 Brian May 6'1.5" (approximately 186.7 cm)
Born in Twickenham, England
July 19, 1947 Guitars, synths, vocals July 19th 1947, that's a really big day for the pop-world. On that day in the small town of Twickenham in England, one of the worlds greatest guitarists of all times, Mr Brian May was born. His mother says that he in the beginning wanted to be a surgeon, but Brian himself has no memory of that. But one thing is certain, already in the early years you could se that he was going to be a great musician. He started to learning playing the piano at age 5, the ukulele at age 6, and for his 7th birthday he got his first acoustic guitar. In August 1963, when Brian was 16. He and his father Harold started the work on his electric guitar. The guitars neck is made out of Mahogany from an old fireplace. The body is mainly of oak, and the tremolo is made of an old knife edge and two motorbike valve springs. The fret-marks on the neck of the guitar is made out of old pearl buttons. The guitar quickly got known as the "Red Special". For guitar pics, Brian uses something so special as an old sixpence coin. Brian is, like all of the other members in Queen very well educated. He's got a BSc honours degree in both Physics and Maths. He also tried to get one in astronomy, but he never finished. Except for the 20 albums Brian have made together with Queen, he has also made 3 solo albums. Two studio albums, "Star fleet project" and "Back to the light". and one live album "Live at the Brixton academy". And now some milestones for Brian: In 1968, Brian May and Tim Staffell, both students at Imperial College, decided they wanted to form a group. Brian placed an advertisement on the college notice board for a "Ginger Baker type" drummer, and a young medical student called Roger Taylor auditioned and got the job. They called the group "SMILE". Smile were signed to Mercury Records in 1969, and had their first experience of a recording studio in Trident Studios that year. Tim Staffell was at Ealing College of Art with Freddie Bulsara, and introduced him to the band. Freddie soon became a keen fan. Sadly, in 1970 "Smile" decided to call it a day, as nothing seemed to be happening for them. Tim went off and joined a band called Humpy Bong, and Freddie left his band "Wreckage" and joined up with Brian and Roger - it had all begun. In April 1974, the band embarked on their first-ever USA tour as guests to Mott the Hoople. But in may of that year, whilst on tour, Brian collapsed with hepatitis, and the band had to cancel the rest of their dates. Because of Brians collapse the band had to start with the making of their third album on their own. But finally Brian felt well enough to go in to the studios and record his guitar parts. And in November 1974 "Sheer Heart Attack" was released. In January 1983, at the same time as Freddie began the work on his solo album, Brian flew out to Los Angeles and gathered together a few closefriends in the Record Plant studios there. Brian had some basic ideas to work on, but it was generally a lengthy jam session. However, Brian had no intention of wasting the talents of Edward Van Halen, Alan Gratzer, Phil Chen and Fred Mandel - and so kept the tapes rolling throughout the whole session. The result was the mini album "STAR FLEET PROJECT", which was released in October 1983. In June 1984, a co mpany called Guild Guitars launched a special copy of Brian's home-made "Red Special" guitar. It was called the BHM1. Sadly, about a year later, Brian and Guild had some discussions about the design of the instrument which resulted in Guild ceasing the production. In July 1991, Brian flew out to Montreux to continue the work on his long-awaited solo album. In April, Brian had been commissioned by a London advertising agency to write a piece of music for an advertising campaign for Ford cars. The resu lting track, "Driven by You", was so good (and proved so popular) that Brian released it as his first solo single on November 25th. It made the top ten in the UK charts. September 1992 saw the release of the long-awaited Brian May solo album, called 'Back To The Light'. The album went into the UK charts at number 6 and achieved double gold status. The Brian May Band was then formed. Having warmed up in Chile, Argentina and Brazil in November 1992. The Brian May Band embarked upon a World Tour, begin ning in the USA and Europe as special guests to Guns N'Roses. They then went on to headline their own sell-out tour of North America, Japan and Europe, finishing in Portugal in December 1993. In February 1994 EMI released 'The Brian May Band Live At Brixton Academy' on album and video, the first live recordings of the band. | 
