He is a guitarist and singer-songwriter born in Cambridge, England whose father was a lecturer in Zoology and his mother a teacher.
He met Syd Barrett while still a child in Cambridge and when he was a student at the Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology they played guitar together. He was with the band Jokers Wild and then he toured Europe with Flowers and later he was a member of Bullitt.
He became a member of the group Pink Floyd in 1967 as a singer-songwriter and guitarist. Their album Dark Side of the Moon is the third most successful of all time. From 1978 he was also working on his solo career and he produced two albums David Gilmour and About Face. After Roger Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985 he took control of the group and they released the No. 1 hit albums, in the US and the UK, A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell.
In 2004 he donated the £3.6 million proceeds from the sale of his house in London to the homeless charity, Crisis, and in 2005 he was awarded a CBE for his services to music.
In 2006 he released On an Island, which went platinum in Canada, and embarked on the accompanying tour. The video Remember That Night-Live at the Royal Albert Hall appeared in Setptember 2007. His final show of the tour was performed with the Polish Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra at the Gdansk Shipyard to mark the 26th anniversary of the Solidarity trade union. The DVD Live in Gdansk and a live album came as a result of the concert. He was nominated for a 2007 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance on the song “Castellorizon” from On an Island.
In 2009 he and Jeff Beck performed at the Royal Albert Hall and also that year he released the online single and video”Chicago-Change the World” about the hacker Gary McKinnon. In 2010 he and the Orb released Metallic Spheres which he produced, sang and played on.
In 2011 he was listed as No. 14 in the top 100 greatest guitarists of all time by Rolling Stone.
In 2015 he announced his tour dates to coincide with his fourth album Rattle That Lock which was released in the September. The tour dates set for March and April 2016 was the first in ten years for North America. In November 2015 the documentary David Gilmour: Wider Horizons was broadcast by BBC Two.
As a collaborator and studio musician he has worked with many artists with just a few including Syd Barrett, Brian Ferry, Paul McCartney, Kate Bush and Pete Townshend.
Paul McCartney Recordings
No More Lonely Nights (Ballad) (Paul McCartney )
No More Lonely Nights (Playout Version) (Paul McCartney )
Here he is performing his “On An Island”…
Sources:
- http://www.davidgilmour.com/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour
- http://www.crisis.org.uk/
- https://www.discogs.com/artist/110863-David-Gilmour
- http://www.allmusic.com/album/david-gilmour-mw0000190145