Richard Wright's keyboards helped define Pink Floyd

Members of Pink Floyd, Roger Waters, left, Nick Mason, second from left, Syd Barrett, second from right, and Richard Wright, right, leap from the steps of EMI House in London in March 1967. A spokesman for group said Monday that founding member Richard Wright has died. (AP file photo)

LOS ANGELES - Richard Wright, a founding member of Pink Floyd whose piano and synthesizer work played a critical part in the pioneering rock band's ethereal sound, died yesterday after a short battle with cancer. He was 65.

Mr. Wright died at his home in England.

Mr. Wright never achieved the high public profile of the group's three key figures - founding singer-guitarist Syd Barrett and the often-feuding co-leaders, singer-bassist Roger Waters and singer-guitarist David Gilmour, who joined shortly before Barrett left in 1968.

But Mr. Wright wrote or co-wrote many of the band's songs and frequently provided a crucial component of the Pink Floyd sound. On the group's landmark "Dark Side of the Moon" album, he was responsible for the thick electric piano chording on the 1973 hit "Money" and the swirling organ lines and classically inspired grand piano on "Us and Them," a song he wrote with Waters.

He also co-wrote "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," one of the group's signature songs from "Wish You Were Here," the second of five Floyd albums to reach No. 1. The nine-part epic song is a salute to Barrett, who, after leaving the group, retreated into mental illness, often attributed to his drug use. He died in 2006.

Mr. Wright had no explanation for the astonishing longevity of the "Dark Side" album - it spent more time, 741 weeks, on the Billboard album chart than any other in history - or the extraordinary following the band inspired. The 1979 album "The Wall" spent 15 weeks at No. 1 and has been certified for worldwide sales of 23 million copies, putting it third on the list of all-time best-sellers, behind "The Eagles: Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975" and Michael Jackson's "Thriller."

"I know we've made some great songs and great music," he told Billboard last year, "but I can't tell you why we're so popular."

He quit the band in 1980 because of increasing tensions within the group. He rejoined the band a few years later, and, without Waters, the group put out "A Momentary Lapse of Reason" in 1987 and "The Division Bell" seven years later.

Waters, Gilmour, Mr. Wright, and drummer Nick Mason performed together for the first time in 24 years at a benefit concert in London in 2005.

"In the welter of arguments about who or what was Pink Floyd, Rick's enormous input was frequently forgotten," Gilmour said in a statement yesterday. "He was gentle, unassuming and private, but his soulful voice and playing were vital, magical components of our most recognized Pink Floyd sound."

Mr. Wright released two solo albums, "Wet Dreams" in 1978 and "Broken China" in 1996.

In a 2006 interview with the Independent newspaper in London, Mr. Wright talked about the group's celebrated concerts, which helped expand the boundaries of the rock 'n' roll experience 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," he said. "We know it's pretty powerful, but when you're on stage you have no clear idea of it."

Mr. Wright met Waters and Mason while they were architecture students in England. They started playing together in a band they called Sigma 6.

When they hooked up with Barrett and formed Pink Floyd in 1964, the rock explosion was reverberating through England and across the Atlantic as the British Invasion took hold stateside. At that time, Mr. Wright later said, his goal was simple: "This is fun, I hope we can make a living out of this - and, of course, I hope we're gonna be a huge success and sell more records than Elvis Presley and The Beatles!"