Wright's richly textured keyboard layers were a vital ingredient and a distinctive characteristic of Pink Floyd's sound. Wright frequently sang background and occasionally lead vocals on stage and in the studio with Pink Floyd (most notably on the songs "Time", "Echoes",[2] and on the Syd Barrett composition "Astronomy Domine").

Though not as prolific a songwriter as his bandmates Roger Waters and David Gilmour, he wrote significant parts of the music for classic albums such as Meddle, The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here, as well as for Pink Floyd's final studio album The Division Bell.

Wright recorded his first solo project, Wet Dream, and released it in September 1978 with minimal commercial success. Battling both personal problems and an increasingly rocky relationship with Roger Waters, he was forced to resign from Pink Floyd during The Wall sessions by Waters, who threatened to pull the plug on the album's tapes if Wright did not leave the band. However, he was retained as a salaried session musician during the subsequent live concerts to promote that album in 1980 and 1981. Ironically, Wright became the only member of Pink Floyd to profit from those hugely spectacular shows, since the net financial loss had to be borne by the three remaining "full-time" members. He was the only member of the band not to attend the 1982 premiere of the film version of The Wall. In 1983, Pink Floyd released the only album on which Wright does not appear with The Final Cut.

Personal life

He married his first wife, Juliette Gale, in 1965. They had two children, Jamie and Gala, and divorced in 1982. He married his second wife Franka in 1984. They divorced in 1994. Wright married his third wife Mildred "Millie" Hobbes (to whom he dedicated his second solo album Broken China) in 1996. Their only child is named Ben. In 1996, Wright's daughter Gala married Guy Pratt, a session musician who has played bass for Pink Floyd and bandmate David Gilmour since Roger Waters' exit[6]. In his later years, Wright lived in France and spent time on a yacht he owned in the Virgin Islands.

Death

Wright died of an undisclosed form of cancer in his home in the UK on 15 September 2008 at age 65.[3][8] At the time of his death, he had been working on a new solo album, which was thought to comprise a series of instrumental pieces.