David Gilmour is guitarist, vocalist and writer with Pink Floyd, but is also renowned for his solo work. David Gilmour and Roger ‘Syd’ Barrett met as children in Cambridge, UK, and later began playing guitar together. In 1965 Syd co-founded Pink Floyd, while David continued playing with a succession of his own bands. In 1968, David was asked to augment the Pink Floyd line up as the singer and guitarist, only for Syd to leave the group five gigs later. David’s guitar playing, singing and songwriting became major factors of Pink Floyd’s worldwide success, including his distinctive vocals and guitar playing on The Dark Side Of The Moon, the third most successful album of all time.

In 1978, David released his first solo album, David Gilmour, which charted in the UK and the US. His second solo album, About Face, was released in 1984, again hitting the Top 20 in the UK.

David assumed control of Pink Floyd in 1985, creating the new Floyd album A Momentary Lapse Of Reason with Richard Wright and Nick Mason. It was followed in 1994 by The Division Bell, which contained the instrumental Marooned, composed by David and Richard Wright, which won a Grammy Award. Both albums charted at Number 1 on both sides of the Atlantic and were supported by sell-out world tours.

In 1996, Pink Floyd were inducted into the US Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, followed by the same honour in the UK in November 2005.

David is one of the all-time guitar greats, with an instinctive and distinctive sound; he was voted ‘Best Fender Guitar Player Ever’ in a poll in Guitarist magazine, beating such greats as Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. In 2005, David was made a CBE for services to music.

On 6th March 2006, David released his third solo album, On An Island, which entered the UK Charts at Number 1, subsequently hitting the top position in the pan-European Charts, as well as hitting multi-Platinum around the world. The tour for the album included a one-off performance in the historic dockyards of Gdańsk, Poland, with a 40-piece orchestra and a show at London’s Royal Albert Hall was filmed by director David Mallet and released in 2007 as ‘Remember That Night – Live At The Royal Albert Hall’, which topped the charts upon release.

In May 2008, David was awarded an ‘Ivor’ for Lifetime Achievement by the British Association of Composers and Songwriters. In September 2008, Fender Guitars made available their David Gilmour Signature Black Strat model, in ‘Relic’ and ‘New Old Stock’ models.

In 2009, David was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from East Anglia’s Ruskin University of Cambridge and Chelmsford for his outstanding contribution to music as a writer, performer and innovator.

In September 2014, Pink Floyd released The Endless River, and David confirmed that it would be the band’s final album and it topped the charts in over 20 countries.

David’s next album Rattle That Lock was released in 2015 and went to Number 1 in 13 charts around the world and Number 2 in a further eight, hitting the Top 5 in a total of 25 listings. The accompanying world tour saw David perform two spectacular shows at the legendary Pompeii Amphitheatre in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, 45 years after he first played there for Adrian Maben’s classic film Pink Floyd Live At Pompeii.

The concerts were the first-ever rock performances played to an audience in the ancient Roman amphitheatre, which was built in 90 BC and entombed in ash when Vesuvius erupted in AD 79. The film of these shows directed by Gavin Elder, topped the box office In Italy, Germany and France and was Number 2 in the UK. David Gilmour Live At Pompeii was released on Blu-ray, Vinyl, CD & DVD in September 2017 and reached #3 in the UK and #1 in Italy.

In June 2019, David raised $21.5m from the Christie’s sale of more than 120 of his instruments and artefacts. He gave the proceeds to ClientEarth, a charity which uses the power of the law to protect the planet and its people.

Gilmour and Nick Mason reactivated Pink Floyd to record ‘Hey Hey Rise Up’ on 30th March 2022 with Andriy Khlyvnyuk of the Ukrainian band Boombox. All of the net proceeds have gone to charities to help alleviate the suffering of Ukrainian people.