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David Gilmour
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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 explained: I had a number of problems with the direction of the band in our recent past, before Roger left. I thought the songs were very wordy and that, because the specific meanings of those words were so important, the music became a mere vehicle for lyrics, and not a very inspiring one... Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here were so successful not just because of Roger's contributions, but also because there was a better balance between the music and the lyrics than there has been in more recent albums. That's what I'm trying to do with A Momentary Lapse of Reason; more focus on the music, restore the balance. On July 2, 2005, Gilmour played with Pink Floyd — including Roger Waters — at Live 8. The performance caused a temporary 1,343 percent sales increase of Pink Floyd's album Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd. As a result, Gilmour vowed to donate all of his resulting profits to charities that reflect the goals of Live 8 saying: "Though the main objective has been to raise consciousness and put pressure on the G8 leaders, I will not profit from the concert. This is money that should be used to save lives." Shortly after, he also called upon all artists experiencing a surge in sales from Live 8 performances to donate the extra revenue to Live 8 fundraising. On February 3, 2006, he announced in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica [1][2] that Pink Floyd would most likely never tour or write material together again. He said: "I think enough is enough. I am 60 years old. I don’t have the will to work as much anymore. Pink Floyd was an important part in my life, I have had a wonderful time, but it’s over. For me it’s much less complicated to work alone." He said that by agreeing to Live 8, he had ensured the story of Floyd would not end on a sour note. There was more than one reason, firstly to support the cause. The second one is the energy consuming an uncomfortable relationship between Roger and me that I was carrying along in my heart. That is why we wanted to perform and to leave the trash behind. Thirdly I might have regretted it if I declined On February 20, 2006, Gilmour changed his stance on Pink Floyd's future when interviewed by Billboard.com stating "Who knows? I have no plans at all to do that. My plans are to do my concerts and put my [solo] record out." The tone of that statement seems to imply that either he has not ruled out any more one-off gigs or a farewell concert. This bio courtesy www.allmusic.com & Wikipedia.org |
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