The Red Special is an electric guitar owned and custom built by who?

The Red Special is the electric guitar designed and built by Queen's guitarist Brian May and his father, Harold, when Brian was a teenager in the early 1960s. The Red Special is also sometimes referred to, by May and by others, as the Fireplace or the Old Lady. A guitar that would define May's signature style, it was intentionally designed to feed back after he saw Jeff Beck playing live and making different sounds just by moving the guitar in front of the amp. He wanted an instrument that was going to be alive and interact with him and the air around him.

May has used the Red Special almost exclusively, including on Queen albums and in live performances since the band's advent in the early 1970s. The name Red Special came from the reddish-brown colour the guitar attained after being stained and painted with numerous layers of Rustins' Plastic Coating. The name Fireplace is a reference to the fact that the wood used to make the neck came from a fireplace mantel.

In celebration of the instrument's 50th anniversary, a book about its construction and history, Brian May’s Red Special: The Story of the Home-Made Guitar that Rocked Queen and the World, was written by Brian May with Simon Bradley.

More Info: en.wikipedia.org

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Jakob Gerber

If you’re a guitarist it’s difficult to fathom that a teenager,and his dad made a guitar period ! But the fact that Brian ,and Harold made this out of scraps is remarkable. They even did all the electronics . I believe he bought some OTC pickups as well. The wiring is complex, as it has three pickups. The way he has it wired is unique, you can go in and out of phase in combinations that a Stratocaster doesn’t have , nor ever will have. He actually tours with five other backups ,all made for him by different luthiers,so they are not exactly the same. Here’s a trivia question in respect to this guitar . “ What’s on the headstock of Brian May’s “ Red Special “? The headstock is the part of the guitar where you have the tuners etc. The answer is incredible . A hint . It’s what he uses as a guitar pick, or plectrum if you’re an Anglo . Queen is having a well deserved comeback due to the film “ Bohemian Rhapsody “ ,the film has gone through the roof. I saw them live twice, once at Wembley ( UK ) ,and here in Oakland in I think 1980-81 ? Point being, they were incredible live ,and when you’ve got all those layered studio productions ,one would think it impossible , but they pulled it off. In respect to technology . The Beatles recorded almost their entire canon on four tracks, they only got an eight track machine at EMI ( London ) now known as Abbey Road Studios half way through the White Album in 1968. Queen on the other hand recorded “ At The Races” on a twenty four track machine in 1975 . I can’t even imagine what the Beatles could have done on twenty four tracks, or even sixteen tracks ...