As it is, the final legacy that Floyd leave us is the brief reunion in aid of Live 8 in 2005. Perhaps it was better left at that one, one last emotional blowout rather than the inevitable enmities that would have surfaced had Roger Waters and Dave Gilmour had to spend any length of time in one another’s company.
Wright’s contribution to the Floyd has long been overlooked as he and drummer Nick Mason faded into the background, dwarfed by the more obvious gifts – and the more voracious egos – of their two colleagues in the post-Syd Floyd. But Wright was a cornerstone of the band in that golden period through the 1970s when Floyd established themselves at the toppermost of the poppermost as John Lennon once described it, a band second in influence only to The Beatles themselves, a band that sold records and tickets at the same alarming rate as Led Zeppelin.
The myth and the mystery of Floyd – the most faceless megastars in musical history – is such that it’s hard to discern just what contributions each individual made. And in the end, does it matter? The love you take is equal to the love you make, and it’s clear that whatever we might make of them as individuals, Floyd as a unit were loved.
And perhaps Wright most of all. Gilmour and Waters, abrasive and aggressive, are creatures we admire, we revere. But loved? Maybe not. For all that the songs they wrote were often about fragility, vulnerability, collapse, neither man seemed to embody those characteristics as individuals.
Yet Wright did. Quiet, diffident, seemingly out of place in the rock world, the self taught keyboard player appeared to lack confidence in spite of being a consummate musician. A devotee of jazz, hugely influenced by Miles Davis, Wright was of that generation that looked to produce sounds as much as what had been thought of as “music”.
The single note that provided the launch pad for “Echoes”, the piece that really set the tone for ‘70s Floyd is a perfect case in point. There’s nothing there, it hangs and reverberates in the breeze, yet it evokes such a powerful mood and emotion that it became the basis for 20 minutes of music that changed people’s perceptions of what rock bands could do.
Minimalism was certainly a big part of Wright’s musical style, perhaps most famously crystallised in that piano piece that opens “The Great Gig In The Sky”, but he was a beautifully lyrical player too, a writer of the most gorgeous melodies such as “Us And Them”, also from “Dark Side Of The Moon”, perhaps the single most beautiful song that Floyd ever released, their signature song in so many ways.
As Floyd gradually imploded under the weight of the success they’d craved, Wright’s role became increasingly marginalised beneath Waters’ driving ambition, but still Floyd were a better band for his contribution, most tellingly on “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”.
Thereafter, internal politics saw Wright ousted from the group during the making of “The Wall”, yet he asked to play the shows that followed, an oddly telling story about the nature of the band, so personal, so introspective, so fractious, yet so businesslike. Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.
Wright returned for the post-Waters Floyd and toured with Gilmour as recently as 2006, earning standing ovations after every show, due recognition of a fine musician and songwriter who played his full part in the story of a band who you still hear everywhere today, from trip-hop through ambient, from Scissor Sisters to Elbow.
There has always been this aching void at the heart of Pink Floyd, its members all stretching out to find that missing piece of their souls. Their genius was to capture that on record in such a way that, if it didn’t locate the grail, at least it helped those of us who shared that loneliness feel a little less isolated.
An epitaph for Richard Wright? That note from “Echoes”. Hanging and reverberating in the breeze.
No comments:
Post a Comment