[2] Whitaker, who was born in Kingston upon Thames, collaborated with many prestigious British and French artists including Air, Etienne Daho, Marianne Faithfull, Claude François, Serge Gainsbourg, France Gall, Johnny Hallyday, the Rolling Stones, Jimmy Page (for the soundtrack to Death Wish II), Saint Etienne, Simply Red and Sylvie Vartan, and other international artists including Lee Hazlewood, Kings of Convenience and Francesco De Gregori.
The track might have remained an obscure footnote to the Stones oeuvre, but in 1997 a major controversy erupted surrounding the use of samples from that version of "The Last Time" in the song "Bitter Sweet Symphony" by UK band "The Verve", which drew international attention.
Whitaker recorded several sessions with the BBC Radio Orchestra at the Maida Vale Studios, London, in the early 1980s, featuring a mixture of his own compositions and arrangements, to high acclaim.
In 1992, David Whitaker (along with Adrian Burch), arranged and produced a recording of the Buddy Holly hit "Heartbeat" with vocals performed by actor/singer Nick Berry.
He also produced the albums And A Touch of Love by Bill Davies, and The Revolutionary Piano of Nicky Hopkins, for which Whitaker did the arrangements.