With some great artists, it’s easy to pinpoint the time at which their classic tone launched itself upon the listening public. As far as American fans go, at least, Brian May’s unmistakable guitar tone arrived in 1974 with the release of the radio single “Killer Queen,” from the Sheer Heart Attack album. Think of it as “the tone that launched a thousand ships.” The great heavy rock sounds of Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page and a few others were already on the map, but man, this was a new, exciting, dynamic lead guitar tone that sent kids scurrying for the secret of the sound. And while many would think they found it easily enough — or discerned its origins, at least — the real secret behind May’s signature guitar tone, as is so often the case, wouldn’t be clear until the full story unfolded over the course of time.
Concert appearances and TV footage helped to reveal the public face of that searing, sustaining, violin-like sound, partly achieved by the unusual no-name electric in the hands of the bountifully-hairdoe’d Queen guitarist (more of which later), but largely —more spectacularly — by the stack of Vox AC30 amplifiers that rose from the backline. Aha! There we have it … although, this was also something of a surprise in the age of the Marshall stack. These amps hadn’t seen much prominent use since the days of The Beatles, and were mostly known for their chime and shimmer. Could they really produce such a smooth, saturated lead tone?
In two words, yes … and no. The AC30s were a big part of the live formula for Brian May, and still are, but there has always been a lot more to the story. Turn up these great British-made amps, with their legendary class-A output circuits based on four EL84 tubes pumping around 36 watts through a pair of Vox-labeled Celestion alnico speakers, and you do indeed get a mighty, mighty guitar tone. Just not quite the Brian May guitar tone. Early on, May discovered the magical properties that the Dallas RangeMaster Treble Booster had for boosting old-school tube amps into overdrive, and has always used one of these — or, often, a custom-made version — to kick his AC30s over the top. So does this get us there? Partly, but not entirely. Perhaps May’s renowned use of a metal guitar pick, actually a reshaped sixpence (a small, discontinued British coin), completes the list of magic ingredients? Well, it contributes, certainly, but is just another little part of the equation.
As with so many classic recorded guitar tones, there’s a big secret weapon at the heart of May’s sound — or, should we say, a little one — one that fails to reveal itself on the concert stage. In May’s case, this takes the form of an unassuming box of tricks known as “the Deacy,” a small, transistor-based amplifier built by Queen bassist John Deacon. Although it only has an output of around one watt, this totally solid-state amp produces a biting, saturated overdrive sound when cranked up and placed in front of a microphone, and has often been blended with an AC30 in the studio to produce a lead tone that could not be captured by the tube amp alone. The solo to the major hit single “Bohemian Rhapsody” is the most obvious example of this sound, but May has used it on many, many other tracks too. Let’s face it, whatever our guitar heroes are thrashing away in front of on the live stage, the tones we really know them for are those that they produce on record. If there’s any one secret ingredient that flavors the stew for Brian May more than any other, it’s this unassuming little Deaky amp.
Assessed in its own right, May’s guitar is of course a “myth buster” in the broader sense: consider all the effort players put in chasing the tones created by their heroes’ purportedly vintage masterpieces — the late ’50s Gibson Les Paul Bursts, early ’60s SGs, pre-CBS Fender Stratocasters and Telecasters, pre-Baldwin Gretsches. Well, here’s a skilled musician giving it his all on a home-made axe that, if not for its association with his legendary tonal achievements, would probably be laughed off the stage by the guys showing up with their major-brand instruments at any weekend warrior club gig across the country. Take that, gear snobs; carve your scrapyard mantelpiece and bend your motorcycle kickstand into just the right shapes, and it might be all you need to create tonal history. But let’s leave the details of that one for a Legendary Guitar story, shall we?
Legendary guitarists, including Andy Summers and Graham Coxon, on why they love the iconic guitar
Sixty years ago, in the summer of 1950, a small Californian business was preparing to introduce the world to a new musical invention. The Fender Electrical Instrument Company was based in Santa Ana, 30 miles south of Los Angeles, and it had already come up with the Esquire, an electric guitar that broke with convention by being built from a solid piece of wood. Now, 41-year-old Leo Fender had radically improved on the original to produce the Broadcaster ? which, after a spurt of legal hoo-hah, was renamed the Telecaster, and sold to the world.
You know one when you see it: gloriously simple, gracefully contoured, and a byword for how enduring the electric guitar has proved to be. As a sumptuous new coffee-table book titled Fender: The Golden Age 1946-70 puts it: “It is a simple, no-frills instrument, yet still regarded as one of the finest electric guitars ever produced . . . There are very few mass-produced items that can boast the same uninterrupted lifespan.” In other words, it beggars belief how an object designed six decades ago doesn’t look ? or, more importantly, sound ? kitsch or outdated. The Telecaster’s younger and less elegant sibling, the Stratocaster, tends to go wildly in and out of style, but this guitar remains as unimpeachably cool as ever.
It has long been responsible for the metallic twang that runs across American country, blues, and rock’n'roll. Over here, in the hands of an Essex native named Wilko Johnson, it contributed the distorted buzz to the best records by the British R&B band Dr Feelgood ? a sound that bled into punk ? and became a constant in 21st-century indie-rock.
The Telecaster unites Status Quo and Hot Chip. It has been the signature guitar of Keith Richards, Chrissie Hynde, Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and the Clash’s Joe Strummer. It’s all over records by Elvis Presley, Booker T and the MGs, PJ Harvey, Blur, the Eagles, Manic Street Preachers, and hundreds more. Mention it to its devotees, and they talk about it with an amazing passion.
Sharleen Spiteri, Texas
I’d always played an acoustic guitar as a little girl ? there was never an electric guitar in our house. But when I first joined Texas, when I was just about to turn 18, I got my first electric. I knew exactly what I wanted: a black-and-white Telecaster, the same as Joe Strummer. For me, the Clash have always been the ultimate rock’n'roll band.
It was made in 1967, the same year I was born. I’ve got two spares, but I will do anything not to change my guitar. It goes on tour with me, and it comes home. Even now, I’m getting goose bumps talking about this because I’m thinking, “Some bastard might break into my house and steal my Telecaster.”
It’s super-light ? just the perfect weight. And that nasally, stringy, cutting sound [sings guitar part from Texas's Halo] ? it just breaks through everything. But it’s weird, because it’s not an irritating, high-pitched thing: it always has a warmth to it. It’s such a beautiful sound.
I recently did a charity thing with Mick Jones from the Clash. He picked my guitar up, and I was like, “Get your hands off! I don’t give a fuck if you’re Mick Jones!”
Graham Coxon, Blur
I think my first encounter with a Telecaster was when I had a go on [Blur producer] Stephen Street’s, years ago. It looked like a piece of pine with a pretty scratchplate, but it made a really nice sound. I suppose it was the guitar I’d been searching for; I used to draw Teles a lot when I was at school.
It’s versatile, simple and strong. You can make it sound old-fashioned and warm, like something you’d have in a doo-wop band, or totally the other way: trebly and trashy. And it’s quite difficult to describe, but they have a kind of creak underneath the sound ? something you only really get with a Telecaster.
The first one I got was very shiny, butterscotch job: a reissue of one from 1959. I used that throughout the whole of Blur’s career. It ended up with a Mr Smiley sticker, and an Air India sticker on it, and a really bad drawing that I did on the back. That was my workhorse, and I’ve still got it.
It just feels really, really nice: like a BMX, as opposed to a big, heavy bike. The one I use now had been butchered by its previous owner, but the neck was so beautiful, I couldn’t resist it. It looked like it had been creosoted, so I call it the Shed.
Francis Rossi, Status Quo
I’ve got loads of them: three in the room with me at the moment. I got my first one in 1968, in Glasgow. Another guitar broke, and I got it second-hand for either 45 or 75 quid ? I can’t remember now. I wasn’t a good enough player to say, “Oh, I really like this.” I just picked it, and got used to it.
Originally, it was sunburst. And then I started to mess with it. I wanted it to be blond, and then natural wood, and then I painted it black, and then green, finally, with a tin of Ronseal paint. I did it on the kitchen table; it’s still got marks on it from where I didn’t sand it down properly. But that’s the one I still play onstage.
When Rick Parfitt first joined the band, he had a Gibson. And then he too bought a Telecaster, and that’s the way it stayed. The Telecaster is a byword for Status Quo. They’re beautifully simple guitars: Rick’s always like, “Just turn it on, thank you.” He’s even had his tone control deactivated: it’s just set to full-on, all the time.
I really love the shape. And it’s workmanlike. Solid. Basic-looking. No-nonsense. There’s no fragility about it. It’s like a tool.
Andy Summers, the Police
I think it’s one of the greatest designs of the 20th century. It has never been bettered ? partly because it fits the human body so well. With something like a Gibson Les Paul, it’s a very heavy chunk of wood. I always had a problem holding it, especially standing up. But the weight of the Telecaster is just right. And its sound just cuts through everything. Everything I did in the Police was on a Telecaster.
I actually ended up with a kind of hybrid model, with some added features.
Before I joined the Police, I got it in LA: I was teaching guitar, and some kid came in wanting to sell it. It was pretty beaten up, and I got it off him for 200 bucks. I said, “This is a pretty great guitar ? are you sure you want to sell it?” But that was the guitar that transformed my life: it brought me back into playing rock, I came back to England with it, and you know the rest of the story. I would never, ever get rid of it: it’s like a great talisman.
In 2007, Fender made 250 clones of my guitar. They took the original to pieces,
and photographed it, and made this map of where all the scratches and cracks are. It’s like my guitar had babies. I’ve got six of them. They cost $15,000 each [laughs].
One year-and-a-half ago, an anonymous buyer forked over a whopping $82,750 for a mailbox that was hit by a falling meteorite in Claxton, Ga.
So, how much is a Gibson Les Paul struck by lightning worth? Charles Hoyt of Lumberton, Miss., is about to find out.
Hoyt is the proud owner of a 1985 Les Paul Reissue that was ground zero for a bizarre lightning strike back in 1992. He’s held onto the guitar for the last 17 years without thinking too much about it – until he read the story of the infamous Claxton mailbox. Hoyt has since decided to list the scorched Les Paul on eBay, hoping it garners as much curiosity – and interest – as the Claxton Mailbox.
“This is probably the only guitar in the world that’s ever been struck by lightning,” Hoyt said, in all likelihood speaking the obvious truth. “I just kept looking at it, and finally I decided to sell it because I think it’s unique. I saw where someone paid more than $80,000 for that mailbox hit by a meteorite, and I thought, ‘Heck, I’ve got a Gibson Les Paul that was hit by lightning. What’s that worth?’”
The Claxton mailbox achieved its notoriety on the evening of Dec. 10, 1984, when a falling meteorite transformed the ordinary roadside mail receptacle into a modern-day anomaly among the meteorite faithful. The mailbox belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Carutha Barnard, who finally decided to let New York’s Bonhams auction house sell it in October 2007.
As for the Les Paul, Hoyt’s story is just as extraordinary, if not more so. While running a few errands one rainy afternoon in 1992, Hoyt left his beloved guitar sitting in its case in the corner of a room in his house. He was gone only for about five hours, but he couldn’t believe his eyes when he returned. “When I got back I went into the room and it was lying on the floor … and it was smoking.” He said. “I was speechless. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I couldn’t believe what I was looking at.”
During Hoyt’s absence, a strong line of thunderstorms rolled through Lumberton, and during one of the downpours a bolt of lightning struck an old pine tree standing just outside the house, near the corner of the room where the guitar was kept. The lightning traveled through tree – splitting it in two – and then jumped over to the nails holding the trim around Hoyt’s home. From the nails, the lightning continued to travel through the drywall and inside the room, eventually going through the Les Paul’s case and hitting the metal tuning pegs on its headstock. The lightning proceeded to travel through the guitar, melting everything in its path, and even blowing three of the bridge saddles cleanly through the case.
“The three holes in the case came from those three bridge saddles,” Hoyt said. “It also vaporized the strings completely. There are six very clear lines where the strings used to be, and you can still see the soot from the burned strings on the fretboard. It melted the pickups and everything else too. You could smell it as soon as you walked into the room.”
Hoyt listed the guitar on eBay just two days, but it’s already garnering lots of attention. Many of the curious auction watchers have also emailed him suggestions on what to do with the guitar.
“Most of them say, ‘Don’t sell it,’ because it now supposedly has all this ‘mojo’,” Hoyt said. “Others want me to call Gibson Custom and see if they want it to do a model after it, or the Hard Rock Café to see if they want it for their collection. I’ve often thought about getting it repaired, but time passed and it’s just sat there. It’s time to let it go.”
there has always been a lot more to the story. Turn up these great British-made amps, with their legendary class-A output circuits based on four EL84 tubes pumping around 36 watts through a pair of Vox-labeled Celestion alnico speakers, and you do indeed get a mighty, mighty guitar tone. Just not quite the Brian May guitar tone. Early on, May discovered the magical properties that the Dallas RangeMaster Treble Booster had for boosting old-school tube amps into overdrive, and has always used one of these — or, often, a custom-made version — to kick his AC30s over the top. So does this get us there? Partly, but not entirely. Perhaps May’s renowned use of a metal guitar pick, actually a reshaped sixpence (a small, discontinued British coin), completes the list of magic ingredients? Well, it contributes, certainly, but is just another little part of the equation.
As with so many classic recorded guitar tones, there’s a big secret weapon at the heart of May’s sound — or, should we say, a little one — one that fails to reveal itself on the concert stage. In May’s case, this takes the form of an unassuming box of tricks known as “the Deacy,” a small, transistor-based amplifier built by Queen bassist John Deacon. Although it only has an output of around one watt, this totally solid-state amp produces a biting, saturated overdrive sound when cranked up and placed in front of a microphone, and has often been blended with an AC30 in the studio to produce a lead tone that could not be captured by the tube amp alone. The solo to the major hit single “Bohemian Rhapsody” is the most obvious example of this sound, but May has used it on many, many other tracks too. Let’s face it, whatever our guitar heroes are thrashing away in front of on the live stage, the tones we really know them for are those that they produce on record. If there’s any one secret ingredient that flavors the stew for Brian May more than any other, it’s this unassuming little Deaky amp.
Assessed in its own right, May’s guitar is of course a “myth buster” in the broader sense: consider all the effort players put in chasing the tones created by their heroes’ purportedly vintage masterpieces — the late ’50s Gibson Les Paul Bursts, early ’60s SGs, pre-CBS Fender Stratocasters and Telecasters, pre-Baldwin Gretsches. Well, here’s a skilled musician giving it his all on a home-made axe that, if not for its association with his legendary tonal achievements, would probably be laughed off the stage by the guys showing up with their major-brand instruments at any weekend warrior club gig across the country. Take that, gear snobs; carve your scrapyard mantelpiece and bend your motorcycle kickstand into just the right shapes, and it might be all you need to create tonal history. But let’s leave the details of that one for a Legendary Guitar story, shall we?
