For example: Clapton had Blacky, but he also had Browny, his sunburst backup. Paul McCartney had his ricky 4001S but with the wings he also had a second Rickenbacker Blonde bass. Steve Morse had his Tele with a strat neck but he also had a very closely matching copy of that guitar (Identifyable by all black pickups)
But my story here is about Brian May's backup for his famous Red Special.
When I was a kid just starting to discover music, one of the first bands that really caught my ear was Queen. Brian May with his Red Special was always there, until I saw a Video for "We will rock you" and I went "Huh, he has a yellow one too?"
Mind you this was in the days before internet and to find out what the story behind that Yellow example was I had to scurry through all kinds of music mags. In those I found out that Brian May Used his Guild Signature models as back up guitars on their (then current) "Kind of magic" tour. But the pictures of those never remotely resembled that illusive Yellow one. Then I finally got my curious hands on a copy of a guitarmag (Can't remember which one) in which May spoke of a John Birch made backup guitar for his red special, finished in translucent yellow: the "Yellow Special" was identified.
The Birch guitar differs from the Red Special by having a Maple neck with an ebony board with fingerboard bindings and having Maple body giving it a destinctly different sound from the Red Special.
Wanting to find out why he never played that second one anymore I dug deeper until I found another mag in which May stated that after a very rocking show, he tossed the Birch guitar up in the air and watched it shatter as it hit the ground. He then shipped the remains of the guitar to then upcoming luthier John Page (yes THAT one) for repairs and hadn't seen it since.
Imagine my surprise when I came up with the idea for this post that when trying to find pictures of the "Yellow Special" I stumbled across this.
John Page still had the remains of that guitar and decided after nearly twenty years of having no time to repair it (Starting up and running the Fender Custom shop is a time consuming job) decided to get in contact with May and send it back to him.
On Brian May's official site, his reaction was one of Joy to see "his old friend" again. I sure hope he will have it repaired though, it's sad to see a guitar like that in such a sorry state.
