Founding member of Pink Floyd Richard Wright dead at 65

A founding member of the rock band Pink Floyd, keyboard player Richard Wright has died at the age of 65.

Wright died Monday after a battle with cancer at his home in Britain, according to a spokesman. His family did not want to give more details about his death. The spokesman is Doug Wright, who is not related to the artist.

Wright met Pink Floyd members Roger Waters and Nick Mason at college and joined their early band Sigma 6.

Sigma 6 eventually became Pink Floyd and Wright wrote and sang some of the band’s key songs. Though not as prolific a songwriter as his bandmates Syd Barrett, Mason, Waters and David Gilmour, Wright did write “The Great Gig In The Sky” and “Us And Them” from Pink Floyd’s 1973 penultimate album “The Dark Side Of The Moon.”

Wright left the group in the early 1980s to form his own band but rejoined Pink Floyd for their 1987 album “A Momentary Lapse of Reason.” He contributed keyboards and background vocals to David Gilmour’s most recent solo album, On an Island, and performed with Gilmour’s touring band for over two dozen shows in Europe and North America in 2006.

Photo: Pink Floyd back in 1988, from left, David Gilmour, Nick Mason and the late Richard Wright.
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