“Amazing”: the most beautiful guitar song Brian May ever heard
What Brian May does on guitar to this day is about more than tying different songs together.
Queen were always trying to make new creative endeavours every single time they went into the studio, and that meant May thinking about his guitar in a far more advanced way than just a musical instrument. It coloured the sound perfectly every time he played, and it was all about him trying to make some of the finest music that anyone had ever heard from the moment that they heard one of his solos coming in.
After all, May was already trying to be an inventor before he had even picked up the instrument. He had been fascinated with the idea of playing guitar for years, and if he could make his guitar out of nothing but parts from his father’s fireplace, he wasn’t going to suddenly stop when he figured out how to play some of his favourite blues licks. There was a lot more to explore, and every single Queen album saw May get even more ambitious with his instrument.
Even on the first Queen albums, the liner notes included messages saying that May was making all of those sounds without the use of synthesisers, and every one of his records was another great journey into the unknown. One song could have had him playing a face-melting solo like ‘Brighton Rock’, but there would also be tunes like ‘Good Company’ where the whole tune sounded like a jazz band that happened to all be created on one guitar.
No one had heard the guitar make those kinds of sounds before, but May was always after strange sounds the same way that his heroes were. The Beatles had knocked down the doors for what strange music could be in a pop context, but from the guitar perspective, May saw everyone from Jimmy Page to Jimi Hendrix as his teachers whenever he began working on some of his masterpieces.
All of them had lessons to teach, but no other guitarist seemed to be as one with their instrument as Jeff Beck was. His entire process was about never playing the same thing twice whenever he made one of his records, and whether it was May listening to Blow By Blow or his fusion pieces on albums like Wired, he was always listening out for when Beck was playing something that no one else could.
So when Beck re-emerged in the 1980s with an album like Guitar Shop, May felt that he had outdone himself yet again when working on songs like ‘Where Were You’, saying, “If you wanna hear his depth of emotion, sound and phrasing and the way he could touch your soul, listen to ‘Where Were You’ of the guitar shop album.”
Adding, “It’s unbelievable, it’s possibly the most beautiful bit of guitar music ever recorded. So sensitive, so beautiful, so incredibly creative and unlike anything you’ve ever heard anywhere else. He brought an amazing voice to rock music, which will never, ever be emulated or equalled.”
And that’s without even needing lyrics to throw on top of everything. OF course, Beck had the right vocalists that could help bring some of his songs to life, but if you listen to his instrumental version of ‘Superstition’ by Stevie Wonder or those moments where he’s playing on his own when working with Roger Waters, every single note he plays feels meticulously crafted to be the perfect tearjerker at any given moment.
The rest of the world might have seen all of Beck’s talents for what they were, but sometimes it takes people like Brian May to remind everyone of what they had on their hands. Beck was a generational talent, and everyone was bound to be dumbstruck when they heard that everything that they heard was being played by one guitar.
