David Gilmour pulls a lot of inspiration from the blues for his guitar playing. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.org

While David Gilmour has never crossed over entirely to the blues, he’ll tell you himself that the blues have been a huge impact on his playing.  Gilmour gained most of his fame as the guitarist, singer and main songwriter for the progressive rock band, Pink Floyd.  Many of you probably haven’t heard of his more “bluesy” side, so I thought it would be cool to check some of that out.  I found two video performances that I think will do the trick: one a performance at the Les Paul tribute in 1988 and the second a performance with B.B. King on the Jools Holland Show.  Both are very cool performances, and definitely two different styles of bands, but both are enjoyable.

I’ll post the Les Paul Tribute performance first from 1988.  Check it out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rlmfggLCpw.

[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/8rlmfggLCpw” height=”420″ rel=”0″]

The second live performance features David Gilmour as a special guest on the Jools Holland Show with B.B. King.  B.B. put a great band together and features David Gilmour at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ieI49hlOUw.

[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/2ieI49hlOUw” height=”420″ rel=”0″]

I hope you enjoyed this more “bluesy” side of David Gilmour’s playing.  He is an outstanding guitar player with a very successful track record of hit songs with Pink Floyd.  Stay tuned for more coming your way at Blues Guitar Unleashed.

Thanks,

Griff


    15 replies to "Crossing Over To The Blues With David Gilmour"

    • I’m impressed, I must say. Really hardly ever do I encounter a blog that’s each educative and entertaining, and let me tell you, you will have hit the nail on the head. Your thought is outstanding; the problem is one thing that not sufficient people are speaking intelligently about. I am very pleased that I stumbled across this in my search for one thing referring to this.

    • Richard Ruh

      David Gilmour,is probably one of the finest guitar players to ever come from great britian,he plays the guitar, making it look so easy,an with alot of classy chops an he will acompany about any artist,a great player for sure!

    • Roger Russell

      Great stuff Two of the greatest

    • Donny Dunders

      Once again, less is more. Every guitar play looks for his own voice, and when he finds it look out! These guys know how to speak!

    • Bernie

      Daver Gilmour has always been my favourite guitarist – he just seems to know the best notes to play and when and how to play them. Speed not required, feeling is everything. Definitely been one of my big influences in to learning to play. Learning to express yourself through making your guitar talk and say what you feel at each moment of a song in your own style, should be the goal for all blues and other guitarists out there. Brilliant..

    • Bruce

      David Gilmour is an inspirational guitar player. I Would like to see Griff do a lesson on a Gilmour style riff. Gilmour Riff Griff?

    • darrell

      maybe DG could do a blues album—love his guitar sound

    • Jeff

      Outstanding.

    • KevInSpain

      Hi Griff. I do rate and enjoy your stuff. I just thought (to be fair to Jools Holland) that B.B did not “put a great band together”. The band doing the deal in this clip are in fact Jools Holland’s own Rhythm & Blues Orchestra and they have been together for a couple of decades or more. The drummer, Gilson Lavis, goes back even further and has played with Jools since they were together in Squeeze in the 80’s. I digress. If you like your blues with the big band backing and/or stonking Boogie Woogie then check out more Jools Holland. He and his band are sensational musicians.

    • roger

      thanks griff.

    • Lnk

      OMG that was brilliant! BB doesn’t play overly complicated stuff! It just sounds amazing. David Gilmour is incredible. I don’t really like Pink Floyd but here he just rocks!

    • Jim

      David Gilmour, “main songwriter.” Griff, Roger Waters wants to have a word with you. 🙂 Just kidding, man …. Barrett, Rogers, Gilmour, its all good.

    • Dave

      It must be a Les Paul signature strat. lol. David Gilmore is great. I’m back listening to old pink floyd stuff and you can definitely hear his blues influences.

    • Dave Shephared

      Thanks Griff. Great stuff.

    • Scott Campbell

      Gilmour plays a Strat for the Les Paul tribute? Kinda irreverent? Haha..

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