The rock band Brian May called “too glorious”
Having a unique fingerprint on an instrument is all any musician can ask for. Although it might be hard trying to pick out any blues player in a lineup from time to time, it’s every artist’s greatest dream to find a particular sound that resonates with people and immediately identifies them to their audience. Although Brian May certainly created his own lane with Queen, he believed that one of his fellow guitar contemporaries was almost too skilled for words.
Compared to the other flashy guitar players coming out around the same time, May was a bit of an anomaly. While he did have the same influences from artists like Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page, the blues-infused tone of his guitar was matched by his innate sense of harmony, often involving him stringing different guitar parts together.
Even building his signature ‘Red Special’ guitar from scratch, May created a symphony whenever he sat down to compose a solo. Giving Freddie Mercury a run for his money in terms of layering his sound, May would often take multiple guitar parts and structure them like a three-part harmony vocal, often featuring lead lines weaving in and out of each other to create a controlled sense of musical chaos.
Despite May’s dexterity and knowledge of the studio, another prospective guitarist found his feet playing miles ahead of his peers. Around the time that Queen had come off of landmark albums like A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, Van Halen had started to perform their first major shows out of Los Angeles, featuring Eddie Van Halen’s unique approach to lead guitar.
Rather than cater to just one hand on the guitar neck, Eddie would expand it to two hands tapping the fretboard, resulting in flurries of notes that broadened the playing field for guitar players. Although many artists would take their music in different directions when hearing Eddie play for the first time, May was taken aback by how melodic his lead breaks could be.
Outside of the blues phrases he would sprinkle throughout every track, Eddie brought lush chords into the band’s vocabulary, including the massive cascading figures on songs like ‘Little Guitars’. When reminiscing about hearing Eddie’s solos, May thought his technique was too astounding for words.
Discussing the impact that Eddie had on the guitar community, May thought that his fellow guitarist was one of the few musicians who defied any kind of explanation, telling BBC Radio 1, “There hadn’t been anything so shocking since Jimi Hendrix. I saw Van Halen support Black Sabbath. And it was just glorious, almost too glorious to take in, to see this guy romping around a guitar like a kitten, you know, just running and taking it to places undreamed of. I love his playing – I always will”.
While May would take a few tricks from Eddie’s playbook, he did get one chance to collaborate with the guitar legend on the Star Fleet project, featuring them trading different melodic guitar parts back and forth. Despite May being one of the most celebrated guitarists in rock history, artists like Van Halen reminded him of what he could expand upon with his playing.
