Dick Parry, the iconic musician who delivered some of the most recognizable and enduring saxophone solos in the history of rock music, passed away on Friday, May 22, 2026, at the age of 83.
The Suffolk-born instrumentalist is universally celebrated for his timeless contributions to Pink Floyd‘s most critically acclaimed masterpieces, specifically crafting the soaring solos on the 1973 landmark release The Dark Side of the Moon and its 1975 follow-up, Wish You Were Here. His distinctive tone became a fundamental component of the band’s signature identity, defining permanent multi-generational classics such as “Money“, “Us and Them“, and “Shine On You Crazy Diamond“.
The news of his passing was formally announced on Friday afternoon by his lifelong close friend, Pink Floyd vocalist and guitarist David Gilmour, who shared a deeply personal statement across social media platforms to honor the musician’s legacy:
“My dear friend Dick Parry died this morning,” he wrote. “Since I was seventeen, I have played in bands with Dick on saxophone, including Pink Floyd.”
Gilmour continued: “His feel and tone make his saxophone playing unmistakable, a signature of enormous beauty that is known to millions and is such a big part of songs such as ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’… ‘Us and Them’ and ‘Money.’”
“He played in the last band I had that included [former Floyd keyboardist] Rick Wright for the On An Island Tour [in 2006] and at Live 8 with Pink Floyd [the band’s one and only full reunion show, in 2005].”
David concluded his public tribute by presenting a vintage photographic montage, charting their shared musical history all the way back to a 1963 performance for the ABC Minors at the Victoria Cinema in Cambridge: “Here are some pictures of him, including one of him and me playing for the ABC Minors at the Victoria Cinema in Cambridge in 1963.”
Throughout his extensive history with the progressive rock pioneers, Dick Parry anchored their global live presentation on the road from 1973 through 1977. He became a fan favorite during concert performances for his unique technical flair, which occasionally involved strapping on both a tenor and a baritone saxophone simultaneously to seamlessly switch between different brass voicings mid-solo during live iterations of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”.
Following the band’s late-1970s touring cycles, Dick Parry drifted completely away from the music industry. He famously sold off his instruments and retrained as a professional farrier, spending years shoeing horses in a quiet village near Cambridge.
In a 1994 archival interview, David Gilmour recounted the improbable sequence of events that brought the reclusive saxophonist back to the global stage for the tracking of The Division Bell—the band’s first studio album following their highly publicized split from bassist Roger Waters. The sessions yielded the track “Wearing the Inside Out“, which served as his grand return to the tracking room.
“I got a Christmas card from Dick [Parry] who I hadn’t seen for years, and who’d given up the saxophone entirely and I think was unemployed, living in a village near Cambridge, doing nothing,” he said at the time. “I knew that years ago he had sold his saxophones and gone into being a farrier, shoeing horses. And he had apparently given that up as well, and he had bought himself another saxophone a year or so ago, and he just sent me a Christmas card… I just rang him up to say ‘How are you doing?’ He was talking to me about it and I had been thinking about what to do about saxophone on the tour because we weren’t going to need a lot of it, but we needed some.”
“I asked him if he felt like auditioning for coming on the tour, to see if he still had his chops together, and he told me that he thought he was playing better than he’d ever played. And I got him down to the boat to have a little audition. And he played about three phrases and myself and Bob [Ezrin] said, ‘Fine, he’s still got it. Screw this auditioning business. See if we can stick him on something.’… The only one we could think of that would be really appropriate for sax was ‘Wearing the Inside Out,’ so we put him on it. Boom, he’s got that tone. It’s fantastic. You can recognize it straight away. And so he’s on the tour with us as well.”
Following his studio work on The Division Bell, Dick Parry permanently reassumed his spot in the touring lineup, accompanying the band on their massive 1994 world tour. In his later years, he continued to serve as a vital contributor to David Gilmour‘s solo ventures, including the highly successful 2006 tour supporting the album On An Island, alongside late Pink Floyd keyboardist Rick Wright. He also stepped back into the global spotlight for the historic 2005 Live 8 charity festival in London, participating in Pink Floyd‘s final performance featuring the classic four-piece lineup.
