Brian May

 

• Date Of Birth July 19, 1947
• Birthplace Twickenham, England
• Instruments Guitars, keyboards, vocals

With a musical career spanning four decades, Queen founding member Brian May is a world-renowned guitarist and songwriter, with production and performance credits on recordings which have sold in excess of 100 million copies worldwide.

Brian has penned 22 worldwide hits for Queen; among them the anthems ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘The Show Must Go On’ and ‘I Want It All’, and powerful ballads including ‘Who Wants to Live Forever’, ‘No-One But You (Only the Good Die Young)‘ and ‘Save Me’. As a successful and respected solo artist, Brian’s recordings include the albums Back to the Light (1992), featuring ‘Too Much Love Will Kill You’ and ‘Driven By You’, both Ivor Novello Award-winners, and 1998’s Another World. His songs continue to influence new generations of performers and have inspired recordings by artists as diverse as Elton John, Def Leppard, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Shirley Bassey and Eminem. Brian has enjoyed collaborations with numerous artists including Robbie Williams, the Foo Fighters, Cliff Richard, Guns ‘n’ Roses, Diana Ross and Luciano Pavarotti. He was also proud to play feature guitar on the Winter Olympics 2002 opening music, ‘The Fire Within’ for his friend and composer, the late Michael Kamen.

Perhaps the most memorable display of Brian’s unique style and musicianship was his performance of his own arrangement of ‘God Save the Queen’, live from the roof of Buckingham Palace, to open HM The Queen’s 2002 Golden Jubilee celebrations in front of an audience of more than 200 million people around the world.

An interest in film scoring developed when Queen became the first rock group to score a major film, Flash Gordon, featuring the hit ‘Flash!’ penned by Brian. This was followed by definitive music for Highlander. Brian later contributed a mini-opera for Steve Baron’s 1996 Pinocchio, and composed a complete film soundtrack for the 1999 French art film Furia.

May is, of course, no stranger to the theatrical world, frequently contributing to the live performance work of his wife Anita Dobson, but in 1987, entering this world in his own right, he wrote and performed the music for the London Riverside Studios production of Macbeth. He returned at full strength to the Theatre in 2002, as one of the principal creative forces behind the groundbreaking ‘rock theatrical’, We Will Rock You, which became phenomenally successful, still one of London’s top-selling shows after nine years of nightly standing ovations at the Dominion Theatre, London, and easily the longest-running show ever to play at the theatre. Although We Will Rock You is now a global enterprise, Brian remains personally involved in developing new productions and updating those currently playing.

On Freddie’s death, the surviving members of Queen set up a charity to support AIDS relief, the Mercury Phoenix Trust. The MPT has to date channelled more than eight million pounds to over 1,000 AIDS projects around the world. An ongoing commitment to AIDS awareness led Queen to become a driving force in the 46664 campaign for the Nelson Mandela Foundation. The first of a series of 46664 concerts, held in Cape Town in November 2003, was broadcast worldwide via TV, Internet and radio, becoming the most widely distributed media event in history, with an audience of over 2 billion in 166 countries. Brian continues in his role as an ambassador and participant in the 46664 international concert series aimed at promoting AIDS awareness worldwide.

Queen’s musical catalogue consistently tops popularity polls, and their achievements have been recognised with numerous prestigious awards, including being honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (October 2002), being inducted into both the USA Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (March 2001) and the Songwriters Hall of Fame (June 2003), and being among the first inductees into the UK Music Hall of Fame (November 2004), which was the first event at which Paul Rodgers joined Brian and Roger as vocalist. A successful world tour together followed in 2005/06, and Paul, Brian and Roger (Taylor) then went into the studio to create new material for the well-received Queen/Paul Rodgers album “The Cosmos Rocks”, followed by a second giant world tour. 

In July 2005, Guinness World Records announced that Queen had overtaken the Beatles to become the most successful albums act in UK chart history.

Brian’s further credits are too numerous to list, but they include designing a Planetarium show currently showing in Germany and Belgium; re-mixing classic Queen recordings in 5.1 Surround Sound; writing themes for several TV shows; producing a number 1 hit, ‘The Stonk’, for Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day; as well as lending his inspirational skills to the three top-selling volumes of The Best Air Guitar Album in the World...Ever!  His most recent musical work is the spectacular debut album from singer Kerry Ellis, an original leading actress of WWRY, and recently star of Wicked in the West End and on Broadway. This epic album, titled “Anthems”, features Brian’s arrangement, production, and guitar work, and some new products of Brian’s songwriting.

Retaining his keen interest in astronomy, Brian is a regular contributor to The Sky at Night for his long-time friend, Sir Patrick Moore, with whom he co-authored, along with Dr Chris Lintott, an illustrated astrophysics book entitled BANG! The Complete History of the Universe. First published in 2006, it has since been published in 20 languages, and is currently in its third updated edition. Brian followed up with a unique book on another of his long-term passions, seminal 1850s photographer T. R. Williams whose work Brian has been researching for over 30 years. The book, “A Village Lost and Found”, written with photohistorian Elena Vidal, is illustrated in 3-D, and includes a patent stereoscope of Brian’s own design. 

In December 2005, Brian was honoured with a CBE, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, by HM The Queen, in recognition of his services to music.

In 2007, after a 30-year break pursuing his musical career, Brian returned to Imperial College, London, to sign up to complete his Doctoral Thesis in Astrophysics, and after one year, successfully submitted the new version of his thesis on Interplanetary Dust.

Already the holder of honorary degrees from the Universities of Hertfordshire, Exeter and John Moore’s, Liverpool, Brian in 2007 finally achieved the award of a full PhD degree.  Brian subsequently accepted a post of Visiting Researcher at Imperial College and will be continuing his work in astronomy. He is also currently the Chancellor or Liverpool John Moore’s University. 

In 2010 Brian founded Save-Me, a campaign devoted to preventing cruelty to wild animals.  His work fighting the abuse of foxes and badgers led to him recently being awarded the honour of “Campaigner of the Year” by IFAW, the International fund for Animal Welfare.  This work continues through the Save-Me website … www.Save-Me.org.uk. 

Brian enjoys interacting with his friends and fans, who can contact him and enjoy updates on his work and thoughts via his own channel, Brian’s Soapbox, on his website at www.brianmay.com.

Wikipedia Entry: Brian May

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Queen

Queen formed in 1971 and in 1973 signed their first recording contract for EMI. That year they released their first album, QUEEN. The same year saw their first major UK tour, and in 1974 they released QUEEN II as well as making their first UK headlining tour. They made their first US tour, and in November released SHEER HEART ATTACK which was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic.
 

1975 saw their new release, A NIGHT AT THE OPERA, and – significantly – the single Bohemian Rhapsody. At 5’ 55” it should have been too long for successful radio play but it became one of the greatest singles of all time, staying at No. 1 in the UK chart for nine weeks. The video, directed by Bruce Gowers, is credited with being the first genuine promotional video. The song has regularly featured in all major pop polls and was recently named again as the best single of all time. The success of A NIGHT AT THE OPERA was equally stunning, giving the band their first platinum album.

In 1976 they toured the US and Japan and by spring all four albums resided in the UK Top Twenty. Later that year they released A DAY AT THE RACES, and gave a free concert in Hyde Park to an estimated crowd of 200,000 fans. The album was a huge success, advance orders alone amounting to over 500,000. The following year saw two major US tours, the band’s sixth album, NEWS OF THE WORLD and the legendary double A side single, WE WILL ROCK YOU and WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS.

1978’s JAZZ, included another huge hit single in Bicycle Race and Queen toured the US and Canada. They spent much of 1979 touring in Europe and Japan, as well as releasing their first live album, LIVE KILLERS. They were also approached to write the score for a forthcoming feature film, FLASH GORDON. Before that they released THE GAME in 1980 which went five times platinum in Canada alone! Another One Bites The Dust became the band’s biggest selling American single. Later that year the soundtrack for FLASH GORDON was released and by the end of the year Queen had sold over 45,000,000 albums worldwide.

In 1981 they toured the Far East and were the first band to make a stadium tour of South America. They played to 131,000 people in Sao Paolo, the largest paying audience for any band anywhere in the world. GREATEST HITS, GREATEST FLIX and GREATEST PIX were released simultaneously later in the year and Greatest Hits has rarely been out of the UK album charts since. Greatest Flix was the first collection of promo-videos released commercially by any band. Next year saw the release of the band’s twelfth album, HOT SPACE whilst they were in the middle of a European tour.

1984 saw THE WORKS and the single Radio Ga Ga became a worldwide hit, reaching No. 1 in 19 countries. Another huge hit was I Want To Break Free, featuring one of their most famous videos, all dressed in drag. In 1985 they were the headlining act at Rock in Rio, the biggest festival to be held anywhere in the world. They again made history that year with the show-stealing performance at Live Aid from Wembley Stadium, which proved to be a turning point for the band, One Vision being the first post Live Aid release.

1986 saw their 14th album, A KIND OF MAGIC, which was the soundtrack to the Russel Mulcahy film, Highlander. The title track became another worldwide smash and the album entered the UK charts at No. 1; later in the year the 2nd live album, LIVE MAGIC, went into the charts at No. 3. Between 1988 and 1991 Queen released three more albums, THE MIRACLE in 1989 and in 1991 INNUENDO and GREATEST HITS TWO. All three entered the UK charts at No. 1, as did the single Innuendo.

On 23rd November 1991 Freddie Mercury announced to the world that he had AIDS and the next day he died peacefully at his home, surrounded by family and friends. He remains the most high profile loss from the disease in the entertainment world and the news shocked fans throughout the world. As a tribute Bohemian Rhapsody /These Are The Days Of Our Lives was released as a double A-sided single to raise funds for the Terence Higgins Trust. It entered the UK chart at No. 1, where it stayed for five weeks, raising over £1,000,000 for the charity and Queen became the first band to have the same single top the uK charts twice. In December of that year Queen had 10 albums in the UK Top 100. In 1992 Freddie was awarded posthumously the BRIT’s “Outstanding Contribution to British Music” and Days Of Our Lives won Best Single. On 20th April many of the world’s top stars joined Brian, Roger and John on stage at Wembley for an emotional tribute to Freddie.

In 1995 the tracks that Queen had begun in 1991 were completed by Brian, Roger and John and the long-awaited MADE IN HEAVEN was released worldwide. It was the end of an era. Since then the phenomenon of Queen has remained, however, with continuing sales for their recorded output on CD and video. A ballet of their music by famous French choreographer Maurice Bejart was premiered at the National Theatre in Paris in 1997 and in May 2002 the hit musical We Will Rock You opened to sell-out audiences in London’s West End and continues to play to packed houses and standing ovations every night. Queen’s first DVD Greatest Video Hits Vol.1 was released at the end of October 2002, and yet another piece of Queen product entered the UK charts at number 1. October 2002 also saw Queen receive their own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Los Angeles, joining The Beatles as only one of a handful of non-US bands to receive the much coveted honour. Last year, 2004 they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Walk of Fame, and in the UK were voted by the public into the first UK Music Hall of Fame.

Queen’s musical has since opened in Australia, Spain, Las Vegas,USA, Russia, Germany and is scheduled to open in Japan this May.

Brian and Roger continue to be ambassadors for Nelson Mandela’s 46664 HIV/AIDS awareness campaign and this month, March, played a second benefit concert for 46664 in Fancourt, South Africa.

Brian and Roger took Queen back onto the touring circuit for the first time since 1986 in 2005 and 2008, joined by former Free/Bad Company singer, songwriter and musicial Paul Rodgers playing concerts across the UK and throughout Europe.

 http://www.queenonline.com

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