Brian May has been voted the best guitarist of all time by the readers of the British magazine Total Guitar.
The 72-year-old Queen guitarist is thus ahead of six-string icons such as Eric Clapton, Eddie Van Halen, Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix.
“I am absolutely speechless. I am hallucinating, it is completely unexpected. Obviously, I am deeply moved that people think of me this way,” May told Total Guitar.
And he added: “I will never say that I am a great guitarist in the sense of virtuoso. I suppose this tells me that what I have done has reached people. I think I simply try to play with my heart and that is what it is about.”
May has confessed that for him number 1 is Jimi Hendrix, a “superman who came from another planet”, while admitting that he has always had Jimmy Page as a reference for going to the same school and being “two or three years old higher”.