“He was a very significant part of what we did”
Gilmour and friends on a very special relationship with fallen bandmate Rick Wright
THE presence of Rick Wright on “Luck nd Strange” is the latest posthumous appearance from the Floyd’s talismanic keyboard player. Following Wright’s untimely death on September 15, 2008, aged only 65, Gilmour has continued to honour the closeness forged between the two bandmates during their many decades together. When Gilmour assumed stewardship of the Floyd in 1985, for instance, among his first tasks was to bring the absent Wright back into the fold.
Even after Pink Floyd went on hiatus after The Division Bell Tour finished in October 1994, Wright continued to work with Gilmour – playing on his 2006 album On An Island and the subsequent tour, where “Echoes” was a highlight of the set.
“They had a great time,” Floyd’s longterm engineer Andy Jackson told Uncut in 2014. “They hadn’t been on-stage together for an awfully long time. Particularly smaller stages. Doing a theatre tour, they can see the whites of each other’s eyes. Things like that middle bit of ‘Echoes’, where they’re trading licks, they’re looking at each other and getting that spark again. David was full of how much he enjoyed playing with Rick again, how secial it was. In some ways, with Rick coming back into the band after not having been involved in The Final Cut at all, then the remoteness of the whole thing when it got so huge, then finding it again, it was almost like a second honeymoon.”
After his death, previously unheard historic recordings of Wright became central to Floyd’s The Endless River album, notably a rehearsal piece recorded on the Royal Albert Hall pipe organ from 1969.
“The album is a tribute to Rick,” Gilmour told Uncut in 2014. “To me, it’s very evocative and emotional in a lot of moments. And certainly listening to all the stuff made me regret his passing all over again. This is the last chance someone will get to hear him just playing along with us in that way that he did.”
“Having lost Rick, it really brought home what a special player he was,” added Nick Mason. “I think that was one of the elements that caught us up in it and made us think we really out to do something with this.”
Wright’s speaking voice also appeared on “A Boat Lies Waiting” from 2015’s Rattle That Lock. “Rick loved sailing,” Gilmour told us at the time. “It was his prime love.
“I miss his ability and our common intuition, or telepathy,” he continued.
“A lot of songs remind me of Rick. He was a very significant but understated part of what we did.”