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Freddie Mercury (September 5, 1946 – November 24, 1991) was a pianist, songwriter, arranger and singer for the British rock band, Queen.

Early life

Freddie Mercury was born Farrokh Bulsara in Stone Town, Zanzibar to Indian Parsi parents, Bomi and Jer Bulsara. The family had emigrated to Zanzibar in order for Bomi to continue his job as a middle-ranking cashier at the British Colonial Office. Mercury also had one sister. He was educated at St. Peter's boarding school in Panchgani near Bombay (now Mumbai) in India, where he gave his first onstage performances in a five-member school band called The Hectics. It was also at St. Peter's where he was given the name Freddie. He completed his education in India at St. Mary's High School in Mazagon, Mumbai and was 18 when he and his family fled to England as a result of a 1964 revolution in Zanzibar. In England, he pursued a Diploma in Art and Graphic Design at Ealing Art College, following in the footsteps of Pete Townshend. He later used these skills in order to design the famous Queen crest.

Singer and performer

Mercury possessed an exceedingly slight tenor voice capable of producing both very biting and very gravelly tones. His recorded vocal range spanned nearly four octaves, with his lowest recorded note being the F1 and his highest recorded being the D5 . Because he maintained such an excellent tone over a three octave range, it could be argued that Mercury was simultaneously both a baritone and a tenor. With his vocal versatility and a somewhat operatic technique, he was one of the most technically accomplished singers to work in the pop idiom. In a list of the greatest English language singers of the 20th century complied by BBC Radio, Mercury was ranked #10 . This represents quite an achievement, considering that the poll was topped by Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. He also came in second in MTV's list of the 22 greatest singers of the past 25 years, having been beaten by Mariah Carey for the top spot

Freddie Mercury's legendary performance at Live Aid has recently been voted by various artists, journalists and music industry executives as the greatest live performance of all time in rock music. The results of the poll were televised on a Channel 4 television program in the UK called "The World's Greatest Gigs". Of the all the artists present at the Live Aid concert, Queen was widely regarded as having stolen the show, largely as a result of Mercury's incredible talent and charisma.

One of Mercury's trademarks throughout the years involved the use of a microphone (and stand) minus the bottom section. In his early years of singing he made the decision to pick up his microphone, still attached to the stand. At one particular event, the bottom fell off by accident and, from that point on, he decided to use a bottomless microphone stand. When asked why, he replied "Everyone has to have a gimmick, dear."

Songwriting

Freddie Mercury composed ten of the songs on the original "Queen's Greatest Hits" album, including many of the band's most original pieces, such as "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Killer Queen", "We Are the Champions", "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" and "Somebody to Love". He ultimately wrote or co-wrote nine #1 international hits.

Although all four members of the band Queen were songwriters, producer Gary Langhan, who worked in the studio with Queen on many of their early albums notes in the book Freddie Mercury: The Real Life that, "Freddie was always intensely supportive of other people's songwriting and would give as much attention to one of the other's as he would to his own. It was so unlike other bands I've worked with where there is an acknowledged songwriter and anyone else who writes one really has to hassle to get it anywhere".

Queen started using studio overdubs a great deal with their second album, Queen II, which features Mercury's music on the entire second side of the LP (or, in CD parlance, tracks 6–11). Although many listeners identify "Bohemian Rhapsody" as the pinnacle of his musical achievement, it is nonetheless possible to find the seeds of this mini-opera in his earlier works.

Bohemian Rhapsody

Although similarly sophisticated songs can be found on earlier Queen albums such as Queen II and Sheer Heart Attack, Bohemian Rhapsody is nonetheless widely considered to be the band's greatest achievement. When Mercury played his early drafts in the studio, producer Roy Thomas Baker remembers being shocked when, after hearing the ballad section of the song, he was told, "And now this is where the opera section is going to go!".

When the band wanted to release the song as a single in 1975, it had been suggested that, at 5 minutes and 55 seconds, it was far too long and would thus never be a hit. But Mercury gave a copy of the single to friend and London DJ, Kenny Everett, informing him that it was for him personally, and that he must never play it. The reverse psychology worked and Everett ended up playing the song on the air, up to fourteen times in the same day. From then on, every major radio station played the song in full and it became one of the most successful hits of all time in the UK, remaining at the #1 position for nine weeks. Although a great deal of speculation has arisen over the song's lyrics, Mercury always insisted that the song did not have any specific meaning.

Solo albums

Mercury also released two solo albums: Mr Bad Guy (1985) and Barcelona (1988) with Spanish soprano, Montserrat Caballé. While the latter collaboration came as surprise to critics, the album was nonetheless widely acclaimed, if not commercially successful. Another one of his solo hits was a 1987 cover of the song "The Great Pretender" (1987). After his death, another solo song, Living On My Own, remixed by No More Brothers, also reached the #1 spot on the UK charts.

Personal Life

Although he had a very close girlfriend named Mary Austin, Freddie Mercury was also fairly open about his homosexual tendencies. In a March 12, 1974 interview for New Musical Express he tells the interviewer: "I am as gay as a daffodil, my dear!" Although his relationship with Mary Austin eventually ended, the two remained close friends, with Austin often fronting as his girlfriend for the press. While Mercury had previously been promiscuous, his last boyfriend, Jim Hutton, lived with him for the last eight years of his life, cared for him when he was ill and was present with him at his bedside when he died. Mercury and Hutton were also part of the Munich scene where at one point Mercury began another casual relationship with the german actress Barbara Valentine.

Mercury was well known for his extravagance and hedonism. When asked how he would live without fame or money, he replied, "I'll always walk around like a Persian popinjay and no one's going to stop me". Despite his extravagance, he was famous for his kindness and generosity. Interestingly, while he was charming and outgoing at his own parties, he often appeared to be quite shy at other events.

AIDS

On November 23, 1991, the announcement was made that Freddie had AIDS. The next day he died peacefully at his home in London surrounded by friends and family. He had kept his illness very private, and only those closest to him had been aware of just how close to the end he was. Mercury was quite ill during the recording sessions for Innuendo, which were completed quite rapidly at his request, as he did not know how much longer he had to live. The video for "These Are the Days of Our Lives" represents the last time that Mercury appeared on film. Despite his obviously gaunt appearance, underneath heavy makeup he soldiered on and completed the shoot. The lyrics to the song "The Show Must Go On", penned by all four members of Queen, gave some clue to Mercury's attempts to hide his illness: "My makeup may be flaking/But my smile still stays on"

Mercury was cremated at Kensal Green Cemetery and the whereabouts of his ashes are unknown. The remaining members of Queen founded The Mercury Phoenix Trust and organized The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert. He left £100,000 to his chef and £500,000 to his partner, Jim Hutton. Mary Austin inherited the estate and now lives there with her family. Interestingly, his £12 million will revealed a great deal less money than he was thought to have earned.

Legacy

Recent Polls :

• Several recent polls show Freddie Mercury to be quite popular in England. For instance, in the 1999 Millennium Poll, which involved 600,000 Britons, he was ranked at the #14 and #15 spots, respectively, as a popular musician and songwriter.

• Freddie Mercury appears at the #58 spot in the 2002 List of "100 Greatest Britons" (sponsored by the BBC and voted for by the public).

• Interestingly, two of Mercury's compositions, "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "We Are the Champions" have each been claimed by two separate polls as the world's favorite song. Most recently, an Ericsson poll of 600,000 people in 66 different countries found "We Are the Champions" to be the world's most popular tune . This contradicts another major world-wide poll by Guiness World, which had previously found "Bohemian Rhapsody" to be the world's favorite song from the past 50 years .

The world's first Asian rock star :

Because Freddie Mercury was of full Parsi descent and lived in India until his late teenage years, he was arguably the world's first great Asian rock star. He was also the first person of British Asian ethnicity to achieve major international fame.

Trivia

• Freddie was the one rock star mentioned in singer Kurt Cobain's suicide note :

"I have not felt the excitement of listening to, as well as creating, music along with reading and writing for too many years now. I feel guilty beyond words about these things. For example, when we're backstage and the lights go out and the manic roar of the crowds begins, it doesn't affect me the way in which it did for Freddy Mercury, who seemed to love, relish in the love and adoration from the crowd, which is something I totally admire and envy."

• As a result in part of the fact that Mercury proudly claimed to have been of Persian descent, Queen was the first "western" music group to be legally sold in Iran .

• In 2004, Mercury was ranked #18 in a Forbes magazine list of the highest earning dead celebrities .

• A species of East African isopod, Cirolana mercuryi N. Bruce, was named after Freddie in 2004 .

• Although he suffered from calluses in the throat, Freddie refused to undergo any form of operation.

• Freddie was a huge fan of Liza Minnelli.

• Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson were apparently quite good friends for some period of time. With Jackson, he collaborated on some tracks which were never released, including There Must Be More To Life Than This and State Of Shock (which was performed by the Jacksons and Mick Jagger for the official release).

• His famous overbite was caused by the presence of four extra teeth which pushed his incisors out. He commented early in his career that he wished to have work done on his teeth, but regretted that he did not have time to do it. He also expressed fears that such an operation might damage his voice. During Queen's formative years, he could be seen putting his hand over his mouth or keeping his mouth closed in attempts to hide the overbite.

• Freddie wrote "Crazy Little Thing..." while taking a bath.

• The video game character Sol Badguy in the Guilty Gear series of fighting games is heavily influenced by Mercury, while the Street Fighter character Eagle was reimagined as a tribute to Mercury for Capcom vs. SNK 2.

Valuable Mercury Memorabilia

In 1972, Mercury recorded an early single under the stage name Larry Lurex, a cover of the 1969 Beach Boys minor hit, I Can Hear Music. Despite an incredibly dense, Spector-esque Wall of Sound production and instrumental backing by Queen members Roger Taylor and Brian May, the song failed to chart in the U.K. However, it did manage a #115 showing on the U.S. charts in the autumn of 1973, when it was released on the tiny Anthem label, just ahead of Queen's first album. Widely bootlegged, the original record is now a valuable collectable, fetching up to £400.

Japanese Legacy

Because Queen was a hugely popular band in Japan, various tributes to Mercury and Queen can be found in Japanese anime and popular music:

• He appears as a recurring character in the Japanese manga and anime series Sakigake!! Cromartie High! Known to the main characters only as "Freddie," and normally introduced by a harmonious guitar riff, this version of Freddie Mercury wears only long brown pants with red suspenders, and often carries his trademark broken microphone stand. "Freddie" does not speak despite moments where he is visible singing in the background (although his voice is not audible), and sometimes appears riding a giant black horse. Some characters in the series wonder if he understands Japanese. In one episode, the school doctor gives him a perfect bill of health, so clearly Freddie is not the ghost of Freddie Mercury. In the world of Cromartie, Freddie is either still alive and in hiding, or a clone of the original Freddie. He does show some remarkable attributes, such as extreme patience when other characters repeatedly slap him in the head, and the ability to navigate Tokyo using only his "animal instincts," as one character describes it.

• The action manga Bremen, relating the adventures of a Japanese rock band in Tokyo, features a minor character named "Mick." He appears to be a westerner living in Japan, and is the owner of a club where the main characters have their first real gig. Mick is nearly identical to Freddie Mercury in appearance, and even wears a tank top sporting the same stylised Q as in the Queen logo.

• A gymnastics teacher resembling Mercury appears in Akira Toriyama's manga, Dragon Ball in a story Vol.421. Queen is said to be one of Toriyama's favourite bands.

• Most recently, in her 2004 album Exodus, Japanese pop star Utada Hikaru mentions Freddie Mercury in the song Animato:

"DVDs of Elvis Presley / BBC sessions of Led Zeppelin / Singing along with F. Mercury / Wishing he was still performing..."

• The Japanese TV series Pride (starring the popular actor Kimura Takuya), predominantly used Queen and Mercury songs. The theme song for the show was Mercury's solo song "I Was Born to Love You" (newer version).

Solo albums

• Mr. Bad Guy (1985)
• Barcelona (1988) (with Montserrat Caballé) (Russell Watson covers the song "Barcelona" on his album The Voice.)
• The Freddie Mercury Album (1992)
• The Great Pretender (1992)

Boxed set

• The Solo Collection (10 CDs and 2 DVDs) (2000)

External links

• The Voice: Freddie Mercury Extensive details of Freddie's voice, including vocal range.
• The Official International Queen Fan Club
• Freddie Mercury at IMDb

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• 1946 births
• 1991 deaths
• Gay icons
• Bisexual musicians
• Male singers
• Queen
• AIDS-related deaths
• Tanzanian musicians
• British rock singers
• People buried in Kensal Green Cemetery
• Parsis
• Indian people
• Entertainers who died in their 40s
• Songwriters