{"id":371128,"date":"2026-10-12T17:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T17:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/371128\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T17:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T17:26:10","slug":"the-guitar-solo-queens-brian-may-considers-his-favorite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/371128\/","title":{"rendered":"The Guitar Solo Queen’s Brian May Considers His Favorite"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sir Brian Harold May,<\/a> to give the celebrated Queen guitarist his full title, certainly knows his stuff when it comes to electric guitar performances. May’s signature<\/a> sound and innovative solos helped propel Queen to the status of stadium-filling giants. Classic tracks by the band, including \u201cBohemian Rhapsody,\u201d \u201cWe Are the Champions,\u201d and \u201cAnother One Bites the Dust,\u201d remain radio staples, beloved of fans across the generations.<\/p>\n

But what\u2019s May\u2019s favorite guitar solo he\u2019s ever played<\/a>?<\/p>\n

THE RED SPECIAL AND ERIC CLAPTON<\/p>\n

May was born in 1947 in Hampton Hill in Richmond upon Thames, England. He co-founded Queen in 1970, after having earned himself a degree in Physics from Imperial College, London. Amazingly, the guitar that May used for numerous recordings and live performances, the ‘Red Special’, was hand-built by himself, with the aid of his engineer father, when May was just sixteen. The Red Special was constructed from recycled wood taken from an 18th-century fireplace. May played this guitar on countless Queen hits, propelling him to the top echelon of rock guitar players, frequently cited by his peers as one of the best to ever pick up the instrument.<\/p>\n

With all that talent and experience, it’s fascinating to hear May’s own views on the best guitar solo he’s ever heard. Speaking to the magazine Total Guitar, May singled out guitarist Eric Clapton’s work on the song \u201cKey to Love,\u201d from the album John Mayall’s Blues Breakers (with Eric Clapton). This was the debut album from that band, released in 1966. Clapton played a 1960 Gibson Les Paul for that session. Reflecting on Clapton’s solo, May enthused<\/a>: \u201cIt\u2019s the hottest, burning, high-passion piece I\u2019ve ever heard in my life \u2013 still to this day. I\u00a0just love it. It totally rips, and I\u2019ll never get over that. That\u2019s one of my great inspirations. The whole track revolves around that solo. Every time I\u00a0put it on, I\u2019m just waiting… John Mayall\u2019s great, but you\u2019re waiting for that moment when Eric rips out, and suddenly he\u2019s whacking into those top notes. It\u2019s incredible. Absolutely spine-chilling.\u201c<\/p>\n

BRIAN MAY’S FAVORITE BRIAN MAY GUITAR SOLO<\/p>\n

As for May’s favourite solo of his own? The guitarist picked out a track from Queen’s wonderful 1974 album, Sheer Heart Attack \u2013 the fantastic song \u201cKiller Queen.\u201d Said May<\/a>: “It was something a bit more complex, an adventure in putting guitar harmonies into the solo. It was quite a\u00a0step into the unknown, that solo, and it has a melody that I put in there which doesn\u2019t appear anywhere else in the song.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read More: <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir Brian Harold May, to give the celebrated Queen guitarist his full title, certainly knows his stuff when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-371128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}