Amid news on September 15, 2008 about troubled financial markets, presidential election coverage and disaster recovery in the wake of Hurricane Ike, the death of Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright may have gone mostly unnoticed by major news outlets. Still, the loss of Wright to cancer at age 65 is a great loss for the pop music world, as his work helped to shape the sound of one of the 20th century’s most famous and influential rock bands.

Though not as instantly recognizable as Pink Floyd’s “Big Three” – vocalist/bassist Roger Waters, guitarist/vocalist David Gilmour and founder Syd Barrett, whose vocal, guitar and songwriting talents are often overlooked in the wake of his legendary tragic genius – Wright was still an integral part of the group that he helped to co-found in 1965, back when it was known as the Pink Floyd Sound. (Wright had also been part of Sigma 6 and the Screaming Abdabs, the band’s previous incarnations.) In the early years, Pink Floyd was firmly rooted in British psychedelia, and Wright’s keyboard work concentrated more on intricate, meandering organ and synthesizer lines, such as those featured in “Arnold Layne” and “See Emily Play,” than the atmospheric soundscapes that would mark his later work. As the band’s focus shifted after the departure of Barrett in 1968, Wright’s work grew more experimental in fitting with Water’s more introspective (and some would argue bleaker) musical vision. Intricate, peppy melodies were mostly gone, replaced by layered synthesizers that served as background for the stylings of Waters, Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason, but also gave Pink Floyd’s songs depth and infused them with an eerie, unsettling atmosphere. While there are a number of examples of this shift throughout the band’s discography, many would probably point to “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” as the prime example. Throughout this tribute to the fallen Barrett, the band changes mood and tempo and adds and subtracts layers, but the connective tissue throughout is Wright’s mournful synthesizer. After taking on a brief but effective solo at the beginning of the piece, he moves into the background but still commands attention. As on the song “Echoes,” which was released three years prior on Meddle, part of Wright’s genius is his seemingly instinctual knowledge of exactly how much – or how little – of his sound is needed. It is still fairly rare to find keyboardists who can use just one note to make an emotional statement, but Wright was one of rock’s masters of this “less is more” approach.

Just a few years after his 1978 solo debut “Wet Dream”, Wright temporarily left Pink Floyd after continued conflicts with Waters, only to rejoin the group in 1987 after Waters’ failed attempt to disband by suing Mason and Gilmour. He would stay with the group throughout the 90’s and released a second solo album, “Broken China,” in 1996. Pink Floyd (including Waters) would reunite for Live 8 in 2005. He also contributed to the Gilmour solo album “On an Island” and toured with him as part of a session band. Though there is no way to say for certain, it would appear that Wright had no intention of retiring from the music scene, which makes his death all the more tragic. Pink Floyd will be hard-pressed to find a suitable replacement for the man who contributed so much to its melancholy soul.