The two rock ‘n’ roll classics that made David Gilmour pick up a guitar: “Knocked me sideways”
Jimi Hendrix, along with a lot of other rock aficionados at the time, was slow to embrace psychedelic bands such as Pink Floyd. “Here’s one thing I hate, man,” he said, “When these cats say, ‘Look at the band. They’re playing psychedelic music!’ All they’re doing is flashing lights on them and playing ‘Johnny B Goode’ with the wrong chords. It’s terrible.”
This was a common opinion for many at the inception of psychedelic music. As a mainstream genre, rock ‘n’ roll was still in its infancy, so the fact that a lot of people were changing it in a relatively extreme way rubbed people the wrong way. Even Pink Floyd would probably admit that they released some songs that weren’t up to par in the early days. However, Hendrix never got to see the band or the genre at their peak, as Pink Floyd would go on to create some of the most cinematic and innovative records of all time.
At the heart of this music was the guitar work of David Gilmour. To call him merely a guitarist feels like an understatement, as it was a lot more than that; he was a complete revolutionary. He didn’t approach the guitar as a singular instrument; rather, he took a step back, saw a piece as a whole and considered how the guitar could be incorporated into it. The result was a full-bodied sound unlike anything the world of rock or psychedelic rock had ever seen.
The emotive nature of Gilmour’s playing comes from his influences, as he has previously called Jeff Beck his guitar hero. “He’s the one that I think pushes the boundaries. He’s consistently exciting,” he revealed. “Jeff can play damn fast, he can do speed, but he chooses not to most of the time, and that’s what impresses me. It’s what he chooses to leave out rather than what he chooses to stick in.”
Beck’s approach to playing the guitar meant that his songs, despite a lot of them being instrumental, were incredibly layered. He could inject instrumentation with emotion unlike anyone else, and that style is at the heart of Pink Floyd. Subsequently, it’s hardly a surprise that Gilmour is such a fan.
However, also at the heart of what Pink Floyd does is rock ‘n’ roll. Sure, the branch they explore may be more drawn out and conceptual, but it is still undoubtedly an example of rock music. The energy is there, and the hard-hitting chords and distortion are true to the genre’s origins. It means that fans of rock music heard Pink Floyd’s best work and stopped seeing it as a butchering of what they loved but an extension of it. Hendrix would have likely approved.
It’s hardly a surprise that rock ‘n’ roll remains at the heart of what Pink Floyd does, given the early iterations of the genre are what inspired Gilmour to pick up a guitar in the first place. When asked about tracks that influenced him in his early years, he was quick to pay homage to two classics of the genre.
“An awful lot of music had an effect on me from a very young age, but I can remember 1956 when I was ten years old, things like ‘Rock Around The Clock’ and ‘Jailhouse Rock’, which knocked me sideways,” he concluded. “Made me think about picking up and playing the guitar.”
