David Gilmour

The son of a teacher and a Cambridge University zoology lecturer, David Gilmour met Syd Barrett and Roger Waters at school in Cambridge, where he spent lunch breaks learning to play guitar. He joined his first band Joker's Wild in 1962 before trying his luck busking in Europe. Back in England, he joined Pink Floyd in 1968 and, following Barrett's departure, assumed the role of lead guitarist. Frustrated by Roger Waters' dominance within Pink Floyd following the huge success of the albums Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here, Gilmour branched out and recorded his self-titled blues-rock debut solo album in 1978. His song "Comfortably Numb" was later used on one of Pink Floyd's most successful albums, The Wall, leading to Gilmore's second solo album About Face in 1984, on which he co-wrote songs with Pete Townshend of The Who and established himself as a credible separate force to Pink Floyd. He played guitar with various others, acted as a mentor for the young Kate Bush and produced an album by Dream Academy, before becoming the driving force of a revived Pink Floyd after the acrimonious departure of Roger Waters. Gilmour was producer and the main creative force of the band's 1987 album A Momentary Lapse of Reason, although there was an emotional reunion with Waters at the 2008 Live8 show in London. In 2006 he topped the album charts with his third solo album On an Island, which includes guest appearances by Jools Holland, David Crosby and Robert Wyatt, and embarked on a tour on which he was joined by David Bowie. On the tour he recorded a special rendition of Pink Floyd's first single "Arnold Layne" as a tribute to Barrett who died earlier in the year. In 2010 he recorded an album with electronic music duo The Orb, titled Metallic Spheres, and it was announced that he was working on new material for his next solo album. The album was eventually released in 2015 with the title Rattle That Lock. The album got to number one on the UK Albums Chart as well as the Billboard Top Rock Albums Chart in America. In 2017 a live broadcast of Gilmour's Live at Pompeii show from 2016 was screened in cinemas. Released in 2020, the single "Yes, I Have Ghosts" is the first single from the album Luck and Strange (2024), which featured his wife Polly Sampson on the lyrics, their daughter Romany Gilmour and long-time partners such as Guy Pratt, Steve Gadd and Roger Eno. This fifth opus produced by Charlie Andrew reached number 1 in the British charts and number 10 on the Billboard 200.