10 Guitarists That Changed Rock Music Forever

Rock and roll seemed to develop a pretty nasty reputation in the beginning as not being proper music. As much as bands like the Beatles and Stones may have sold millions of records, these were the kind of songs that played to the meat market, with virtually no substance behind them and little regard for music theory. Brian May had done his homework before hitting the big time, and the backing track of almost any Queen song seemed to have a guitar symphony behind it.

Much like their multi layered vocal sound, Brian's guitar parts would also have the same kind of appeal, overdubbing multiple parts on top of each other until he had three or four part harmonies going on at the same time in between his solos. There were even some liner notes on the early Queen records where they had to clarify that what they were hearing was all being produced by a guitar, with Brian's different solos sounding closer to a synthesizer most of the time.

Even when synthesizers were brought into the sound of Queen, Brian never felt comfortable playing the same stale licks, getting a lot more nasty with age and making impressive runs on songs like I Want It All and Gimme the Prize. You were going to need a little something more out of a guitar to share a stage with Freddie Mercury, but Brian May is practically a one man band with his guitar playing every instrument at the exact same time.