaaa???? :lol:
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Re: Richard Wright on Jools Holland - WHY?!

Post by rememberthatnight »

as my name is rememberthatnight i think i can help on this matter.


On the dvd remember that night, richard says that he finds it difficult to be able to reach the high vocal points on arnold layne and feels uncomfortable singing this song due to this problem. But this is not the only time i have found that richard's voice is somewhat "dissapointing" cause some of the songs on RTN that richard sings, he sings badly. If you watch the P.U.LS.E DVD and compare the way he sings breathe to how he does on RTN you will understand that age and smoking can seriously take its toll on your voice.

All i can say is that it is very 'unfortunate', as David and richard had a very similar voice, but after time richards voice fails him. Its a shame!
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Re: Richard Wright on Jools Holland - WHY?!

Post by Annoying Twit »

rememberthatnight wrote:as my name is rememberthatnight i think i can help on this matter.


On the dvd remember that night, richard says that he finds it difficult to be able to reach the high vocal points on arnold layne and feels uncomfortable singing this song due to this problem. But this is not the only time i have found that richard's voice is somewhat "dissapointing" cause some of the songs on RTN that richard sings, he sings badly. If you watch the P.U.LS.E DVD and compare the way he sings breathe to how he does on RTN you will understand that age and smoking can seriously take its toll on your voice.

All i can say is that it is very 'unfortunate', as David and richard had a very similar voice, but after time richards voice fails him. Its a shame!
With Rick, I don't think it's just hitting the notes. He seems to be doing strange things with the vocal rhythm too. I wonder if he spends enough time singing/practicing singing. It seems odd as singers who aren't as good as they once were, e.g. through smoking, usually still get the rhythm right.
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Re: Richard Wright on Jools Holland - WHY?!

Post by Annoying Twit »

duplicate post. please delete.
Last edited by Annoying Twit on Thu Feb 21, 2008 7:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Richard Wright on Jools Holland - WHY?!

Post by Annoying Twit »

edit: duplicate post, due to struggling with the server.
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Re: Richard Wright on Jools Holland - WHY?!

Post by 2066 »

Syd'sSexy wrote:I have the 2006 Arnold Layne single with Rick's vocals, and his voice sounds just fine. I'm not totally blaming the engineers, but it seems apparent to me that something could and should have been done in the control booth....
I agree with you SS. I've heard several RoIO recordings of him singing on Dave's recent tour and admittedly his voice is more husky now (not an entirely bad thing IMO), but his pitch was fine.