David Gilmour has released 3 solo studio albums and 1 live album outside of Pink Floyd during his career and has worked on many more with other people!   His last album from 2006 was On An Island which he toured quite extensively.  I was lucky enough to watch him at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, England.

1978 – David Gilmour Self Titled Album

David Gilmour is the first solo album from Pink Floyd guitarist and vocalist David Gilmour, released in May 1978 in the UK and on June 17, 1978 in the US. The album reached #17 in the UK and #29 on the Billboard US album charts and was certified Gold in the US by the RIAA. The album was produced by Gilmour himself, and consists mostly of bluesy, guitar oriented rock songs except for the ballad So Far Away.

The album was recorded at Super Bear Studios in France between December 1977 and early January 1978 with engineer John Etchells. Then the album was mixed at the same studio in March 1978 by Nick Griffiths. The cover was done by Hipgnosis and Gilmour.

The album’s only single was “There’s No Way Out of Here” which flopped in Europe but did extremely well on American FM rock radio. The song was originally recorded by the band Unicorn (which Gilmour produced) in 1976 as “No Way Out of Here” for their album Too Many Crooks and was later covered by New Jersey stoner metal band Monster Magnet on their Monolithic Baby! album.

The album is a Joker’s Wild reunion of sorts, with Rick Wills and Willie Wilson joining Gilmour for the recording of the album.

One of the tunes he wrote at the time, but did not use, evolved into the Pink Floyd classic “Comfortably Numb” from The Wall. However, one song included on this album, “So Far Away”, used a chorus progression not unlike the chorus to “Comfortably Numb”, albeit in a different key.

The instrumental song “Raise My Rent” includes bits that would later be resurrected in the Pink Floyd songs “What Do You Want from Me?” and “Keep Talking”.

A slightly different version of the song “Short and Sweet” can also be found on collaborator Roy Harper’s 1980 album, The Unknown Soldier. Musically, “Short and Sweet” can be seen as a precursor to “Run Like Hell” (also from The Wall), with its shifting chords over a D pedal point, and a flanged guitar in Drop D tuning.

David Gilmour was re-released by EMI Records in Europe as a digitally remastered CD on August 14, 2006. Legacy Recordings/Columbia Records released the remastered CD in the US and Canada on September 12, 2006.

1984 – David Gilmour – About Face Album

About Face is the second solo album by the Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, released in March 1984. The album was co-produced by Bob Ezrin and David Gilmour. Two songs were co-written by Gilmour (music) and The Who’s Pete Townshend (lyrics), the rest by Gilmour himself. In May of the same year, fellow Floyd counterpart Roger Waters released his first official solo album The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking.

2006 – David Gilmour – On An Island Album

On an Island is the third solo album by David Gilmour, best known as a lead vocalist and guitarist for Pink Floyd. It was released in the United Kingdom on 6 March 2006, Gilmour’s 60th birthday, and in the U.S. the following day. It is Gilmour’s first new solo album in 22 years. The song “Castellorizon” received a Grammy Award nomination for best rock instrumental.

The album has achieved platinum status in Canada, selling over 100,000 copies in the first month of its release, and sold over 1,5 million copies worldwide.