In recent years Waters has been playing "Dark Side of the Moon" in concert under his own name without any of the other original band members. Waters, Gilmour, Wright and drummer Nick Mason performed live together for the first time in 24 years at the 2005 Live 8 benefit concert in London.
Wright released two solo albums, "Wet Dreams" in 1978 and "Broken China" in 1996, but neither made Billboard's Top 200 albums chart.
In a 2006 interview with the Independent newspaper in London discussing the DVD release of Pink Floyd's 1994 concert tour, Wright talked about the group's celebrated concerts, which helped expand the boundaries of what rock was capable of in a live setting through elaborate lighting and staging effects.
"One of the things I always regret about being in Pink Floyd is that you can never go to see the show. I have no idea what it looks like. We know it's pretty powerful, but when you're on stage you have no clear idea of it."
Richard William Wright was born July 28, 1943, in Hatch End, in northwest London.
Early on he demonstrated an interest in classical and jazz piano, and his parents sent him to the exclusive Haberdasher's Aske's School as a boy and then, when he was 17, to the Regent Street School of Architecture, where he met Waters and Mason.
About six months after they started playing together, they met Barrett.
"It was great when Syd joined," Wright once said. "Before him, we'd play the R & B classics, because that's what all groups were supposed to then. But I never liked R & B very much. I was actually more of a jazz fan.
"With Syd, the direction changed, it became more improvised around the guitar and keyboards.
"Roger started playing the bass as a lead instrument, and I started to introduce more of my classical feel."
Barrett's tenure with the group was as profound as it was short-lived. They recorded a couple of singles that were hits in England, "Arnold Layne" and "See Emily Play," and their 1967 debut album, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn," shortly after which the others essentially kicked Barrett out because of his increasingly erratic behavior.
Wright is survived by sons Ben and Jamie, daughter Gala and a grandson, according to Britain's Guardian newspaper.
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randy.lewis@latimes.com
