There is not enough room on the internet to document all the numerous fallings out and squabbles that pockmarked throughout their career. Sometimes they made music too. But whilst David Gilmour vs Roger Waters will undoubtedly rumble on into eternity, some of the other band members made peace in later years.
One such mended relationship was the one between keyboardist Richard Wright and singer and guitarist Gilmour. Wright would have been 81 today (28 July) and when he died after a battle with cancer in 2008, Gilmour paid his old bandmate an emotional tribute. “No one can replace Richard Wright.
He was my musical partner and my friend,” wrote Gilmour. "In the welter of arguments about who or what was Pink Floyd, Rick's enormous input was frequently forgotten. "He was gentle, unassuming and private but his soulful voice and playing were vital, magical components of our most recognised Pink Floyd sound.
” Gilmour added that he had never played with anyone quite like the keyboardist. “The blend of his and my voices and our musical telepathy reached their first major flowering in 1971 on . In my view all the greatest PF moments are the ones where he is in full flow.
After all, without and , both of which he wrote, what would have been? Without his quiet touch the album would not quite have worked.” Gilmour acknowledged that in their “middle years”, Wright lost his way but got back on track. “In the early Nineties, with , his vitality, spark and humour returned to him and then the audience reaction to his appearances on my tour in 2006 was hugely uplifting and it's a mark of his modesty that those standing ovations came as a huge surprise to him, (though not to the rest of us).
"Like Rick, I don't find it easy to express my feelings in words, but I loved him and will miss him enormously." Sign up below to get the latest from Classic Rock, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox! Niall Doherty is a writer and editor whose work can be found in Classic Rock, The Guardian, Music Week, FourFourTwo, on Apple Music and more. Formerly the Deputy Editor of Q magazine, he co-runs the music Substack letter with fellow former Q colleagues Ted Kessler and Chris Catchpole.
He is also Reviews Editor at Record Collector. Over the years, he's interviewed some of the world's biggest stars, including Elton John, Coldplay, Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Pearl Jam, Radiohead, Depeche Mode, Robert Plant and more. Radiohead was only for eight minutes but he still counts it.
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