Me, My Dad and 'The Old Lady'

The Guardian | Saturday 18 October 2014 Brian May with the Red guitar he 3 built with his father. Below, When Queen was taking off, Dad and with his parents on holiday and at I didn’t speak for nearly two years. Madison Square He couldn’t accept my rock star life Garden, New York, 1977 desperate for a proper electric guitar, tried to make the peace. “It drove her to accept my choice because it was a When Brian May was a teenager, he and but there was no way we could afford to a nervous breakdown. I inherited my dream he’d been forced to reject.” it, so Dad and I started making one.” dad’s stubbornness and she couldn’t His father also managed to keep his father built their own electric guitar – Brian’s dream was an instrument get either of us to budge. I still regret from him the financial battles he’d that could “talk” to him and “feed back that I wasn’t more conciliatory, but faced throughout his life. the Red Special. It’s the one he’s played in a good way”, like he’d seen his hero Dad and I were just too much alike.” “As a kid I didn’t realise that we were Jimi Hendrix do. And Harold made The turning point came when Queen really poor. When I discovered Dad on every Queen album and it even has that happen, helping him to create the played Madison Square Garden in New was still trying to pay off his mortgage unique tones and sounds that have York in 1977. quite late in life, I just did it for him. its own bodyguard on tour. He tells defined his playing style. “I put my parents on Concorde – But he wasn’t comfortable with that “It took two years and was all done which Dad had worked on but could and told me that he thought he’d failed Ruth Huntman what it means to him with hand tools,” he says, “using any never afford to fly on – and told him to because I earned as much in a night as materials we could lay our hands on. see what he thought. They came out he had in his career. Not true – he was The neck was part of an old fireplace. with Chrissie and our baby son, Jimmy. wonderful. We hand-carved the inlay on the fret I put them up in a hotel, told them to “Dad died from cancer in 1991 [the out of old mother-of-pearl buttons order room service and after the show, same year as Freddie], he was only and the tremolo arm was made from Dad shook my hand and said ‘OK, 66, really fit and didn’t drink. But he Me, my dad and a bicycle saddlebag holder, topped son, I get it now.’ That was a pivotal smoked 40 a day and that’s what killed off with the tip of one of my mum’s moment for me – I’d so desperately him.” knitting needles! wanted his approval.” “It was a special time and we Poignantly, it was only much later hile Brian was never really argued. Although Dad that May found out there was an still in a state ‘the old lady’ did turn the air blue after the chisel underlying reason for his father’s of shock after slipped and he a gouged a big piece initial dislike of his lifestyle. his father’s t’s 1963, and against the back- how they made it, he reveals for the out of the wood. He never forgave “Dad confided in me that when he death, his drop of the emerging rock’n’roll first time the nature of the close but himself, he was such a perfection- came out of the RAF, he’d like to have mother scene, a guitar-mad teenager is complex relationship he had with his ist. We had no idea how big a part the taken off and joined a band. But he had dropped pottering about at home with father. Red [named after the colour of wood me on the way and needed job security. another his dad having a go at making an It is more than 20 years since his it was made of] would play in my life I realised then that he’d found it hard Wbombshell. “Mum told me they’d had electric guitar. Fast forward 50 father’s death but when we talk, May – I thought I’d just have fun with it a difficult relationship. But as a kid I years and that nerdy teenager has is still visibly moved, recalling their at home.” had no idea, it just felt like a secure metamorphosed into Brian May, precious time in that workshop. “I Ironically, neither could they have and loving home. She felt she’d just Ithe “guitar god” at the heart of one of was an only child and pretty sheltered foreseen that the project that fuelled submerged herself in Dad, as wives did the world’s greatest rock bands, Queen. growing up in our small house in May’s passion for playing electric in those days. She made up for it much And that homemade guitar – the Red Feltham, Middlesex. Dad was an guitar would also tear them apart. later, getting a job in a chemist’s and Special – which began its life as a father electronics engineer and during the It was while studying for a PhD in turning into this great, social person. and son hobby, has achieved iconic war he served in the RAF at where astrophysics in London that he met “I had a wonderful 10 years with status. he met my mum, Ruth, who was in Freddie Mercury and Queen was born. Mum until she died suddenly at 76 of It’s the Red, or “the old lady” as the WRAF. “Dad was mortified when I chose an aneurysm. I wish they were both Brian calls her affectionately, that “After the war they married. I came the band over finishing my PhD. He still here, especially to celebrate the you hear on every Queen album and along and he got a job developing the thought I was throwing away my Red’s 50th birthday. Dad’s motto was the one he plays at every concert. It landing system for Concorde. Dad education. But, in the end, the pull “If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth was the guitar on which he played could make anything. He converted of the music was too hard to resist – overdoing.” We certainly did that the national anthem from the roof of our spare bedroom into a workshop especially when we got asked to tour with Queen! Buckingham Palace in 2002 for the where he made all our household with Mott the Hoople. “I hope he’d be proud. Since he died, Queen’s Golden Jubilee. On tour, it has appliances including our TV.” “When Queen was taking off, we I’ve become a person who tries to make its own bodyguard, it has a dedicated May says he was an overachiever at didn’t speak for nearly two years. He a difference to the world, and not just Wikipedia page and has become a school, flying through his exams with also hated the fact that I was living through music. I think he’d smile, nod brand – Brian May Guitars – producing top grades. His passion for music was with a woman, who turned out to be his head and say ‘Yes, son, you’ve done affordable replicas. ignited by his father who played the my first wife, Chrissie. He thought it the right thing.’” Now, to mark the Red’s 50th piano and banjolele by ear. was immoral. I couldn’t understand it. anniversary and to the delight of “But I desperately wanted a guitar, There seemed such a conflict within Brian May’s Red Special: The Story of guitar geeks everywhere, May has so when I was seven, Mum and Dad Dad. On one level he was so in tune the Home-Made Guitar that Rocked deconstructed it in a new book that scrimped to buy an acoustic – which with my music – after all he helped me Queen and the World by Brian May with details every screw, spring and tool I still have – and he taught me the make the Red – but on another level he Simon Bradley is published by Carlton that he and his dad used. shapes on his banjolele. It wasn’t long couldn’t accept my rock star life.” Books, £19.99. To order a copy for But on a deeper level, and before I had electrified it, plugging it The rift had a devastating effect on £15.49, go to bookshop.theguardian.com importantly for Brian, in recounting into a homemade amplifier. At 16, I was his mother’s health as she desperately or call 0330 333 6846.

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