Brian May

Brian May built his famous guitar with his father. Beginning in 1963, when Brian was a teenager, he and Harold May spent about two years making the instrument by hand at home, using wood from an old fireplace mantel, springs from a motorcycle and mother-of-pearl buttons as fret markers. They called it the Red Special. May has played it on nearly every Queen recording, picking the strings with an old British sixpence coin instead of a plastic pick.

He was born on July 19, 1947, in Hampton, on the outskirts of London. No birth time has been recorded for him, which leaves the Ascendant a mystery, but the planets fit his life closely. His Sun is in Cancer, with Mercury, retrograde, and Venus also in Cancer. Cancer concerns the household, kinship and what is handed down. A Cancer Sun with Venus describes someone whose deepest creative work is rooted in family bonds, and it is hard to find a better image than a father and son building a guitar together at the kitchen table.

His Moon is in Leo, a placement that needs to shine and loves a grand gesture. Leo describes the showman in him: the guitarist with the enormous halo of hair who stood on the roof of Buckingham Palace in 2002 and played "God Save the Queen" for the Golden Jubilee, to a crowd of a million people below.

Mars in Gemini brings dexterity and quick, clever hands. Gemini rules the hands in traditional astrology, and May's guitar playing, with its layered harmonies and orchestral overdubs, became one of the most recognizable sounds in rock.

He was a gifted student. He studied physics and mathematics at Imperial College London and began a doctorate in astrophysics, studying dust in the solar system. In 1970 he, Roger Taylor and Freddie Mercury formed Queen, joined by John Deacon the next year, and May put his doctorate aside. He wrote many of the band's best-known songs, including "We Will Rock You," "Fat Bottomed Girls" and "Who Wants to Live Forever."

Uranus in Gemini points to a restless, inventive mind, and Jupiter in Scorpio favors deep research. In 2007, more than thirty years after setting it aside, May completed his doctorate in astrophysics at Imperial College, with a thesis on the zodiacal dust cloud. He has collaborated with NASA on the New Horizons mission to Pluto, championed stereoscopic photography and helped found Asteroid Day, which raises awareness of asteroid impacts.

Saturn and Pluto, both in Leo, describe a serious, transformative relationship with fame and performance. After Freddie Mercury's death in 1991, May and Taylor kept Queen's music alive, touring with new singers. He has also campaigned for animal welfare. He married the actress Anita Dobson in 2000 and was knighted in 2023.

The Cancer Sun built the guitar with his father; the Leo Moon took it onto the world's biggest stages.