Richard Wright's Best Musical Moments

Discuss all things Richard Wright from his epic keyboarding to the wonderful songs he created for the band!
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rememberaday
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Re: Richard Wright's Best Musical Moments

Post by rememberaday »

Enish wrote:
rememberaday wrote:The Violent Sequence and Us and Them :D
I especially love this version of "The Violent Sequence"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7JosSWF6mQ
Me too. Rick is my favourite Floydian after Syd. 8)

I also like Paintbox, another great underrated song. Summer '68 ain't that bad either.
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Re: Richard Wright's Best Musical Moments

Post by thefinalcut »

The Great Gig In The Sky
Eclipse
Us & Them
Have a Cigar
Mudmen
Sheep (?)

I´m not very much into Rick´s contribution to Floyd, sorry!
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Re: Richard Wright's Best Musical Moments

Post by duffOnTheRun »

1-Great Gig
2-Us and Them
3-Echoes
4-A Saucerful of Secrets
5- Shine on you crazy diamond
6-Times
7-Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
8-Remember a day
9-Breakthrough
10-Wearing the inside out

Special mentions for Sheep and Stay!

"As for the man and his work, it is hard to overstate the importance of his musical voice in the Pink Floyd of the '60s and '70s. The intriguing, jazz influenced, modulations and voicings so familiar in 'Us and Them' and 'Great Gig in the Sky,' which lent those compositions both their extraordinary humanity and their majesty, are omnipresent in all the collaborative work the four of us did in those times. Rick's ear for harmonic progression was our bedrock."

-Roger Water, 2008
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Re: Richard Wright's Best Musical Moments

Post by Hudini »

'Breakthrough' from 'Broken China' is simply beautiful. I only wish Wright sang it on the album, like he did live.
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Re: Richard Wright's Best Musical Moments

Post by Wolfpack »

jambo wrote:While Rick did sing Stay, it was Roger who wrote the lyrics.
I... I... didn't know that. :shock:

Wikipedia says that 'Stay' indeed written by Roger Waters, so it must be true. ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stay_%28Pink_Floyd_song%29

My Wright favorites:
- 'Remember a Day' (great, great, GREAT)
- 'See Saw'
- Wright working with Barrett, in Pink Floyd and solo
- 'A Saucerful of Secrets' (track) (organ)
- 'Cirrus Minor' (organ)
- 'Atom Heart Mother' (track) (organ and whatever other keyboards)
- 'Sheep' (intro)
- 'The Great Gig in the Sky' (hardly a Wright composition: Clare Torry does most of the work)
- 'Us and Them' (maybe also hardly a Wright composition: I guess Waters did most of the work)
- 'Summer of '68' (mostly for the backing vocals, not by Wright)
- 'It Would Be So Nice' (good composition, but recorded as being too manic)
- 'Sysyphus' (for its creativity)

I like 'Paintbox', but mostly for Barrett's guitar work.
(Is that really Barrett playing so bright, in the fall of 1967?)

And maybe 'Mademoiselle Nobs' ('Seamus' on 'Live at Pompeii'), using a dog?
It seems to me that Wright is pinching the dog, to get it howling? :shock:
My cats say that I shouldn't worry, because they think dogs are stupid anyway. :P

Worst musical moment, as far as I know:
- 'Wearing the Inside Out'
(Maybe it's mostly the dull performance that ruins this composition for me.)
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Re: Richard Wright's Best Musical Moments

Post by Hudini »

Wolfpack wrote:'Us and Them' (maybe also hardly a Wright composition: I guess Waters did most of the work)
'Us And Them' has the same situation as 'Stay': music by Wright, lyrics by Waters.

Wright recorded an early version on piano only in 1970, while the band worked on the soundtrack for 'Zabriskie Point'. It was ultimately dropped from the film (another case of "leftover" ;) ), but it was later re-arranged for the full band, fitted with lyrics and recorded for DSOTM.

I believe you can hear the original piano version on YouTube somewhere, titled 'Violent Sequence'. You will notice that all the harmonies from 'Us And Them' are already present there.

And it's another beautiful Rick Wright moment... And today is six years (already!) since he passed away. May he rest in peace.
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Re: Richard Wright's Best Musical Moments

Post by Wolfpack »

Hudini wrote:
Wolfpack wrote:'Us and Them' (maybe also hardly a Wright composition: I guess Waters did most of the work)
'Us And Them' has the same situation as 'Stay': music by Wright, lyrics by Waters.
Who provided the vocal line?
Hudini wrote:['Us and Them'] I believe you can hear the original piano version on YouTube somewhere, titled 'Violent Sequence'. You will notice that all the harmonies from 'Us And Them' are already present there.
Harmonies are much less important than a vocal line, a melody.
Who provided the vocal line?
Hudini wrote:And today is six years (already!) since [Wright] passed away.
Thanks for the reminder.
I'll play 'Remember a Day' at a loud volume! [-D-]
And the organ sequence at the end of the track 'A Saucerful of Secrets'. [-D-]
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Re: Richard Wright's Best Musical Moments

Post by Hudini »

Wolfpack wrote:Harmonies are much less important than a vocal line, a melody.
No, they are not. Melody cannot exist without harmony, whereas harmony doesn't need to have a melody upon it.

It is highly debatable whether a vocal line (or even a solo, for that matter) is actually a composition or simply a piece of arrangement. Per instance, David Gilmour wrote all of his signature Pink Floyd solos, and yet many songs with his best solos are credited solely to Roger Waters.

If you take a listen to 'Violent Sequence', you will notice that all the chord sequences are exactly the same as the ones in 'Us And Them'. And without chord sequences there is nothing to build a melody upon.
Wolfpack wrote:Who provided the vocal line?
It could have been any of them, really. Maybe Waters, because he wrote the lyrics. Maybe Gilmour and Wright, because they sang it. Don't forget that Dick Parry also contributed two solos for which he wasn't credited as a co-writer.

In the end, it doesn't really matter because neither sax solos nor vocal lines define that particular song at all, unlike TGGITS which is a completely different song without Clare Torry's contribution. And yet, Wright has been credited as a sole writer of that one for more than 30 years.
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Re: Richard Wright's Best Musical Moments

Post by azza200 »

thefinalcut wrote:The Great Gig In The Sky
I´m not very much into Rick´s contribution to Floyd, sorry!
Image

seriously???
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Re: Richard Wright's Best Musical Moments

Post by nosaj »

I love Sysyphus.
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Re: Richard Wright's Best Musical Moments

Post by Johnny Feathers »

detritus wrote:Nobody has mentioned Shine on...part IX. Phillistines. :)
I was going to post this very thing. Where the entire piece was certainly a combination of the entire band's talents, part IX is essentially a Richard Wright solo piece, and ends the entire album! It also is arguably the last truly significant thing he contributed to the band before The Division Bell. I love playing this one on piano.
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Re: Richard Wright's Best Musical Moments

Post by raisemyrent »

very true. I ran my old WYWH copy through and through the other day in the car (no comparison to CD quality when you have a good car stereo), and I was almost rediscovering it if you will (I tend to listen to the live version of SOYCD from PULSE), and I truly thought that if I were to listen to it again, I'd say "man, who's that keyboard player?!"
maybe it's because I've been focussing on piano for the last few years, but Rick really does shine on that one (I had to...). he's just good all around. kind of the level that gilmour seems to have maintained (slide guitar, acoustic, scat, talkbox, lead electric, loud, bluesy, trippy, etc plus great vocals). a very balanced record. pound for pound their best to me. followed by TDB and DSOTM tied in second. the wall might not even make the top 5 to me. but that's another topic...

I think it was brought up before, but Rick in pompeii seems like such a pro/boss. and Rick live with Gilmour playing Echoes.
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Re: Richard Wright's Best Musical Moments

Post by Hudini »

I've been to a party Friday night and someone put WYWH on, the album that is. There were ten people in the apartment and most of us sat in silence for the next 45 minutes and some of us might have even cried a little. I almost forgot how beautiful it was. And yes, I agree that Rick particularly shines on it.
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Re: Richard Wright's Best Musical Moments

Post by Phantom Turnip »

It's hard for me to pick just moments from Rick that work for me. All of my favorite PF albums tend to be very Rick-centric (WYWH, TER, AHM, etc.), and I love both of his solo albums to death.
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Re: Richard Wright's Best Musical Moments

Post by Peter Harold »

I wonder if the re-recording of Mr Richard Wrights missing piano parts on "Shine on you crazy Diamond" for the SACD-version was the last thing he ever recorded for Pink Floyd?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxO34OyJ-WE

Shine on,
Peter