In my final YouTube video for 2024, we take a closer look at a unique and special Brian May Red Special guitar variant: the Guyton RS Transporter, a travel sized headless electric guitar with all the features of Brian May’s original Red Special. The guitar was designed by Martin Pitcher in 2014 because he travelled by air a lot and wanted a Red Special type guitar that could be easily transported in cabin baggage. Andrew Guyton produced a limited edition run of twenty five starting in 2016 and several had unique custom finishes and hardware customisation.
I own No. 9 of 25 which has a metallic purple finish and was originally commissioned by Craig Farley in 2017. The body is of chambered mahogany construction with an oak block embedded into the the rear of the body onto which the neck and bridge are mounted. The pickups are mounted onto pine ‘rails’ to mimic the original guitar’s pine blockboard construction. The neck is made of quarter sawn mahogany and crucially has the same thick profile of the original guitar. The fretboard is made of oak and is finished in black lacquer with 24 frets and a 24 inch scale.
The pickups are hand made Adeson Brian May specification Burns Tri-Sonics. The electrical harness was designed and built by Nigel Knight of Knight Audio Technologies and features a built in KAT treble booster that is switched in and out via the red button. The JCustom XS tremolo bridge is fitted with modified rollers, tremolo arm and spring to achieve a similar feel to Brian’s original design. It is supplied in a Hoffee custom carbon fibre hard case which fits in the standard overhead lockers of passenger aircraft.
The embedded video is part two of my highlights package of the 2024 U.K. Brian May Red Special enthusiast meet-up held at the Holiday Inn Reading West in Berkshire and primarily features the guitars and musical equipment. Part 1 covers a selection of video clips of Brian’s time with us:
The event was hosted by Jon Underhill of The Red Special Guitar podcast and his team of assistants including Paul Cottrill, Steve McCulla, Matt Netherwood, Jonathan Planner and Luke Timmins, guitarist in the Supreme Queen tribute band. The theme was a 60th birthday celebration for Brian’s original Red Special which he completed in October 1964.
Attendees included co-author of the Red Special book, renowned music journalist Simon Bradley, Nigel Knight of Knight Audio Technologies, Andrew Morgan of A Strings, Wales’s premier independent retailer of guitars, amplifiers and effects, Rafa Diaz guitarist with the Magic Queen tribute band, artist Sarah Rugg and classical guitarist and host of the Fret Not podcast, Rosie Bennet.
The event had been held at Theale Village Hall, four miles away since 2017 but Jon and his event team sought a new venue to accommodate increased popularity and to separate the customary band section from the quieter day activities.
Doors opened at 10.00 a.m. allowing people time to mingle, chat and browse the guitars and equipment on display before several talks and demonstrations in the morning session. Souvenir merchandise including various stickers and badges from businesses and enthusiasts associated with the community were provided in a Star Wars themed goodie box. Exquisitely detailed commemorative sixpence coins were produced to celebrate the occasion.
There were many Red Special guitar variants on display including Brian May Guitars Specials in various finishes and custom versions built by both amateur and professional luthiers. These included a double neck made by Raymon Guitars of Spain, a 1993 Guild and a Guyton RS Transporter. Let’s take a look at some of these exquisite instruments.
A raffle of donated items raised a considerable amount of money for the Save Me Trust and Prostate Cancer U.K charity. There were some superb and valuable prizes on offer this year including a BMG ukulele and Queen I boxed set both signed by Brian himself, books, magazines and artwork by Sarah Rugg, a KAT Studio-One amplifier donated by Nigel Knight, effects units including amplifier attenuators donated by various enthusiasts.
After lunch, we watched a video compilation of photographs from previous meet-up events since 2017 with video messages from various enthusiasts on what the Red Special meet-ups and community mean to them. Afterwards, Jon dropped a bombshell on us. A very special guest had arrived… Dr Sir Brian May. Not only that, but guitar technician Steve Prior was looking after the object of our interest, the original Red Special guitar.
Jon had Brian as his guest in episode 20 of The Red Special Podcast in November 2022, maintained a dialogue then subsequently invited him to attend the meet-up to witness for himself how much we celebrate his guitar as a piece of Britain’s musical heritage.
One triple heart bypass operation and a stroke later, Brian found the time and energy to visit us. He did not confirm that he would attend until around lunchtime of the meet-up so it was a surprise to everyone. He lost some mobility in his arm as you might have read on social media and had not played guitar for about two months until today.
Steve Prior was on loan from David Gilmour’s stint at The Royal Albert Hall for guitar technician duties until Pete Malandrone returns to work. He managed to guard the revered original Red Special but still allow many of us to hold it, photograph it and compare our own Red Special guitars with it.
Please check out my highlights package of the 2023 U.K. Brian May Red Special enthusiast meet-up on Saturday, 7th October 2023 and read the full report illustrated with 25 photographs here: https://dsgb.net/events/tvh2023/
Attended by 60-70 enthusiasts, the event has been held at Theale Village Hall near Reading in Berkshire since 2017. The theme of this year’s meet-up was “Good Company” which reflects the friendliness, trust and respect in the global Brian May enthusiast community.
To celebrate twenty years of working with Brian May, Andrew Guyton brought three guitars never seen or rarely seen in public: the spade, the 12/6 doubleneck and scalloped fretboard guitars. He also exhibited the “Badger” semi-acoustic and three customer guitars based on the original Red Special including Pete Malandrone’s semi-acoustic archtop and Nigel Knight’s heavily customised Ruby Special. These were all demonstrated by Luke Timmins, lead guitarist with the Supreme Queen tribute band using his KAT Brian May live rig.
Many other Red Special guitar variants were on display which had been made by amateur and professional luthiers in addition to custom guitar hardware and musical equipment including Deacy amplifier replicas and various Vox AC30 amplifiers.
The annual meet-up for enthusiasts of Brian May’s music and equipment was once again held at Theale Village Hall near Reading in Berkshire, U.K. on Saturday, 8th October 2021. The organiser, Jon Underhill, assisted by several other co-ordinators this year helped grow the event by increasing the numbers attending and stage-managing a series of talks and demonstrations. These included Martin Pitcher covering Brian’s Starlicks set-up, talks by Arielle and Queen’s Sound Engineer Justin Shirley-Smith and a 25th birthday present by Andy Guyton to Luke Timmins of his Guyton Time Warp Red Special. A raffle for some superb donated items including a KAT BM Mini Rig and a KAT Groundbreaker raised £530 for the Save Me trust. Click the link below to see additional content on the events section:
Pictured below are the first guitar I made: a 3/4 scale Red Special which was signed by Brian May in December 2017 and Guyton RS Transporter No. 9 of 25. One of several suitable options to obtain the Brian May tone away from home is a Vox MV50 AC compact guitar amplifier head, a traditional style treble booster and a good quality set of monitor headphones. Just because… Why not? Let’s hear it for travel guitars.
In January 2019, I was very pleased to be able to acquire Guyton RS Transporter #0817154 (No. 9 of 25). I am the instrument’s third owner after it was originally commissioned by Craig Farley of Queen Tribute band Forever Queen. I’ve been unable to see them play live because most of the venues they play at are in the south of England. Check their pages out:
The Guyton RS Transporter was designed by Red Special community stalwart Martin Pitcher and is expertly realised by Suffolk luthier Andy Guyton. It has achieved the distinction of replacing the scalloped fretboard Guyton Red Special as Brian May’s pre-concert warm-up guitar.
https://www.facebook.com/Guyton-Guitars-201657545404/ https://www.guytonrstransporter.com/ In the unlikely event that you’re not already familiar with this guitar, please check out Craig’s unboxing video on YouTube where he makes a significantly better job of demonstrating it than I ever could. The guitar is designed to be a travel variant of Brian May’s original Red Special with woods, neck dimensions, Adeson Tri-Sonic pickups, pickup spacing and controls closely reflecting those of the original instrument. It is obviously headless and makes good use of the JCustom XS tremolo bridge.
Demonstration of Guyton RS Transporter 0817154 (No. 9 of 25) by Craig Farley, lead guitarist with Queen Tribute Band Forever Queen.
The pictures in the gallery below are copyright Andrew Guyton of Guyton Guitars.
The Guyton RS Transporter from Guyton Guitars.
Danny Porter, guitarist from “Burn The Headlines” checking out his Guyton RS Transporter.
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