David Gilmour

David Gilmour learned to play guitar from a Pete Seeger tutorial book, but he also counts Bill Haley & His Comets’ “Rock Around the Clock” and Lead Belly as early influences.

∙ In the mid-’60s, he and his childhood friend (and future Pink Floyd bandmate) Syd Barrett were arrested while busking during a summer visit to Saint-Tropez, France.

∙ In 1967, while trying to find success in France with the band Bullitt, Gilmour was hospitalized for malnutrition, which motivated him to move back to England, where he soon joined Pink Floyd.