David Gilmour’s Bill Lewis Custom

David acquired this guitar sometime in the early 70s, upon visiting Bill Lewis’ guitar shop and trying one of his guitars. Bill Lewis was a well-respected guitar luthier and a classical guitar player, who spent some time learning with Andres Segovia in Spain. At the time David met him, he was stationed in Vancouver, Canada. Looking at the Pink Floyd concert dates, this most likely happened in October 1970.

The guitar was completely hand-made by Lewis and featured a mahogany body, a 24-fret neck, and two custom-designed pickups.

According to the book The Black Strat by Phil Taylor, David used this guitar during “Meddle” and “Dark Side of the Moon” studio sessions. As far as specifics, Phil notes that Gilmour used it to record the solo on “Money”, but we also have footage on YouTube of David recording solo/fills on “Brain Damage” with the same guitar. Those guitar parts, however, for whatever reason, did not end up on the final version of the song (see Pink Floyd Studio Recording of Brain Damage).