Has Brian May only ever used one guitar?

[ubit]

Jean Jaques Burnell and his black Precision bass too.

[Japhet]

Walter Trout has been playing the same Squier Strat for a very long time.

[inthedoghouse]

I don't know if Albert Collins every used anything but a Telecaster.

Lonnie Mack and his Flying V with a Bigsby.

[jazzyvee]

On 30/06/2020 at 07:05, bassbiscuits said:

Jaco and his bass of doom surely?

 

He also used a Jaydee bass.

 

[Fozza]

Joe Strummer played the same battered 66 Tele for most of his career.

[peteb]

15 hours ago, Japhet said:

Walter Trout has been playing the same Squier Strat for a very long time.

Not sure that is correct. Walter retired his old Strat quite a few years ago, as it was getting too heavy for him and he was paranoid about taking it on the road in case it got nicked. He had a luthier friend build a lightweight replica body of his original strat, which he teamed with the neck from another one of his Fenders. DiMarzio then made him some custom pickups based on those on his original guitar. 

[Baxlin]

Albert Lee and his Musicman (but i understand he had or had an intetest in the company

[jimmyb625]

12 hours ago, Baxlin said:

Albert Lee and his Musicman (but i understand he had or had an intetest in the company

He's a good friend of Sterling Ball, but doesn't have a financial interest in the company, aside from whatever agreement is in place for his signature model.

[GeeJayW]

Francis Rossi used his hand-painted green Telecaster for decades, though he sold it at the end of 2019.

[Dood]

Well since Brian May opened the topic, then surely John Deacon gets a mention too. In brief detail: He had two main precision basses throughout his career with Queen, but his go- to was a TV script '68 that started life as a sunburst which he then removed the finish of, this became his natural P bass (seen on performances such as Live Aid). Interestingly he had another Precision that also started life as a sunburst and similarly had the finish taken off around the same time. They can be identified in videos as one has the TV Script and 70's style tuners whilst the other had a silver logo and Kluson tuning keys (Bohemian Rhapsody video).

The "main" instrument was re-finished sometime before 1985 and is now easily spotted as the black precision with gold hardware.

John Deacon has used plenty of other basses too including those made by Kramer, Warwick (A John Entwistle Buzzard bass), Roger Giffin (The bass seen in the Princes of The Universe video above) and of course the MusicMan Stingray as heard on Another One Bites The Dust, but the precision bass has seen the most amount of time in his hands, recorded and live. 

 

[Ricky 4000]

SRV's 'Number one' Strat.

 

[lowdown]

The last few years he has changed about a little, but Marcus' Jazz Bass is Iconic.

 

 

[skankdelvar]

Wilko's black Telecaster was pretty much his sole performing guitar from the early 70's until a few years ago when he supplemented it with a matching Strat.

[Ricky 4000]

I 💜 Wilco

 

[skankdelvar]

4 minutes ago, Ricky 4000 said:

I 💜 Wilco

Me too. But the Strat looks wrong ... and sounds flabbily awful through the Cornell he's been using.

It's like you're expecting a close shave with a cut-throat razor and the barber rubs a handful of lard over your face and says 'That'll be sixteen pounds, Sir. Anything for the weekend?'

[Ricky 4000]

34 minutes ago, skankdelvar said:

Me too. But the Strat looks wrong ... and sounds flabbily awful through the Cornell he's been using.

It seems wrong. 😬 Tele men don't usually touch other guitars, except maybe another Tele.

[Bassassin]

On 29/06/2020 at 19:22, warwickhunt said:

Lemmy and his Ric.

Lemmy had numerous different Ricks, including a couple thought to be copies. He also played a Hoyer 8-string, and endorsed Minarik's idiotic fire-shaped bass. And in a moment of exquisite good taste, this happened:

On 30/06/2020 at 11:12, MacDaddy said:

Check out the bass in the 'Aces High' video. It may surprise you  

What I was going to say - Ibanez RS824 Roadster:

And also Yammy BBs if I remember correctly.

On 01/07/2020 at 18:16, ubit said:

Phil Lynott and his black Precision bass although early in his career he played a Ric.

And later in his career:

Ibby RS900 Roadster, shame he ruined it by slapping that ugly P-shaped mirror on it!

Edited July 3, 2020 by Bassassin
pic

[Paul S]

On 30/06/2020 at 12:00, Steve Browning said:

That's a Katana I believe.

I think it is possibly a Kramer or similar, a Katana was slightly different body with fewer angles and a straight headstock.  I had the Squier bass version for a while.

[SH73]

On 30/06/2020 at 11:12, MacDaddy said:

Check out the bass in the 'Aces High' video. It may surprise you  

Ibanez roadster in The Trooper and Lado in AH could be for the show perhaps. 

Steve always reverted to his old P Bass. Some websites claim he used this two basses between 82 -84/85. But in live shows he plays his blue sparkle p bass during the number of the beast tour, piece of mind tour and world slavery tour. Dave and Adrian went to ESP and GK during 86-88 and Dave is seem playing during no prayer for dying. Adrian started experimenting with Jackson in 86, and other gear I'm not going to bore you with (surely you know) Dave and Janick are mostly royal to Fender. Janick is by heart a Fender and Marshall bloke keeping pedal effects to minimum.

[three]

On 29/06/2020 at 20:59, Jonse said:

Bobby Vega and the shark bass? 

 

Just seeing Bobby Vega makes me smile

[John Cellario]

As well as Andy Fraser using his Gibson EB3, I definitely remember seeing him play a sunburst Epihone...would it be a Rivoli?

 

[el borracho]

Been a couple of mentions of Quo's Telecasters but none of Alan Lancaster - in the main he played the same Mustang from the early 70s & then during the FF tours, having been sunburst, natural & now a purplish black.

Talking of the FF tours, I saw Wilko supporting them & mid set he had to stop playing while the tech fixed his Tele - apparently he doesn't carry a spare. Was a great opportunity to see Norman solo for a few minutes though - him & Dylan Howe just carried on playing.

Another one was Dan Baird, who toured with a 1950s Fender Esquire for many years that had previously belonged to Steve Marriott. He retired it a couple of years ago then, sadly, retired himself.

[Big_Stu]

On 29/06/2020 at 21:24, pst62 said:

Getting back to the title of the thread. I saw Queen twice, ............. At Newcastle he used his Red Special and a Telecaster for Crazy Little Thing, he also had a what looked like a sandy coloured replica of the Red special that remained on it's stand............

I'd guess that would have been the John Birch copy that was made and famously destroyed in the wings during a gig, but I believe has now been reassembled. Lovely bit of John Birch lore about that one's origins.

On 29/06/2020 at 21:46, GeeJayW said:

I saw Queen in '74 (Sheer Heart Attack tour) as my first ever live gig. That red special sounded pretty awesome. Pretty sure he's used many guitars over the years, but I saw a video interview with his tech on YouTube and he said that Brian prefers his Red Special whenever he can and that he uses an old sixpence as a pick. Has a jar of them apparently.

Many years ago I used to regularly buy a music magazine, can't remember it's name just now. Each issue's inside cover pulled out into an A3 poster. One edition had a huge collection of famous guitar picks collected by fans. One of which was a "sixpence" which BM had had minted to guarantee a supply, with his profile image on it rather than HM The Queen.

(There was also one of Steve Cropper's labelled "Pick Of The Crop" - ho ho!   One of which I now own.)

[jonnybass]

Three pages in and no mention of Herbie Flowers and his jazz bass?? I thought this was a bass forum. Hasn’t he had the same strings on it for around 30 years too??

[bassbiscuits]

On 03/07/2020 at 21:51, Ricky 4000 said:

SRV's 'Number one' Strat.

 

He did use that mainly but had a few other (mostly) Strats too.

Edited July 5, 2020 by bassbiscuits