1977 Greco BM900 de 1977 – Brian May

The day a friend showed me his guitar, I told myself that I wanted the same, I’m talking about the Greco BM900 (BM for Brian May, 900 in reference to the 90,000 yen that you had to pay in 1977 for this beauty). Brian May and his father created the Red Special in 1963, a unique guitar made from odds and ends (chimney beam, knife, moped springs…) and Burns TriSonic pickups.

My Greco BM900 was manufactured in 1977, 2 years after Queen’s first concert in Japan and before Guild released the first official reissues in 1983. The BM900 is a guitar with standardization constraints. We don’t find the same kind of vibrato (the system such is like the Fender Mustang’s one) nor integrated distortion as on the original, but the guitar offers 2 switches per pickup (on/off and in/out phase) and identical design to the original Red Special.

One visual detail differs on my Greco BM900 from all the others: in the 7th fret, there is a single dot insteed 2 on the original. The body is mahogany, the pickups are PU90 type, and the guitar was delivered in a Greco case!