On the 5th September 1946(1946-09-05) in Stone Town, Zanzibar, a legend was born.
That legend would go onto become an idol in the music industry and eventually dia of AIDs.
On the 5th September 1946(1946-09-05) in Stone Town, Zanzibar, Farrokh Bulsara was born. As Parsis, the family practiced the Zoroastrian religion, many people were ignorant to his actual background. He had one younger sister, Kashmira. Farrokh went to St.Peters boarding school for boys in Panchgani where he excelled in all classes and several sports, especially boxing. He is rumoured to have had a mean left hook. He formed a school boy band ‘The Hectics’, in which he played the Piano, he could even listen to the radio and then play it back on his piano. During the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution, he and his family fled Zanzibar and moved to London where he studied art and graphic design. It was also at St. Peter’s where he began to call himself “Freddie”.
After having had jobs at Heathrow airport and Kensington market, Freddie decided to join a band called Ibex, which later disbanded, and then a second band called Sour Milk Sea, which also broke up fairly early.
In April 1970, he joined with guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor, from the band ‘Smile’, to form a band called Queen. Despite disruption in the band over the name choice, it eventually settled as ‘Queen’. It’s confirmed to be around this time that he legally changed his name to Freddie Mercury.
He had many early influences including Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Elvis Presley and Liza Minnelli. – Freddie Mercury: “One of my early inspirations came from Cabaret. I absolutely adore Liza Minnelli. The way she delivers her songs—the sheer energy.”
Mercury had a recorded range of Four octaves, talking in a baritone voice but generally singing in more of a tanor.
Mercury always had a strange style to his song writing, using may confusing chords in one song, and then simple chords in the next. In the ‘Greatest Hits’ album, he wrote 9/17 songs, “Seven Seas of Rhye”, “Killer Queen”, “Somebody to Love”, “Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy”, “We Are the Champions”, “Bicycle Race”, “Don’t Stop Me Now”, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and “Play the Game”. Unbelieveable to many, Mercury actually claimed he struggled to read music.
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