Richard Wright, R.I.P.

Sad to read today that Pink Floyd keyboardist and co-founder Richard Wright died of cancer at 65. About a million personal stories immediately flooded the 'net, so no need to post my own. But of course, like most teens in the 70s, I grew up on Floyd, cut my teeth on Dark Side of the Moon, spent hours holed up in my room with headphones on and The Wall on the turntable, etc. And while Wright was hardly the flashy musician like prog keyboardists of the day (and thank God for that), and he was always a minor contributor to the band (both in the initial Barrett era and the later Water/Gilmour era), he was an integral part of their sound for the first decade or so. A few underrated compositions (including my personal fave, the hugely overlooked "Summer '68" from 1970's otherwise weak Atom Heart Mother -- see below), nice keyboard flourishes, and some wonderful backing vox (particularly throughout DSOTM) all make up key parts of the Floyd legacy. Sad to see him go.