Sunday, November 13, 2011

David Gilmour and Pink Floyd

I put on a CD the other day of a band that I hadn’t listened to in probably over 15 years--Pink Floyd.
In the 80s, I was a huge fan of Pink Floyd and David Gilmour. Gilmour’s first two solo albums, Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii, and Wish You Were Here were my favorites. I had a giant poster of Gilmour’s About Face album on my dorm wall in college, but again I hadn’t listened to them in a long time.
I recently read a Mandolin Cafe piece about Pink Floyd and heard a ukulele version of Shine on You Crazy Diamond on ukulele cosmos (requires registration), and another on YouTube, and it made me remember how much I used to love Pink Floyd. Although I like a lot of their albums, Ummagumma, Animals, Meddle, and enjoyed The Wall and some of The Final Cut, those albums don’t hold up for me. Dark Side of the Moon is overplayed, and I don’t care if I never hear it again, but Wish You Were here is an album I can still listen to.
To me, the best thing about Pink Floyd was David Gilmour. Now I’m not discounting Roger Waters or any of the others, I mean I bought The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking when it came out. I saw Roger Waters on the Radio K.A.O.S. tour, and then the refigured Pink Floyd (without Roger Waters) on the Momentary Lapse of Reason tour, and I actually thought that the Roger Waters show was better. However it was Gilmour’s guitar that drew me in, and like I said, I hadn’t listened to Pink Floyd for close to 20 years.
Anyway, I guess what I’m getting at is how musical tastes can change over time, and there’s no real rhyme or reason. It’s not that one musical style is better than another; there are good things in all good music. Here’s a quote from an interview with David Gilmour stating just that:
RC: “You’ve always had an ability to turn your hand to many different styles.”
DG: “I’m a real jack of all trades. I'm completely the anti-purist. I was never going to dedicate my life to being BB King. My influences were Pete Seeger, Lead Belly, Bob Dylan, Hank Marvin, all the blues guys and everything. It was all a complete hotchpotch, a mass of different styles and influences. I saw no reason why all these influences could not co-habit reasonably and I still don't!”
(
David Gilmour Interview - Record Collector May 2003)
This isn’t the first time that I’ve read/heard this from a musician, and it’s something I completely agree with, whether it’s Johnny Shines saying that Robert Johnson, the “King of the Delta Blues Singers” was a “polka hound”; Howling Wolf saying that he started “howling” because he was trying to yodel like Jimmie Rodgers; Martin, Bogan and Armstrong playing Polish, Italian, and other ethnic music depending on what section of town they were in; Anthrax playing with Public Enemy; Chris Thile playing Bach one minute, then Bluegrass or the Beatles the next; Richard Thompson playing “Oops I Did It Again”, or Darol Anger and Bruce Molsky playing Jimi Hendrix on fiddles.
To me, it’s all music and it’s all good. I want to show some examples of cross pollination in music from some well-known musicians and some unknown musicians, but before I get to that, here’s some David Gilmour and Pink Floyd:
David Gilmour – Shine on….


Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii - Echoes


Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii – One of These Days


David Gilmour – There’s No Way Out of Here


( Check out Ian McLagen of the Small Faces/Faces on organ)

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