Queen's guitarist Brian May. Guitarist of the legendary Queen

One of the most outstanding guitarists on the planet, Brian May, was born on July 19, 1947. From a very early age, Brian became interested in music. At the age of five he tried to strum the piano, at six he switched to the ukulele, and at seven he received his first acoustic guitar. By the age of sixteen, the guy dreamed of a real Stratocaster, but the family did not have money for such a purchase, and Brian and his father made a guitar from scrap materials. They used mahogany left over from an old fireplace, an oak board, a knife blade, motorcycle valves and mother-of-pearl buttons.

Despite the artisanal production, the instrument turned out to be very solid and, having received the name “Red Special”, served May for many years. Like his future “royal” colleagues, Brian was an educated person. In the 60s, he received degrees in physics and mathematics, and also worked closely in astronomy. However, studying science did not interfere at all musical preferences, and at the age of 17, May formed his first team, "1984".

The group played mostly instrumental songs, and the peak of its heyday came in 1967, when “1984” had the opportunity to perform at the Olympia Theater along with Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Traffic and T. Rex. In 1968, the team broke up, but after a short time, Brian, together with former colleague Tim Staffell, put together another project, “Smile”. This collective did not last long, and on its ruins a a new group- "Queen". During his time in the “royal” ranks, Brian wrote a considerable amount of international famous hits, including the legendary "We will rock you".

His guitar, along with Freddie Mercury's unforgettable vocals, made Queen's style unique and easily recognizable. The musician's first work outside of his group was the mini-album "Star fleet project". The album was recorded in January 1983 with the participation of Eddie Van Halen, Alan Gratzer, Phil Chen and Fred Mandel.

Soon after, Guild Guitars released the first copy of the "Red Special" and May recorded a video guitar lesson for the "Star licks" series. Brian began preparing his debut full-length album in 1991, shortly before Mercury's death. The album's release was preceded by the single "Driven by you". The song was written for a Ford advertising campaign and was very successful in Britain. In support of "Back to the light" Brian May organized a global world tour. Following these tours, the live album “Live at the Brixton Academy” was released, which featured both solo material and Queen classics.

The second studio work of the legendary guitarist appeared in 1998, and in 2000 his soundtrack to the film "Furia" was released. In the new millennium, May worked hard to create a theatrical rock production of "We will rock you", and in 2004, together with drummer Roger Taylor and vocalist Paul Rodgers, he announced the start of a tour new version"Queen".

Brian May- Queen guitarist

Brian Harold May was born on July 19, 1947 in Hampton, Middlesex, England (another version is Twickenham, but if this is the same thing, then there are no complaints). At the age of five, he began learning to play the piano and banjo (in another source: at the age of 6, he took up the ukulele (ukulele). However, Brian soon switched to the guitar, which seemed to him a more expressive and “yielding” instrument. On his seventh For his birthday, he received an acoustic classical guitar as a gift and soon began to modernize it to suit himself and give it an electric sound. He put homemade pickups on it and played through a homemade amplifier. In his teenage years, he was no longer satisfied with such an instrument, he wanted a real electric guitar ...

Red Special - Brian's guitar

Father and son had experience working in wood and metal, and May Sr. was an electronics engineer, while Brian had a penchant for physics. Brian decided that if he was going to make his own guitar, it should completely satisfy him in every way. "I started with a classical Spanish guitar and started experimenting to see how the sound changed. I didn't want my guitar to sound like a Fender. I also knew I wanted twenty-four frets - I could never understand why people stopped at twenty two..." The guitar, called the Red Special, took two years to make - two years of experimenting with sound and shape.

Guitar Red Special

In Brian's house there was a mahogany board running across the fireplace. This board was one hundred and twenty years old (other sources say two hundred years or older), and it was riddled with small holes from wood beetles. Brian looked at this board as a child, as if wondering what it could be good for.

While studying music, Brian May never thought of neglecting his studies. He entered the Faculty of Astrophysics at Imperial College, won a scholarship and completed his studies with flying colors. Having received a degree in physics, he did not stop. Brian began to specialize in infrared astronomy. His second passion after music was astronomy, and he kept it “in reserve.” When Brian is asked what he would have done if he had not met the members of Queen, he will say that he would be an astronomer.

But a different fate awaited him. We can say that Brian is the founder of the group Queen, although this name was invented by Freddie Mercury. Brian was invited to other groups, but he never cheated on his “queen”. Before Queen, May played in the bands 1984 and Smile, which included another member of the future Queen, Roger Taylor.

Brian May, 1974

Despite the flow of energy emanating from him on stage, in life Brian May is most often a serious, slightly sentimental and vulnerable person. He didn't always get along with the band's extravagant vocalist and handsome drummer. Several times the group's existence was threatened. But respect for each other and love for music kept them together.

When Queen broke up after Freddie Mercury's death in 1991, Brian began solo career. True, back in 1983 he recorded an album with other famous musicians - "Star Fleet Project". New works - the album "Back To The Light" (1992), "Live At The Brixton Academy" (1994) and the latest album in 1998 " Another World". This album contains very different material: from the rather heavy "Cyborg" to the lyrical ballads "Why Don't We Try Again" and "Another World". Soon after the release of the album, Brian May went on a world tour, during which he finally visited Russia: in November 1998, Brian May and her band perform in St. Petersburg and Moscow: “We wanted to go to Russia in the 80s, when Queen still existed, but they didn’t let us in. Elton John and Cliff Richard had already performed there, but we were too wild a band for them,” says Brian. He was accompanied on tour by equally famous musicians: Eric Singer (Kiss), James Moses (Duran Duran), Neil Murray (Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Whitesnake). The opening act was the folk band "White Day", which amazed everyone with their performance of "Bohemian Rhapsody" on balalaikas and harmonicas. In addition to songs from the new album, Brian also performed famous Queen songs. After the concerts, in an interview with Brian said that he was amazed by the warmth of the reception by Russian Queen fans - however, this is not so important, because everyone says so...

• Studied at high school Hampton. Graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at Imperial College London. He has a number of publications on astronomy, and also wrote a Ph.D. thesis and defended it only almost 40 years later, since the fame of the Queen group set aside the musician’s scientific career.
• I became interested in the guitar at the age of 7. In 1963, he began building his own guitar with his father. Money for a Fender Stratocaster young musician there wasn't, but that didn't stop Brian. I came across a beam from an 18th century fireplace and parts from an old wardrobe. Buttons and parts from an old motorcycle were also used. Two years later the product was ready. This is how the Red Special guitar was born, which cost the musician only 8 pounds.
• Brian said about creating his guitar: “I started with a classical Spanish guitar and started experimenting to see how the sound changed. I didn't want my guitar to sound like a Fender. I also knew I wanted 24 frets, and I could never understand why people settled on 22."
• Brian May's musical career began in 1968. At first he was in the group Smile, which later regenerated into Queen.
• Brian May on the band's favorite album: "They were all important milestones our development. My personal favorite will always be Queen II because it was a huge leap forward... the biggest leap we've ever taken in our history. Suddenly we had the ability to control all the power and knowledge that we had accumulated, and we also had the money and time to use it.”
• Now I'm Here, We Will Rock You, Dragon Attack, I Want It All, God Save The Queen, Hammer To Fall and many other Queen songs were written by Brian May.
• His main instrument to this day is the Red Special, but the musician uses a number of other guitars during performances and in the studio: Gibson Flying V, Fender Telecaster, Gibson Les Paul Deluxe, Fender Stratocaster, Gibson Firebird and Ibanez JS. The guitarist's favorite amplifier is the Vox AC30.
• A sixpence coin instead of a pick - business card Brian May: “I feel like it gives me closer contact with the strings and more control over them when playing. I hold it loosely between my thumb and forefinger, with my index finger bent.” The coin was withdrawn from circulation in the early 1970s, but in 1993 the Royal Mint minted a batch of these coins with the image of the guitarist himself especially for Brian May.
• May on the main thing for a musician: “I believe that the job of a musician is to go everywhere, entertain people and tell the truth as you see it.”
• Brian is the tallest member of Queen: his height is 188 cm.
• May on the activity: “I’m not one of those who sit on the beaches. I love creating, making things and solving problems. If I wasn't busy, it would be a disaster."
• Brian May about his gastronomic preferences: “Yes, I’m a vegetarian, but not a strict one. I don't eat meat at all and I hardly eat fish. Well, except for those cases when there is no choice... But I believe that we are all, one way or another, trying to take some kind of conscious position on this issue.”
• He loves Guinness beer and Baileys liqueur, but otherwise does not abuse alcohol, smoking or drugs. Leads a fairly restrained lifestyle.
• The musician is ardent defender wildlife, donates funds to various projects and helps foundations. Asteroid 52665 Brianmay was named in his honor in 2008.

May is the creator of many of Queen's hits, where he most often played the legendary "Red Special" guitar, designed by himself and his father. Brian was ranked #26 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.

Brian Harold May was born on July 19, 1947, in Hampton, London. He attended the local Hampton School and graduated in Physics and Mathematics from Imperial College. May named his first band, Nineteen Eighty-Four, after George Orwell's novel of the same name.

Next Music band, Smile, appeared in 1968. In addition to Brian, the band was represented by Tim Staffell, and later by Roger Taylor, also a member of Queen. The legendary Queen was formed in 1970: with Freddie Mercury ( Freddie Mercury), pianist and lead vocalist; May, guitarist and vocalist; John Deacon, bass guitarist; and Roger Taylor, drummer and vocalist.

Brian wrote such international hits for Queen as "We Will Rock You", "Fat Bottomed Girls", "Who Wants To Live Forever", "I Want It All" and "The Show Must Go On", as well as such iconic compositions as "Save Me", "Hammer to Fall", "Brighton Rock", "The Prophet's Song", etc. As a rule, most of the songs from Queen albums were written by either Mercury or May.

After Mercury's death in 1991, May voluntarily came to a clinic in Arizona. He explains his decision: "I considered myself sick, completely sick. I was exhausted and in pieces. I fell into a deep depression. I was consumed by a sense of loss." Determined to deal with his pain, Brian tried to fulfill himself as best he could, including finishing his solo album, Back to the Light, and going on a promotional tour. The guitarist often noted that he considered creativity “the only form of independent therapy.”

At the end of 1992 it was officially created group The Brian May Band, which on February 23, 1993, with a renewed lineup, went on a world tour - both as a headliner and as an opening act for Guns N "Roses. In December 1993, May returned to the studio, where, together with Roger Taylor and John Deacon worked on the tracks included in "Made In Heaven", the final studio album Queen.

May received an honorary Doctor of Science degree in November 2002 from the University of Hertfordshire. The musician took part in the BBC program "Sky at night", hosted by Brian's longtime friend, English astronomer Patrick Moore. Friends, co-authored with Chris Lintott, released the book “Big Bang! Full story Universe" (“Bang! – The Complete History of the Universe”).

In 2007, Brian completed his dissertation in astrophysics and successfully passed the oral exam. On April 14, 2008, May became rector of Liverpool John Moores University, where he remained until March 2013. The musician was awarded the Armenian Order of Honor in 2009, and in next year received an award from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) for his contribution to animal welfare.

April 18, 2011 Lady Gaga ( Lady Gaga) confirmed that May will play guitar on her track "You and I" from the album "Born This Way". In June 2011, Brian performed in Tenerife with the German band Tangerine Dream at the Starmus festival, organized in honor of the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's first space flight.

In August 2012, Queen performed at the closing ceremony Olympic Games in London. May played a solo segment of "Brighton Rock" before joining Taylor and Jessie J for their timeless hit "We Will Rock You."

The very first musical instrument The one Brian learned to play was the banjolele that appears in the song "Bring Back That Leroy Brown" by Queen. For "Good Company," May used a ukulele that he bought in Hawaii. The musician also used other strings, such as harp, and bass instruments in recording tracks (for some demos, solo works and albums of the Queen + Paul Rodgers project).

Although Queen's main pianist remained Freddie Mercury, May occasionally served as keyboardist, including for the songs "Save Me", "Who Wants To Live Forever" and "Save Me". Since 1979, Brian has played synthesizers, organ (tracks "Let Me Live" and "Wedding March") and programmable drum machines - both for Queen and for third-party projects, his own and others.

May is an excellent vocalist. From Queen II to Queen's The Game, Brian was always the lead vocalist for at least one song. He was the composer, along with Lee Holdridg, of the mini-opera Il Colosso for Steve Barron's 1996 film The Adventures of Pinocchio. This opera was performed by May together with Jerry Hadley and Sissel Kyrkjebo.

From 1974 to 1988, Brian was married to Chrissie Mullen. The couple had three children: James (better known as Jimmy), Louise and Emily Root. Brian and Chrissie's divorce was made public by British tabloid newspapers. The media claimed that the musician had an affair with actress Anita Dobson, whom he met in 1986. Dobson and May formalized their relationship on November 18, 2000.

Brian stated in an interview that he suffered from severe depression in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The condition was so serious that Queen guitarist thought about solving problems through suicide. May's peace of mind was shaken by problems in his first marriage; a painful feeling that he is unable to properly fulfill the duties of a father and husband; lack of touring activity, as well as the death of his father Harold and the illness and death of Freddie Mercury.

Throughout her life, May has collected stereo photographs from the Victorian era.

The asteroid 52665 Brianmay and the dragonfly Heteragrion brianmayi are named after the musician.

A 2012 Guitar World reader poll ranked May second on its list of the greatest guitarists of all time.

Education

May graduated from Hampton School. Hampton School) and the prestigious Department of Physics and Mathematics at Imperial College London. Brian had already largely completed his PhD thesis on infrared astronomical research and had two scientific publications on astronomy: in the magazine Nature and the Monthly Bulletin of the Royal Astronomical Society, when Queen's success forced him to interrupt his scientific career.

Music career

Started playing guitar at the age of seven. Due to the lack of money for young May's dream - a Fender Stratocaster - he and his father constructed the famous Red Special guitar from a solid oak board cut from an 18th-century fireplace, parts from an old motorcycle and mother-of-pearl buttons.

In 1964 May organized student group 1984, with which he accompanied Jimi Hendrix in 1967. The group broke up in 1968, but soon decided to form together with 1984 vocalist and bassist Tim Staffel. new line-up. Roger Taylor, a dental student at Imperial College, responded to an advertisement looking for a drummer “in the style of Mitch Mitchell/Ginger Baker.” In the same year, May composed his first own melody.

It is the Red Special that is most often heard in Queen hits, but other instruments were sometimes used: Burns Double Six (“Long Away”), Fender Telecaster (“Crazy Little Thing Called Love”), Ibanez (“Nothing But Blue”) and Parker Fly ("Mother Love")

Brian began preparing his debut full-length album in 1991, shortly before Mercury's death. The album's release was preceded by the single "Driven by You". The song was written for a Ford advertising campaign and was very successful in Britain. In support of "Back to the light" Brian May organized a global world tour. Following these tours, the live album “Live at the Brixton Academy” was released, which featured both solo material and Queen classics.

After Queen broke up, May became involved solo career. He managed to record seven fairly successful solo albums. May was also noted for writing the music for the video game “Rise of the Robots.”

Nowadays

Brian is currently continuing musical career in the Queen group and conducts scientific activities in the direction of theoretical physics and mathematics. In 2007, he completed his PhD thesis in astrophysics and passed the oral examination. On June 18, 2008, at the suggestion of Sir Patrick Moore, asteroid 52665 Brianmay was named in May's honor.

In October 2010, Brian May was awarded an award from the International Fund for Animal Welfare ( IFAW) for his contribution to animal welfare. The awards ceremony took place in the House of Lords.

In 2009 he was awarded the Armenian Order of Honor.

The guitar is played with a sixpence coin, which went out of circulation in the early 70s, but a small batch of these coins were released by the Royal Mint in 1993 so that he could continue to use them as a pick.

Queen songs written by Brian May

• "Doing All Right" (with Staffel)
• "The Night Comes Down"
• "Son and Daughter"
• "Procession"
• "Father to Son"
• "White Queen (As It Began)"
• "Some Day One Day"
• "Brighton Rock"
• "Now I'm Here"
• "Dear Friends"
• "Stone Cold Crazy" (with Mercury, Taylor and Deacon)
• "Sweet Lady"
• "Good Company"
• "God Save the Queen"
• "Tie Your Mother Down"
• "Long Away"
• "White Man"
• "All Dead, All Dead"
• "Sleeping on the Sidewalk"
• "Dead on Time"
• Dreamer's Ball
• "Leaving Home Ain't Easy"
• "Dragon Attack"
• "Sail Away Sweet Sister"
• "Save Me"
• "Flash's Theme"
• "Flash to the Rescue"
• "Battle Theme"
• "The Wedding March"
• "Marriage of Dale and Ming" (with Taylor)
• "Crash Dive on Mingo City"
• "Flash's Theme Reprise (Victory Celebrations)"
• "The Hero"
• "Dancer"
• "Put Out the Fire"
• "Las Palabras De Amor (The Words of Love)"
• "Tear It Up"
• "Machines or Back to Humans" (with Taylor)
• "Hammer to Fall"
• "Is This the World"We Created?" (with Mercury)
• "I Go Crazy"
• "Gimme the Prize (Kurgan's Theme)"
• "I Can't Live With You"
• "Bijou" (with Mercury)
• "Lost Opportunity"
• "Too Much Love Will Kill You" (with Frank Musker and Elizabeth Lamers)
• "Mother Love" (with Mercury)
• "No-One But You (Only the Good Die Young)"

Brian May solos on the following songs:

• "Some Day One Day"
• "She Makes Me (Stormtrooper in Stilettoes)"
• "'39"
• "Good Company"
• "Long Away"
• "All Dead, All Dead"
• "Sleeping on the Sidewalk"
• "Leaving Home Ain't Easy"
• "Flash" (middle verse)
• "Sail Away Sweet Sister" (Freddie sings verse before guitar solo)
• "Who Wants to Live Forever" (first verse)
• "I Want It All" (verse before guitar solo)
• "Lost Opportunity" (B-side of the single "I'm Going Slightly Mad")
• "Let Me Live" (last verse)
• "Mother Love" (last verse)
• "No-One But You" (first and last verses)

Brian May's Complete Discography

• 1. Star Fleet Project(October 31, 1983).
• 2. Back to the Light(September 28, 1992).
• 3. Resurrection(January 31, 1994 in Japan only).
• 4. Live at the Brixton Academy(February 7, 1994).
• 5. Another World(June 1, 1998).
• 6. Red Special(October 7, 1998 in Japan only).
• 7. Furia(November 20, 2000).

Albums featuring Brian May

• 1. Pavarotti & Friends 1(participated in a concert recorded in 1993);
• 2. Mission: Impossible II (2000);
• 3. Zu & Co. - Live at the Royal Albert Hall(the album was released in December 2004 only in Italy);
• 4. Anthems(Kerry Ellis album 2010, May acted as producer);
• 5. Tangerine Dream and Brian May. Starmus - Sonic Universe (2013);
• 6. The solo on “The Devil” from Motörhead’s latest album “Bad Magic.”

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Excerpt characterizing May, Brian

Kutuzov, through his spy, received news on November 1 that put the army he commanded in an almost hopeless situation. The spy reported that the French were in enormous forces, having crossed the Vienna bridge, they headed towards the route of communication between Kutuzov and the troops coming from Russia. If Kutuzov had decided to stay in Krems, then Napoleon’s army of one and a half thousand would have cut him off from all communications, surrounded his exhausted army of forty thousand, and he would have been in Mack’s position near Ulm. If Kutuzov had decided to leave the road that led to communications with troops from Russia, then he would have had to enter without a road into the unknown lands of the Bohemian
mountains, defending themselves from superior enemy forces, and abandoning all hope of communication with Buxhoeveden. If Kutuzov had decided to retreat along the road from Krems to Olmutz to join forces with troops from Russia, then he risked being warned on this road by the French who had crossed the bridge in Vienna, and thus being forced to accept battle on the march, with all the burdens and convoys, and dealing with an enemy three times his size and surrounding him on both sides.
Kutuzov chose this last exit.
The French, as the spy reported, having crossed the bridge in Vienna, were marching in an intensified march towards Znaim, which lay on Kutuzov’s retreat route, more than a hundred miles ahead of him. To reach Znaim before the French meant to receive great hope to save the army; to allow the French to warn themselves in Znaim would probably mean exposing the entire army to a disgrace similar to that of Ulm, or to general destruction. But it was impossible to warn the French with their entire army. The French road from Vienna to Znaim was shorter and better than the Russian road from Krems to Znaim.
On the night of receiving the news, Kutuzov sent Bagration’s four-thousand-strong vanguard to the right over the mountains from the Kremlin-Znaim road to the Vienna-Znaim road. Bagration had to go through this transition without rest, stop facing Vienna and back to Znaim, and if he managed to warn the French, he had to delay them as long as he could. Kutuzov himself, with all his hardships, set out for Znaim.
Having walked with hungry, shoeless soldiers, without a road, through the mountains, on a stormy night forty-five miles, having lost a third of the stragglers, Bagration went to Gollabrun on the Vienna Znaim road several hours before the French approached Gollabrun from Vienna. Kutuzov had to walk another whole day with his convoys to reach Znaim, and therefore, in order to save the army, Bagration, with four thousand hungry, exhausted soldiers, had to hold off for a day the entire enemy army that met him in Gollabrun, which was obvious , impossible. But a strange fate made the impossible possible. The success of that deception, which gave the Vienna bridge into the hands of the French without a fight, prompted Murat to try to deceive Kutuzov in the same way. Murat, having met Bagration’s weak detachment on the Tsnaim road, thought that it was the entire army of Kutuzov. In order to undoubtedly crush this army, he waited for the troops that had fallen behind on the road from Vienna and for this purpose proposed a truce for three days, with the condition that both troops would not change their positions and would not move. Murat insisted that negotiations for peace were already underway and that, therefore, avoiding useless shedding of blood, he was offering a truce. The Austrian general Count Nostitz, who was stationed at the outposts, believed the words of the envoy Murat and retreated, revealing Bagration’s detachment. Another envoy went to the Russian chain to announce the same news about peace negotiations and offer a truce to the Russian troops for three days. Bagration replied that he could not accept or not accept a truce, and with a report of the proposal made to him, he sent his adjutant to Kutuzov.