Richard Wright (Pink Floyd) – Sysyphus pts 1-4

Last night, whilst scanning the BBC website for news about the ongoing collapse of the world financial system, I came across the news that former Pink Floyd keyboards man Richard Wright had died, aged 65.

As 70s rock keyboardists go, Rick was never really in your Keith Emerson/Rick Wakeman/Tony Banks virtuoso category – and all the better for it. He concentrated on great chord sequences and getting some incredible sounds with the technology of the day – check “Echoes” on Meddle, “Any Colour You Like” on Dark Side of the Moon, “Absolutely Curtains” on Obscured by Clouds and pretty much the whole of the Wish You Were Here album, for examples of just how good he was.

As a tribute to Rick, though, I thought I’d dust off some old vinyl and post probably his most ambitious 13 minutes on record: “Sysyphus” from Ummagumma. On this 1969 double album, the Floyd had one LP of live stuff and one LP of studio stuff, with the studio stuff split into half-a-side each of solo material for each of the four musicians. Certain other bands have tried going down this route – for example Yes (on Fragile), and the simultaneously-released 1978 solo albums by each member of Kiss. But I don’t know if anyone’s tried it since about 1980, and if not, that’s a real shame.

In later interviews Wright claimed “Sysyphus” was ‘pretentious’, but remember this was 1969 and that went with the territory. Some great experimental keyboard work on display here – and anyone who likes the mellotron (tape-based machine loaded with samples of strings, choirs etc) is in for a real treat.

Thanks, Rick, for a lot of great music.

Thanks also to my old mate Simon from school, whose tape player chewed up my double play cassette of ‘Ummagumma’ and who bought me the vinyl as a replacement. I don’t think you know just how much of a favour you were doing me – those double-play tapes sounded awful. :-)

• Buy 'Ummagumma' on vinyl replica double CD :: Released in November - as usual the album cover will look feeble reproduced at that size, though!
• Planet Mellotron :: FANTASTIC site for all things Mellotron - reviews of virtually every album by anyone who ever used one of the things

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