Today would have been Freddie Mercury’s 74th birthday. From sneaking Lady Di into a gay club to concealing his final resting place, read lesser-known tales of the vocal legend’s life
While Mercury’s first appearance on vinyl predates any release from Queen, it does feature two of his bandmates and a characteristic dose of irreverence. In early 1973, the fledgling band was recording its debut album at London’s Trident Studios, a cutting-edge facility that had recently been utilized by David Bowie and the Beatles.
Though Mercury continued to funnel his energy into the band, he was miffed on principle by Larry Lurex’s failure. “I thought it was great!” he said later. “Let’s face it, it’s the highest honor for any performer to have people copying you. It’s a form of flattery and it was only meant in fun. Anyway, what does it matter? After Elvis Presley, it’s all parody, isn’t it?”Queen II
Mair was a mutual acquaintance of Bowie’s early manager, and one day the future Starman himself wandered into their stall. “‘Space Oddity’ had been a hit, but he said he had no money,” Mair says in. “Typical music biz! I said, ‘Look, have them for free.’ Freddie fitted Bowie for the pair of boots. So there was Freddie Mercury, a shop assistant, giving pop star David Bowie a pair of boots he couldn’t afford to buy.”On December 1st, 1976, Queen was booked on the early evening talk show.
But Roger Taylor was much less complimentary about the band’s bassist. “Sid [Vicious] was a moron. He was an idiot,” he remembered in the documentary. On one memorable occasion, Vicious drunkenly wandered into Queen’s studio and tried to pick a fight with Mercury by snarling: “Have you succeeded in bringing ballet to the masses yet?” – a reference to a particularly flamboyant boast the singer had made in a recentMercury was not so easily rattled.
“There was only one person in the world that could have gotten away with it,” Roger Taylor, who was in the audience, told Blake. “Freddie was performing in front of a very stiff Royal Ballet audience, average age 94, who did not know what to make of this silver thing that was being tossed around onstage in front of them. I thought it was very brave and absolutely hilarious.”
It was. The song was released as a pre-album single that fall, and it shot to Number One across the globe. “We were still making the record, we hadn’t nearly finished the album,” remembers Taylor in. “We were going out in Munich and someone came up and said, ‘It’s gone to Number One in America.’ And we were going, ‘Yeah! More drinks!'”By the mid-Eighties, Queen’s proximity to royalty went well beyond their name. Mercury had become a friend of Lady Diana Spencer, then the Princess of Wales.
The group managed to sneak Diana into the bar undetected. The crowd, distracted by the presence of Mercury, Everett and Rocos, ignored the Princess completely, leaving her free to order drinks for herself. “We inched through the leather throngs and thongs, until finally we reached the bar. We were nudging each other like naughty schoolchildren. Diana and Freddie were giggling, but she did order a white wine and a beer.
Mercury traveled to Jackson’s home studio in Encino, California, in the spring of 1983 to begin work on three demos. “There Must Be More to Life Than This,” which had its genesis during sessions for Queen’s 1982 album,, lacked a complete set of lyrics, and Mercury can be heard encouraging Jackson to ad lib on session tapes. “State of Shock” was a tune that Jackson had composed largely on his own, whereas “Victory” was co-written by the two men.
by Mercury’s former personal assistant, sessions broke down when Jackson caught his singing partner snorting cocaine through a hundred-dollar bill. By the time Jim Hutton, Mercury’s last romantic partner, moved into his elegant Garden Lodge mansion, the brood had swelled to six: Oscar, Tiffany, Goliath, Miko, Romeo and Delilah. “Freddie treated the cats like his own children,” Hutton writes in his book,. “He would constantly fuss over them, and if any of them came to any harm when Freddie was away, heaven help us. During the day the cats had the run of the house and grounds, and at night one of us would round them up and bring them inside.
Mercury immortalized the tortoiseshell feline in his song “Delilah.” Though the rest of the band were not enamored with the song, they reluctantly acquiesced. May even utilized a much-loathed “talk box” effect to make cat noises with his guitar. “I finally succumbed and used one,” he toldin 1991. “They wheeled it in and I said, ‘Well, I suppose there’s no other way I can make “meow” noises.'” The track was included on, the last album Queen released during Mercury’s lifetime.
May wrote him “Mother Love,” a slow-burning epic that Mercury tackled with his usual gusto. “I don’t know where he found the energy,” May later told. “Probably from vodka. He would get in the mood, do a little warm-up then say, ‘Give me my shot.’ He’d swig it down ice cold. Stolichnaya, usually. Then he would say, ‘Roll the tape.'” Unable to stand for long periods and forced to walk with a cane, Mercury tracked vocals for “Mother Love” in the control room.
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