by STEVE NEWTON
Pink Floyd freaks everywhere are all a-twitter about the news that the British prog-rock giants will apparently release their first album in 20 years, titled The Endless River, in three months.
Just six hours ago David Gilmour‘s wife, author Polly Samson–who cowrote the lyrics to most of the songs on Floyd’s 1994 album, The Division Bell–tweeted this message:
Btw Pink Floyd album out in October is called “The Endless River”. Based on 1994 sessions is Rick Wright’s swansong and very beautiful.
Wright was the original keyboardist for Pink Floyd, who died of cancer in 2008 at the age of 65. Here’s what Gilmour had to say about him at the time of his passing:
No one can replace Richard Wright. He was my musical partner and my friend. 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. I have never played with anyone quite like him. The blend of his and my voices and our musical telepathy reached their first major flowering in 1971 on ‘Echoes’. In my view all the greatest PF moments are the ones where he is in full flow. After all, without ‘Us and Them’ and ‘The Great Gig in the Sky’, both of which he wrote, what would ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ have been? Without his quiet touch, the album ‘Wish You Were Here’ would not quite have worked. In our middle years, for many reasons, he lost his way for a while; but in the early Nineties, with ‘The Division Bell’, 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.
Apparently, Pink Floyd’s management wasn’t thrilled with Samson’s news-breaking tweet. Nor were they impressed when vocalist Durga McBroom-Hudson–who performed with Floyd at their 1994 concert in Vancouver–posted this photo to her Facebook page, with the message: “YES. THERE IS A PINK FLOYD ALBUM COMING OUT. AND I’M ON IT. And there was much rejoicing.”
Pink Floyd freaks everywhere are all a-twitter about the news that the British prog-rock giants will apparently release their first album in 20 years, titled The Endless River, in three months.
Just six hours ago David Gilmour‘s wife, author Polly Samson–who cowrote the lyrics to most of the songs on Floyd’s 1994 album, The Division Bell–tweeted this message:
Btw Pink Floyd album out in October is called “The Endless River”. Based on 1994 sessions is Rick Wright’s swansong and very beautiful.
Wright was the original keyboardist for Pink Floyd, who died of cancer in 2008 at the age of 65. Here’s what Gilmour had to say about him at the time of his passing:
No one can replace Richard Wright. He was my musical partner and my friend. 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. I have never played with anyone quite like him. The blend of his and my voices and our musical telepathy reached their first major flowering in 1971 on ‘Echoes’. In my view all the greatest PF moments are the ones where he is in full flow. After all, without ‘Us and Them’ and ‘The Great Gig in the Sky’, both of which he wrote, what would ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ have been? Without his quiet touch, the album ‘Wish You Were Here’ would not quite have worked. In our middle years, for many reasons, he lost his way for a while; but in the early Nineties, with ‘The Division Bell’, 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.
Apparently, Pink Floyd’s management wasn’t thrilled with Samson’s news-breaking tweet. Nor were they impressed when vocalist Durga McBroom-Hudson–who performed with Floyd at their 1994 concert in Vancouver–posted this photo to her Facebook page, with the message: “YES. THERE IS A PINK FLOYD ALBUM COMING OUT. AND I’M ON IT. And there was much rejoicing.”
