Even the most celebrated, seemingly indomitable guitar players have influences; they have heroes they try to emulate. David Gilmour, a master craftsman of guitar solos, is no exception. In fact, following in the footsteps of one guitarist left him terrified.
Gilmour once said that he developed his “tuneful” approach to soloing after a reluctant acceptance that, try as he might, he would never be a shredder. It helped him weave into his own lane. But it wasn’t always like that.
In 1985, a decade after Pink Floyd were arguably at the height of their powers and had successfully followed up The Dark Side of the Moon with an album that exhausted Gilmour, he spoke to Guitar Classics. In the interview, he was asked to dissect his guitar-playing DNA.
“I was a blues fan, but I was an all-around music fan,” he explained of his early days (via Far Out). “For me, it was Lead Belly through B.B. King and later Eric Clapton, Roy Buchanan, Jeff Beck, Eddie Van Halen and anyone you care to mention.”
His influences were widespread, and he wasn’t closed off to newer players bringing fresh ideas to the table. In fact, he celebrated those innovators, adding: “Mark Knopfler has a lovely, refreshing guitar style. He brought back something that seemed to have gone astray in guitar playing.”
He tried to copy a number of those players, to extract knowledge from them. But for a man who has written more iconic solos than most, there was one player he held in even higher regard.
“I was trying to learn 12-string acoustic guitar like Lead Belly,” he says. “At the same time, I was trying to learn lead guitar like Hank Marvin and later Clapton. All of those different things had their moments and filtered through my learning process. These days I don’t listen to other people to steal their licks, although I’m sure Mark Knopfler and Eddie Van Halen still influence me.”
As for the solo he wishes he wrote, he name-drops Peter Green’s cut on Fleetwood Mac’s 1968 instrumental track, “Albatross”. Years later, he was asked to cover the song at Mick Fleetwood & Friends’ tribute concert to Green, at London’s Palladium on February 20th, 2020. Green would die just months later.
Fleetwood had personally invited Gilmour to feature. It put the fear of God into him.
“He had so much reverence for Peter Green’s playing and who Peter was and the songs,” the drummer told Rolling Stone. “He initially got cold feet. He was like, ‘I don’t know if I can interpret Peter’s work. It’s so amazing. Maybe I can’t do that…At the moment, I’m sort of passing on the idea. But later on, if this happens, I may gather enough courage.’”
Gather the courage he did, but with a degree of separation between him and Green. He opted to play pedal steel, rather than electric guitar.
Yet the song proves the point that all guitarists have their muses. Green has said that “Albatross” was written in direct reference to two tracks: Santo & Johnny’s “Sleep Walk” and “The Last Meal”, a John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers track from Clapton’s revered era with the group. He had craved a bluesier take on Hawaiian-style playing, and the song stuck to Gilmour like glue.
Meanwhile, Gilmour has named this player as one every guitarist should study. He’s also confessed to never learning one of his most famous solos.
