David Gilmour was born in Cambridge on March 6, 1946. While still a teenager, he met with fellow citizens Roger Waters and Syd Barrett (later founders of Pink Floyd): with the latter, he attended the Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology and in the summer of 1965 hitchhiked to the South of France, where the two performed on the streets playing guitar. Gilmour's first serious musical steps were taken in a band named Jokers Wild, which often crossed paths with Pink Floyd, while also enjoying some local success. With the advent of the “Summer of love” in 1967, the group changes its name to Bullitt and then to Flowers, but despite some engagements in Spain and France the adventure quickly comes to an end with no great career prospects on the horizon. Young David is forced to look for other work temporarily until December '67, when Pink Floyd contacts him offering to join the group as an adjunct guitarist alongside the increasingly unreliable Barrett (the first of five performances as a quintet takes place on January 12, 1968). After Syd was officially ousted from the band, in April of '68, because of mental problems related to the inordinate use of psychedelic drugs, Gilmour became Pink Floyd's only guitar player as well as Roger Waters's main vocal and musical alter ego, contributing decisively to the success of such records as MEDDLE, THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON and WISH YOU WERE HERE. In 1978, as Waters took over more and more decisively from the Floyd, he released a first self-titled solo album in which former Jokers Wild drummer Willie Wilson also participated; greater visibility would be enjoyed six years later ABOUT FACE, on which Pete Townshend of the Who also collaborated. By that time, disagreements with Waters had become irreconcilable, and Gilmour assumed leadership of Pink Floyd after the bassist officially announced his departure from the group in 1985, directing operations on the subsequent studio works, A MOMENTARY LAPSE OF REASON (1987) and THE DIVISION BELL (1994), and the enormous tours that followed. As the group's commitments became fewer, its live and studio appearances grew alongside musicians such as Paul McCartney (for the album RUN DEVIL RUN), Pete Townshend and Kate Bush (a personal discovery: it was Gilmour himself who had paid for her first demo and convinced EMI to put her under contract, in the mid-1970s). After longtime friend Robert Wyatt invites him to return to the stage at the Meltdown Festival, the guitarist assembles a full band with which he performs three semi-acoustic concerts at London's Royal Festival Hall in 2002: the performance, from which a DVD was made, is attended by Wyatt himself, Rick Wright, and Bob Geldof. The latter succeeds in convincing him and Waters to symbolically lay down their arms for a historic and temporary reunion of the classic Pink Floyd lineup that results in the performance at Live 8 in July 2005. But in the meantime, Gilmour is at work on his new solo album, ON AN ISLAND, which is released in March 2006 with the participation of special guests such as David Crosby, Graham Nash, Wyatt himself, Rick Wright, Georgie Fame, and Phil Manzanera (also co-producer). The album was followed by a tour that also touched down in Italy and out of which were extracted a double dvd, REMEMBER THAT NIGHT (filmed at London's Royal Albert Hall), and a double CD (with bonus dvd), LIVE IN GDANSK, recorded in the Gdansk's construction site, Poland, in celebration of 26 years of Solidarity. In June 2008, Gilmour surprisingly stepped onto the stage at London's Cadogan Hall alongside an Italian cover band, the Mun, for a remake of ATOM HEART MOTHER directed by Ron Geesin, the original orchestrator of Pink Floyd's famous suite.
Source:
Rockol
