C.F. MARTIN & COMPANY, NAZARETH, 2001

Dick Boak at C.F. Martin & Company was approached by guitar technician Phil Taylor to source a dreadnought sized cutaway Martin with pickups in advance of David Gilmour’s series of acoustic shows at London’s Royal Festival Hall on 16th to 18th January 2002 and the Palais des Congrès, Paris, on 23rd to 24th January 2002. Boak suggested a couple of prototypes he had that would fit the bill and Gilmour proceeded to purchase both prototypes in 2001. Modified with the addition of both a Seymour Duncan pickup and Sony Electret microphone, the guitar served as Gilmour's main guitar for an eclectic showcase that included solo acoustic versions of old favorites Shine On You Crazy Diamond and Wish You Were Here, as well as the rarely heard Fat Old Sun from Atom Heart Mother, Syd Barrett’s Dominoes, the aria Je Crois Entendre Encore, from Georges Bizet’s opera The Pearl Fishers, and an encore of Hushabye Mountain, from the 1970 film, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. In a 2003 interview, Gilmour told Guitar Player magazine how he came up with the material for the shows: I went through the entire Pink Floyd catalogue, and I picked the tunes I liked. Then, after I figured out which ones would work with the instrumentation I had in mind, I spent about three months fiddling around in my home studio mocking up the arrangements. The acclaimed performance, backed by a double bass, cello, piano and vocal choir, was recorded for the live concert DVD David Gilmour in Concert, released in October 2002. Photographs by author and lyricist Polly Samson show Gilmour strumming the guitar in Studio One at London’s Abbey Road Studios in April 2005 during recording sessions for his 2006 solo album On An Island.