Born on 19 July: Brian May, guitarist with Queen, has his head in the moonlight more than ever

Brian May, the world's only astrophysicist guitarist!

It's always perilous to take on a living legend. Not that I have anything against Brian May, who celebrates his 78th birthday today. But where do we start?

Let's start by recalling that his first band, in 1967, was called Smile and already included Roger Taylor, who went on to become Queen's drummer. Fun fact: Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood, both ex-Radiohead, chose an almost identical name for their latest project in 2020: The Smile. The English singer recently responded by saying that he had been inspired by a Ted Hughes poem. Duly noted!

Brian May is the richest member of Queen. In 2023, his fortune was estimated at around 260 million dollars (just under 240 million euros). This is hardly surprising, given that he wrote most of Queen's greatest hits, including ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘I Want It All’, ‘Save Me’, ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’, ‘Tie Your Mother Down’ and ‘I'm Here’.

He regularly features in the rankings of the world's greatest guitarists, one of the favourite exercises of the American magazine ‘Rolling Stone’. He rubs shoulders with Jim Hendrix, Angus Young (AC/DC), Pete Townshend (The Who), David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) and Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin). In his eyes, he is ‘one of the great brains of rock music’. But he has an extra speciality in that he plays most of the time on the Red Special, the nickname he gives to the guitars he builds with his own hands.

Since studying at Imperial College London in 1965, he has had another passion: astrophysics. The success of Queen obviously prevented him from presenting and defending his doctorate before 2007. We'll spare you the description and title of his work. Just know that expressions like radial velocity or absorption spectroscope are used.

Let's leave you with another listen to some of Brian May's exemplary solos: “Sheer Heart Attack” for its hard rock feel and “Bohemian Rhapsody” (1975) from 2 minutes 25 onwards.

(MH with Stéphane Soupart - Photo :© Etienne Tordoir)

Photo: Brian May with Queen on stage at Forest-National in Brussels (Belgium) on 21 September 1984