Brian May and Simon Bradley’s book about Brian’s Red Special, has hit the attention of Guitar Player….
Brian May and his father Harold started to hand-build an electric guitar in 1963. Brian dreamed of a guitar that would outperform any of the existing commercially made electric guitars; his father had the technical knowledge and skills to help make the dream come true. Brian played his guitar on every Queen album and in all of Queen’s live shows around the world.
In this book you will discover everything you ever wished to know about Brian’s unique instrument. Brian talks about every aspect of the Red Special, from its birth to playing on the roof of Buckingham Palace, from Live Aid to the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics – and beyond. All of this is accompanied with original diagrams, sketches and notes dating from the building of the guitar, as well as a great selection of photographs including Brian on stage with his guitar, close-ups and x-rays.
“My dad and I decided to make an electric guitar. I designed an instrument from scratch, with the intention that it would have a capability beyond anything that was out there, more tunable, with a greater range of pitches and sounds, with a better tremolo, and with a capability of feeding back through the air in a ‘good’ way’.” —Brian May
October 21, 201 [DATE UNCONFIRMED]
$30.00 (US)
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Although BRIAN MAY (London, England) is best known to the world as the lead guitarist of the supergroup Queen, he has a PhD in astrophysics and is an expert in 3-D photography. He co-wrote Bang! The Complete History of the Universe with Chris Lintott and Patrick Moore, A Village Lost and Found with Elena Vidal, and Diableries: Stereoscopic Adventures in Hell with Denis Pellerin and Paula Fleming.
SIMON BRADLEY (London, England) has been a professional guitar journalist since 1996 and is currently a multimedia editor at Guitarist magazine. He has also written for Total Guitar, What Guitar?, Guitar Techniques, SFX, T3, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer, Future Music, Computer Music, Rhythm, Guitarrista (Spain), Gitarist (Holland), and many websites, including Brian’s own www.brianmay.com.
GUITAR PLAYER
27 August 2014 GP Staff