Bio

David Jon Gilmour, CBE (born March 6, 1946 in Cambridge, England) is a guitarist and vocalist with rock band Pink Floyd. Following the departure of Roger Waters in the mid-1980s, Gilmour effectively assumed control of the band.

Gilmour was born and grew up in the affluent Grantchester Meadows area of Cambridge. His father, Douglas, was a senior lecturer in zoology at Cambridge University and his mother, Sylvia, was a teacher.

Gilmour attended The Perse School on Hills Road, Cambridge, and later met Syd Barrett while taking modern languages A-Levels at the Cambridge College of Arts and Technology, where they spent their lunchtimes learning to play the guitar. They were not, however, bandmates, and Gilmour started playing in the band Joker's Wild in 1963. Gilmour left Joker's Wild in 1966 and formed a new band with some of its members. This band, firstly named Bullitt, later changing their name to Flowers, spent the rest of 1966 and most of 1967 playing in Spain and France, before disbanding later that year.

Gilmour was asked to join Pink Floyd in January of 1968 making Pink Floyd briefly a five piece. The five piece lineup lasted for five performances before Barrett "left" the group only months later and Gilmour by default assumed the role of the band's lead guitarist and shared lead vocal duties with Roger Waters and Richard Wright. Gilmour's guitar playing and song writing became major factors of Pink Floyd's world-wide success during the 1970s. However, after the back to back successes of first Dark Side of the Moon and then Wish You Were Here, Waters took more and more control over the band, writing most of The Wall by himself. The relationship between the two would deteriorate during the making of The Wall film and the 1983 Pink Floyd album The Final Cut.

In 1986 he purchased the houseboat the Astoria, and transformed it into a recording studio. The majority of the two most recent Pink Floyd albums were recorded on the boat. It is currently moored on the River Thames.

In 1985, Waters declared that "as far as he was concerned Pink Floyd was over". However in 1986, the rest of Pink Floyd issued a press release saying that Waters had quit and the band intended on continuing without Waters. It was also at this time that Gilmour assumed full control and created A Momentary Lapse of Reason. Later, they would go on to create The Division Bell as well.

Gilmour is especially renowned for a very precise, "bendy" kind of soloing, as well as various "violin-type" sounds. His solos are noted for being well-composed and constructed, with very little waste of notes. In interviews, Gilmour has explained that what he sees as his lack of technique led him to concentrate on melody over virtuosity, and the enduring appeal of his solos is that that they are usually expressive tunes rather than technical exercises. To this end, he has also been an innovator in the use of guitar sound effects.

Although mainly known for his guitar work, Gilmour can also play bass guitar (which he did on numerous Floyd tracks, including "One of These Days", "Pigs (Three Different Ones)", "Sheep" and "Hey You"), drums, keyboards, and lately, the saxophone. [3] In fact, on the compilation album A Collection of Great Dance Songs, Gilmour had to re-record the song "Money" due to licensing problems, and played all instruments himself (except for saxophone).

Recently, David Gilmour was voted the greatest Fender guitar player of all time by readers of Guitarist Magazine, beating Jimi Hendrix. He was also voted #82 on Rolling Stone Magazine's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time." and Comfortably Numb's solo ranked #4 on Guitar World magazine's "100 Greatest Guitar Solos."

In 1996 Gilmour was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Pink Floyd.

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