Freddie Mercury - Lover of Life, Singer of Songs

5 September 1946 - 24 November 1991

As many of you may or may not know, it is 20 years ago today since Freddie Mercury sadly passed away. With Freddie being such an influential and important figure in music, and with a career spanning three decades, I felt it wouldn't be right to let the day pass un-noted. 

Freddie to me is the ultimate frontman, the best that pop music has ever seen and probably ever will. His vocals covered a wide range, much more extensive than the average pop singer, and his delivery could be powerful and forceful or gentle and emotive. His songwriting was never boring, encompassing many styles from rock to theatrical pomp, vaudeville, touching ballads, blues and fairy tale epics. His imagination was limitless and strive for perfection eternal. Most importantly of all was his showmanship. Freddie was a fantastic performer. His huge personality and love of performing, and love for his fans, is evident whenever you watch him live. He oozes charisma both on and off stage and his energy and passion was infectious. For anyone who has never seen live footage of Queen I thoroughly recommend the Live At Wembley Stadium DVD from 1986. He is the perfect example of what a performer should be and one yearning to be a world class frontman should take some tips from this prolific performer. Words can't describe how fantastic he was, how fantastic Queen as a band were.

I think Freddie was a hugely inspirational person, not just for his creativity and for never being afraid to be himself no matter what others may say, but for his shear love for life and his determination, dedication and perseverance, particularly in the later years of his life. While Queen were recording their final album as a full four piece, Innuendo (1991), Freddie was very ill and in so much pain that he would down shots before recording his vocal just to numb the pain. But even still he would be present at as much of the studio time as he could possibly manage. Knowing how ill he was, Freddie would record snippets of vocal parts as they were written saying that the rest of the band could finish off the music later, but he might not be around to sing the parts at a later date. If thats not dedication and inspirational I don't know what is. Listening to any of the tracks off Innuendo or Made In Heaven (1995), the album which the remaining member of Queen put together as a tribute to Freddie from many of the aforementioned snippets, the vocal is flawless. You'd never know it was sung by a dying man. The title track of Innuendo was even a UK number one single.

Stills from the video for These Are The Days Of Our Lives, the last video Queen recorded.

To round off this post I want to leave you with some interesting facts you may not have known about Freddie:

• He loved cats, often more than people, and had many of them.
• He was born in Zanzibar, Tanzania to Persian parents and from the age of 8 attended boarding school in India.
• When his family moved to England, Freddie enrolled at Ealing College of Art.
• His life long companion and soul mate was a woman named Mary Austin. She inherited most of his estate.
• He wrote Crazy Little Thing Called Love while in the bath in a hotel in Germany.
• Queen owned a studio in Montreux, Switzerland which Freddie was particularly fond of. There is now a statue of him by lake Geneva.
• Freddie once said he wanted a huge pyramid to be built in Kensington as his tomb when he died!
• Before starting Queen, Freddie and drummer Roger Taylor ran a clothing stall on Kensington market.
• Freddie designed the famous Queen logo, made up of the band members star signs.
• The Mercury Phoenix Trust is a charity started up by the remaining members of Queen after Freddie's death to help raise money and awareness in the fight against AIDS.

Some songs worth listening to. Each one is different and showcases a different element of Freddie's writing and vocal styles and tracks Queen's musical progression through their career.

• My Fairy King - Queen (1973)
• March Of The Black Queen - Queen II (1974)
• Flick Of The Wrist & Lilly Of The Valley - Shear Heart Attack (1974)
• In The Lap Of The Gods...Revisited - Shear Heart Attack
• Death On Two Legs (Dedicated to...) - A Night At The Opera (1975) [Dedicated to their old record company who never paid them!]
• Take My Breath Away - A Day At The Races (1976)
• Bicycle Race - Jazz (1978)
• My Melancholy Blues - News Of The World (1977)
• Put Out The Fire - Hot Space (1981)
• Its A Hard Life - The Works (1984)
• Princes Of The Universe - A Kind Of Magic (1986)
• Innuendo - Innuendo (1991)
• A Winters Tale - Made In Heaven (1995) [One of the last songs ever recorded and incredibly beautiful]

And finally, if you're interested in Freddie the man, the book Freddie Mercury: A Life In His Words, a compilation of quotes throughout his life, is a very insightful and entertaining read.

"Thank you, God bless, sweet dreams you lot of tarts"

R.I.P Freddie