AS PART TIME jobs go, being paid to show Jimi Hendrix around Paris in the ’60s has to be one of the best. It seems slightly unfair, then, that the man who can legitimately put this on his CV, also has “Pink Floyd member” among his list of experiences too, but David Gilmour boasts both claims to fame.

Speaking in the latest issue of MOJO (October ’15 / #263) which also includes a free CD that features the guitarist covering The Beatles, Gilmour rubs it in by recalling how he first saw Hendrix live at a very special gig before being asked to take him around the French capital.

“I saw him playing live at this club called Blaises in South Kensington. He jammed with the Brian Auger Trinity with Julie Driscoll singing,” he tells MOJO’s Tom Doyle. “This little place was packed with Beatles and Stones type of people, so you think, ‘Something’s going on.’ And this kid came in and strapped a right-handed guitar on the wrong way round. He was an absolute phenomenon from the beginning.”

Then Gilmour was called up as the guitarist’s tour guide on the other side of the English Channel.

“Jimi was an absolute phenomenon from the beginning.”

“Later, I was living in Paris and one of the jobs outside of just playing with my little pop group [Jokers Wild] there was that I was employed to take him round Paris for an evening, show him a good time,” he recalls. “And he seemed very nice. Likeable, shy.”

Get MOJO now for the full interview, and the free CD which, along with the cover, includes six tracks featuring Gilmour as a collaborator, plus several by some of his favourite artists.

PHOTO: Tom Oldham