Happy birthday, David Gilmour

Born on 6 March 1946, David Gilmour is 64 today, depending on your time zone. He started out as a male model (you can see why here and, frankly, above) and ended up as one of the great guitar heroes. There are several survivors from the 60s still playing, but I can’t think of any still extending their range apart from him and Jeff Beck. His music is more conservative than Beck’s but technically his playing is every bit as magical. He also seems to be a very good chap, as you’ll find online: loads of philanthropy, and when the Live 8 concert led to a big spike in sales of Pink Floyd CDs he said, “I will not profit from the concert. This is money that should be used to save lives.”

Here he is at about 60 in a New York studio performing Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb”. He wrote the music, Roger Waters wrote the words. What a combination they were. The two guitar solos – the first is over the D major section, the second over the B minor – always appear on lists of the greatest guitar solos ever. Those lists are stupid but that doesn’t detract from how good these solos are. They look and sound simple – even I can bash my way through them – but no one else has Gilmour’s touch or feel.

It is really hard to play over music as slow as this, and I can’t think of another guitarist who is so happy down the bottom end of the neck where, as with the slow tempo, it is harder to play. Also, we can all copy this but the trick is to invent it. We can all plagiarise, but can we all write?