Brian May

Brian May biography

• "Keep Yourself Alive" - Vocal bridge with Taylor, rest sung by Mercury (1973)
• "Some Day, One Day" (1974)
• "She Makes Me (Stormtrooper in Stilettoes)" (1974)
• "'39" (1975)
• "Good Company" (1975)
• "Long Away" (1976)
• "All Dead, All Dead" (1977)
• "Sleeping on the Sidewalk" (1977)
• "Fat Bottomed Girls" - Chorus lead vocals (1978)
• "Leaving Home Ain't Easy" (1978)
• "Sail Away Sweet Sister" - Mercury sings the bridge (1980)

• "Flash" - with Freddie Mercury (1980)
• "Put Out the Fire" - lead on falsetto lines.
• "Las Palabras de Amor" - Lead harmony vocals on chorus (1982)
• "I Go Crazy" - Lead Bridge Vocals (1984)
• "Who Wants to Live Forever" - First verse, harmony and other lines throughout (1986)
• "I Want It All" - with Mercury (1989)
• "Lost Opportunity" (1991)
• "Mother Love" - Lead vocals on final verse (1995)
• "Let Me Live" - Lead vocals on third verse (1995)
• "No-One but You (Only the Good Die Young)" - with Taylor (1997)

Personal life

From 1974 to 1988, May was married to Chrissie Mullen, who is the mother of his three children: Jimmy, who was born on 15 June 1978; Louisa, who was born on 22 May 1981 and Emily Ruth, who was born on 17 February 1987. Chrissie and Brian separated in 1988. Their separation and eventual divorce was highly publicised by British tabloid newspapers following reports that he had an affair with EastEnders actress Anita Dobson, whom he met in 1986, and who gained fame in the 1980s as Angie Watts. After many years together they married on 18 December 2000.

He has stated in interviews that he suffered from severe depression in the late 1980s and early 1990s, even to the point of contemplating suicide, for reasons having to do with his troubled first marriage, his perceived failure as a husband and a father, his father Harold's death, and Freddie Mercury's illness and eventual death.

May's father Harold worked as a draughtsman at the Ministry of Aviation and had been a long-time cigarette-smoker. As a result, May dislikes smoking, even to the point where he has prohibited smoking indoors at his more recent concerts.

His father was disappointed that he abandoned his scientific education to become a rock musician, but after he flew both his parents out to New York to attend Queen's first concert in Madison Square Garden, his father said that he "got it".

According to The Sunday Times Rich List he is worth £85 million .

Astrophysics

May studied physics and mathematics at Imperial College, University of London, graduating with a BSc (Hons) degree and ARCS in physics with Upper Second-Class Honours. He then proceeded to study for a PhD degree, also at the Imperial College departments of Physics and Mathematics, and was part way through this PhD programme, studying reflected light from interplanetary dust and the velocity of dust in the plane of the Solar System. When Queen became successful he abandoned his physics doctorate but did co-author two scientific research papers: MgI Emission in the Night-Sky Spectrum (1972) and An Investigation of the Motion of Zodiacal Dust Particles (Part I) (1973), which were based on his observations at the Teide Observatory in Tenerife. He is the co-author of Bang! - The Complete History of the Universe with Sir Patrick Moore and Chris Lintott, which was published in October 2006. In October 2007, more than 30 years after he started his research, he completed his PhD thesis in astrophysics, entitled A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud, passed his viva voce, and performed the required corrections. He officially graduated at the postgraduate awards ceremony held in the Royal Albert Hall, on the afternoon of Wednesday 14 May 2008.

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