The surprising guitarist Brian May called “extraordinary”
Queen guitarist Brian May is widely deemed among his generation’s finest players. Despite his band splitting opinion amongst the musos of the world, very few can doubt that May isn’t a technically proficient axeman. Armed with his trusty sixpence piece and custom Red Special guitar, May has proved his talent on the instrument over the years and has written numerous hits for the British band, including, ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘Flash’ and ‘Tie Your Mother Down’.
A lifelong student of the guitar, May has cited a host of figures as influences, with all doing their bit to inform the broad reach of his skill. When sitting down with My Planet Rocks’ Liz Barnes in 2013, he reflected on this by picking a selection of his favourite songs, which included numbers by everyone from Buddy Holly to Queen. At one point during the conversation, May turned his attention to Rainbow’s 1979 cover of Russ Ballard’s ‘Since You Been Gone’. Famously, Rainbow was founded in 1975 by former Deep Purple guitar hero Ritchie Blackmore, featuring Ronnie James Dio on vocals.
After May was asked by the host to pick an example of a “really good guitar track”, he immediately returned with ‘Since You Been Gone’. Here, he effused about the guitar-playing of Blackmore and labelled it “extraordinary” before describing the song itself as “perfect”.
May said: “OK, what just popped into my head is ‘Since You’ve Been Gone’ because I think it’s a quintessential, I suppose you would call it pop rock, in a sense, you know… but it’s uncompromising, it’s a great song, and it’s brilliantly played. I mean, the drums – my dear friend Cozy Powell, of course – long gone, and I worked with him, and it was a wonderful experience working with that guy. I mean, incredible.”
He continued: “He had rock all the way through him, an amazing guy. And, of course, Ritchie Blackmore playing guitar, who’s extraordinary. People don’t talk about Ritchie Blackmore enough. I don’t know why. But he was such a trailblazer and technically incredible, unpredictable in every possible way, which is great. I mean, that’s what you love, isn’t it?”
“You go to a gig, and you want to see something which is not predictable, which is not like just reproducing something,” he added. “So, you never knew what you were gonna see when you went to see Purple when Blackmore was in it – but also Rainbow. This (Rainbow) was his own thing, and it was wild and dangerous. This is a good pop record, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s great rock music, in my opinion. I think it’s perfect”.
Listen to the full Brian May interview below.
