Brian May

Brian Harold May CBE (born 19 July 1947 in Hampton, London, England) became famous in the 1970s and 1980s as the virtuoso guitarist of the rock group Queen and composed many of their hits, including "We Will Rock You", "Hammer to Fall", "Tie Your Mother Down", "Who Wants to Live Forever", "I Want it All", and "The Show Must Go On".

Gear

Most of Brian's guitar work was played with the Red Special. Still, he used some other electric guitars, including a Burns Double Six (Long Away), a Fender Telecaster (Crazy Little Thing Called Love) an Ibanez (Nothing But Blue) and a Flying V (One Vision).

Related Topics:
Burns Double Six - Fender Telecaster - Ibanez - Flying V

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In early Queen tours he had a Stratocaster as spare guitar, replacing it with a Les Paul Deluxe in 1974, then a John Birch replica of his Red Special the next year. In a concert in the States on the 1982 Hot Space North American tour, he got frustrated with that instrument and smashed it, thereafter using a Gibson Flying V until he got more suitable replicas of his beloved Red Special.

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For acoustic guitars, mostly he used Ovation 12-Strings, Martins and a Gibson Chet Atkins for nylon-string parts. His ukelele was Aloha. Pianos he recorded include Bosendorfers, although in concerts he relied on Mercury's Steinway. May used Yamaha DX-7 synths for some of his most memorable inputs: the opening sequence of One Vision and the backgrounds of Who Wants To Live Forever, Scandal and Show Must Go On.

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Brian was keen on using some toys as instruments as well. Some of his early acoustic works were done on a cheap Hairfred he had conserved from his childhood. He also used a Yamaha plastic piano in Teo Toriatte, a mini-banjo in Bring Back That Leroy Brown and a toy mini koto in Prophet's Song.

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Brian has used Vox AC-30 amplifiers almost exclusively since a meeting with his long time hero 'Rory Gallagher' at a gig in london during the late 60s/early 70s. He always used a 'treble booster' of some kind which with the AC-30 went a long way in helping create many of his signature guitar tones. Live, he used banks of AC-30 amplifiers keeping some amps with only guitar and others with all effects such as delay, flanger and chorus.

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