Brian May’s Greg Fryer Red Special Replica “George Burns”

This is one of three Red Special replicas built by Greg Fryer in late 1997. Brian kept two of those three, nicknamed “John” and “George Burns”, while the third one, nicknamed “Paul” remained with Greg.

This “George Burns” replica is distinguishable from the “John” by its color. It seems that Greg either used a different finish, which resulted in more of a yellowish tint, or that this was just a result of using a different type of wood for the body.

In the early days, up until the 2010s, Brian used this guitar as his main drop-D tuning guitar, on songs such as “Fat Bottomed Girls”. In most recent years, he’s most often been using the Andrew Guyton green replica for that purpose and keeping the “George Burns” as a backup.