FREDDIE MERCURY 1946-1991

           Freddie Mercury was born Farookh Bulsara to Persian parents on 5 September, 1946. His birthplace was the island of Zanzibar, off the east coast of Africa.

           When he was eight, he was sent to school in Bombay, St Peter’s English boarding school just outside the city. His friends there re­named him Freddie, a name, which his fam­ily also adopted. Among the talents he dis­covered at school were sport and music, and it wasn’t long before he had formed his first band, The Hectics.

           Those days in Bombay were some of his hap­piest: successful and fulfilled at school, and with servants to attend to his every need at home. After finishing at St Peter’s he went back to his family’s flat in Zanzibar, but when he was 18 he was uprooted again. In 1964, the Bulsars fled to Britain from civil unrest in Zanzibar. Their new home was a semi-detached house in the drab London suburb of Feltham, a far cry from the exot­ic lands of Freddie’s youth. But the swing­ing 60s were an exciting time in Britain.

           Freddie had always enjoyed art, and in 1966 he began to attend Ealing art school. He was coming under the influence of the new music scene and was intrigued by Jimi Hen­drix*.

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* Hendrix, Jimnti (James Marshall) (1942-1970) — US rock guitarist, songwriter and singer.

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            He had an unfocused desire to per­form, but hadn’t yet found the musicians with whom to form a band.

           But that was soon to change. In 1968, a physics student at London University’s Imperial College, Brian May* teamed up with former dentistry student, Roger Taylor**, and artist student, Tim Staffell, to form the group Smile.

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* May, Brian (1947-) - the member of the Queen group

^** Taylor, Roger (1949-) — the member of the Queen group

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                Staffell was a fellow student of Freddie’s. He started talking Freddie along to Smile gigs.

           In 1969, Freddie was introduced to group called Ibex and began singing for them. They travelled up and down the country playing small pub gigs, but were going nowhere fast. For a while Freddie sang with a group called Sour Milk Sea, and when they broke up he set up his own band, Wreckage. That also didn’t last long. However, Freddie was still hanging out with the members of Smile.

           When Tim Shaffell decided to quit the band, Freddie took his place. And so it was that in April 1970 the band that would be Queen came into being, the line-up being complet­ed in 1971 when John Deacon* joined on bass.

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* Deacon, John (1951-) — the member of the Queen group.

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            Queen was Freddie’s idea. Brian thought it was to camp, but Freddie insist­ed. He also decided that he needed a new name, and became Freddie Mercury.

             It took the new group a while to get going. They did the usual round of gigs in colleges, pubs and clubs. Then, in 1972, they were talent-spotted and managed to swing a deal with record industry giant EMI*.

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* EMI — a large British corporation which made electrical goods and records. It is now party of Thorn-EMI.

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                The band looked like no other band of the time. Stand­ard rock garb was jeans and T-shirts, but when Queen strutted on the stage they did so in silk costumes, dripping with jewellery.

              The group’s debut single, “Keep Yourself Alve”, flopped. So did their first album, Queen, but their second album, Queen II, did better.

              The band’s first real success came in 1974 with “Seven Seas of Rye”. And from then on Queen never looked back. The album Sheer Heart Attack and the classic single of it, “Killer Queen”, were huge hits. And then in 1975 came the phenomenon of “Bo­hemian Rhapsody”.

              “Bohemian Rhapsody” almost didn’t make it as a single. Its weird mix of musical styles and the fact that it is so long made execu­tives at EMI very nervous. Then DJ Kenny Everett* got hold of a copy.

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* Everett, Kenny (real name, Maurice Cole) (1944-1995) — Brit­ish television and radio broadcaster.

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                 He wasn’t sup­posed to play it on air, but he did whenever he could, creating such demand that EMI was forced to release it. “Bohemian Rhap­sody” was later released on an album called A Night at the Opera, which at the time was the most expensive album ever made. After “Rhapsody”, Queen were rock royal­ty. The group recorded an average of one LP a year from 1973 to 1991. They began to play bigger and bigger venues, and in fact are credited with the invention of “sta­dium rock.”

                 Freddie Mercury must take much of the credit for making Queen the band they were. He wrote many of their smash hits, includ­ing “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “We are the Champions”, and “Another One Bites the Dust”. But more importantly, Freddie was the focus of the band’s live show. Brian May and John Deacon were quite shy men and Roger Taylor was hidden behind his drums, so it fell to Freddie to act as the band’s showman. It was a role he relished and per­formed with gusto and panache.

                 David Bowie* described him as a “star who could hold the audience in the palm dills hand”.

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* Bowie, David (1947 -) — English pop-singer, songwriter and actor.

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               At Queen’s famous gig in Rio de Ja­neiro in Brazil in 1985, almost everyone in the crowd of 325,000 joined him to sing “Love of My Life”. In Mannheim, Germa­ny, he conducted with his short mike stand, waving it like a royal sceptre as 80,000 Germans sang a lusty version of the British National Anthem.

               Freddie was famous in the rock world for his showmanship and posing. Queen was one of the highlights of the biggest con­cert ever — the Live Aid show in 1985. After the show Bob Geldof* described Queen as the biggest band on the planet.

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* Geldof, Bob (1954 -) Irish rock singer.

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            And he pointed out that the event had been the perfect stage for Freddie.

            Freddie also had a musical career independ­ently of Queen. Perhaps the most famous example of this work was the collaboration with the Spanish opera singer Montserrat Caballe*.

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* Caballe, Montserrat (1933 -) — Spanish operatic soprano.

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              That song became the world-famous “Barcelona”. The single was chosen as the official theme tune for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Working with the diva was one of the most fulfilling experiences of Fred­die’s musical career. After their album had been put together Freddie said simply, “What else is there left for me to do?”

             Freddie’s partying was legendary. It was routine for Queen to throw parties after their concerts, but the really extravagant bashes took place on Freddie’s birthday. It was quite standard for him to splash out 50,000 pounds on entertainments.

              Freddie’s taste for excess extended to shop­ping. He once said, “I love to spend, spend, spend”. He bought a 144-piece dinner serv­ice handpainted with miniature copies of Constable paintings. Each serving plate cost 20,000 pounds. He was passionate about fine art and amassed one of the best private col­lections in Britain.

              His Kensington home was another great and costly luxury. It had eight bedrooms, four marble bathrooms, a Jacuzzi and a min­strels’ gallery. Refurbishment took years, but when it was finally ready Freddie de­cided to move in for a weekend to see how it felt. He never moved out. And he brought with him his beloved cats, Oscar and Tiffa­ny. The house would become a sanctuary for Freddy towards the end of his life, as he put his days of wild partying and high living behind him.

             Although Freddie is remembered as the camp and over-the-top frontman for Queen, there was another side to him. Inside the show­man there was a troubled and lonely man. It’s no surprise that one of his greatest solo hits was a cover of “The Great Pretender”.