Continuing with the Queen theme from my previous post, the video below is from a series of instructional videos fthat were made in the ealy 1980’s called Star Licks. Besides Brian May, the series featured well-known musicians such as Steve Lukather (Toto), Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath), Al McKay (Earth, Wind & Fire) and guitarist Albert Lee (Eric Clapton, solo), with the musicians demonstrating their techniques, riffs, etc.. May was approached with the idea for making audio cassettes of guitarists explaining their techniques. That idea was eventually expanded to include film to be marketed as video cassettes. The idea of “cassettes” may be like ancient history to some readers of this post but I remember seeing the ads for these videos in my guitar magazines (I feel so old).
In the video, Brian May discusses his equipment and techniques, and demonstrates a number of his guitar solos. He doesn’t really go into much detail about the solos and without the accompanying booklet, it may take some patience absorb the material but at the 17 minute mark there’s the big payoff when May takes you through his guitar solo in Bohemian Rhapsody.
Brian May – Star Licks (Guitar Tutorial 1983) – Full Version
If being the guitarist in Queen wasn’t awesome enough, May earned a PhD in astrophysics from Imperial College London in 2007, and was Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University from 2008 to 2013. He was a “science team collaborator” with NASA’s New Horizons Pluto mission and has an asteroid named after him (Asteroid 52665 Brianmay). Extra cool bonus points: He is also an animal rights activist who has campaigned against the hunting of foxes and the culling of badgers in the UK.
RoyMusicUSA 
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