Freddie Mercury Biography

Freddie Mercury was the lead vocalist of the famous British rock band known as Queen. Even after his death he is an international icon in the field of music and has become a legend along with his rock band Queen. Along with being a Queen singer, he was a songwriter and record producer. He is regarded as one of the greatest singers in the field of rock music. He was especially known for his four-octave vocal range. His flamboyant stage persona and the highly theatrical style made him defy the typical conventions of a rock singer. And this heavily influenced the artistic style and direction of Queen. 

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Farrokh Bulsara

Freddie Mercury birthday falls on 5th September 1946. When Freddie Mercury was born he was given the name Farrokh Bulsara by his parents. Hence, Freddie Mercury real name is Farrokh Bulsara. He was born in the British protectorate of Zanzibar which now falls in the country of Tanzania. He was born to a Parsi-Indian family. He spent most of his childhood in India. While living in India he began taking piano lessons at the age of seven. His friends recall him to have a very good ability to reproduce any music on the piano as soon as he heard it on the radio. He used to be drawn to western pop music at the time. At the age of twelve, while studying at St. Peter's School in Panchgani, Bombay, he formed a school band known as the Hectics. Other members of this band included rock and roll artists Cliff Richard and Little Richard. This showcases that Freddie used to be fond of music and was passionate about it from a very early age. 

He then moved back to Zanzibar and then to England with his family. There he was a part of many bands and also formed many bands and especially after graduation he joined a series of bands. Finally, in the year 1970, he joined the band named Smile. For this, Mercury partnered with guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor and later in 1971 included a new member, bassist John Deacon. This band, he later named altogether as ‘Queen’. At about the same time he also changed his surname from Bulsara to Mercury. 

Freddie Mercury - The Artist and Queen

Freddie Mercury was the lead Queen singer. Although all the members of Queen are famous, Queen and Freddie Mercury are synonymous. He has also been referred to as Queen Freddie Mercury.

Most of the songs of Freddie Mercury fell in the tenor range even though he naturally had a voice in the baritone range. David Bret, a biographer, told about his voice that his voice is “ escalating within a few bars from a deep, throaty rock-growl to tender, vibrant tenor, then on to a high-pitched, perfect coloratura, pure and crystalline in the upper reaches.” Even the Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballe has something to say about Freddie Mercury with whom she had recorded an album. She says that “the difference between Freddie and almost all the other rock stars is that he was selling the voice.”

He has been described as “the best virtuoso rock ‘n’ roll singer of all time.” by The Who lead singer Roger Daltrey. He said that Mercury could sing anything in any style. He could change his style from line to line. And he was brilliant at it. Technically speaking, the vocal range of Freddie Mercury ranged from bass low F (F2) to soprano high F (F6). 

Mercury was also one of the best songwriters. He wrote 10 out of 17 songs on Queen’s greatest hit albums. These included, Bohemian Rhapsody, Seven Seas of Rhye, Killer Queen, Somebody to love you, 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. These are some of the greatest evergreen hits of all time and because of this in 2003, after his death, he was admitted in the Songwriters Hall of Fame with the rest of the members of Queen. He was also given the Ivor Novello Award, posthumously along with his band members for Outstanding Collection given by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors. 

His songs cover a wide range of genres. These genres included rockabilly, progressive rock, heavy metal, gospel, and disco. As compared to other songwriters, he is known for writing musically complex material. One of the best examples is Bohemian Rhapsody. Bohemian Rhapsody is non-cyclical in structure and is made up of dozens of chords. As compared to such complex songs, his song, Crazy Little Thing called Love is made up of only a few chords. He had an innate ability to write very complex songs but he always said that he can barely read music. Mostly he used to write or make his songs on a piano and then used a wide variety of key signatures. 

Freddie Mercury is one of the most famous rock singers and Queen singer is especially known for his live performances as well. He often delivered to stadium stances across the world. While performing live he was dramatic and gave highly theatrical style performances. These performances also saw huge amounts of participation from the crowd. A weekly British magazine, The Spectator, described Mercury as, “a performer out to tease, shock, and ultimately charm his audience with various extravagant versions of himself”. The main prop that he used often was a broken microphone stand. During one of his early performances, he had pulled off a microphone stand when he realized that it could be used in many different ways while performing.

Although most of his stage performances have been quite notable, one of them which is also known as one of the best live performances is the one that took place at Live Aid in 1985. The performance of the entire band Queen at Live Aid has been voted as the greatest live performance in the history of rock music by a group of music executives. The a cappella section, i.e. a section of the performance without instrumental accompaniment, of his performance included a powerful and sustained note, which became known as “The Note Heard Round the World.” This entire performance was included and aired on a television program called, ‘The World’s Greatest Gigs’. Overall, apart from the songs and the music, considering Freddie Mercury without his stage performances will be an incomplete Freddie Mercury Biography. 

Mercury is known to have performed in an estimated 700 concerts across countries around the world as part of his band the Queen. Also, an astonishing thing about the concerts is that they were always massive. In fact, Freddie Mercury and the band Queen was known for attracting large crowds and hence his concerts were mostly large-scale concerts. In 1986, the Queen performed in Budapest in front of an audience of 80,000, one of the largest ever crowds in those times. Also, when Freddie Mercury gave his final live performance, he did it on 9th August 1986, at Knebworth Park in England, which attracted fan attendance of 2,00,000 in numbers. In his final performance, at the end of the event with the British national anthem, “God Save the Queen” playing, Mercury covered himself in a robe, all the while holding a golden crown aloft and was bidding farewell to the crowd. 

Freddie Mercury - Solo Career

Freddie Mercury worked on two full albums alone. Both the albums were a hit and have catered to the interest of fans all over the world. Alongside two full albums, he also performed some singles which mark the entirety of his solo career. One noteworthy thing is that although he recorded and made albums going alone without his band, he never quit the band and never made any solo appearances on stage without Queen. For his solo career, Mercury gave this statement, “I won't be touring on my own or splitting up with Queen. Without others, I would be nothing.” Thus, although he did record and sell out a few singles and solo albums, he never broke up with Queen and remained a part of the band till his death. 

Both the albums that Mercury made were smash hit all over the world, especially in the US and UK. These albums are: Mr. Bad Guy debuted in 1985 and Barcelona debuted in 1988. Mr. Bad Guy debuted in the top ten of the UK Album Charts. In 1993, after this death, a remix of one of the songs from the album, “Living on my own” reached number one on UK Singles Charts. This song also posthumously brought him the Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors. This album is particularly synthesizer-driven which is not the characteristic of Queen albums. 

He recorded his second album, with Spanish soprano vocalist Montserrat Caballe. The album was a combination of elements from popular music and opera. The album was a success commercially, although the critics were quite uncertain about the song and called it bizarre. The title track of the album, Barcelona, was a hit in both the UK and Spain. It was air played during the 1992 Summer Olympics and was chosen to be its official anthem that year. Caballe sang the title song live on the opening of the Olympics with Mercury’s part being played on a screen as it was performed, a year after his death. It was again performed before the start of the 1999 UEFA Champions League Final between Manchester United and Bayern Munich in Barcelona. 

There were also a few singles recorded by Mercury apart from these two albums. These singles include his own version of “The Great Pretender” by the Platters, which was a hit and debuted at No. 5 in the UK in 1987. This song version was so famous that in 2012, a documentary on Mercury’s attempts to make a solo career was named Freddie Mercury: The Great Pretender. A compilation of his solo work records was also published in the UK in honour of his 60th birthday. Freddie Mercury has also worked with pop star Michael Jackson. He has recorded tracks with him such as “State of Shock”, “Victory”, and “There must be more to Life Than This”. Although these songs were not officially released, they were recorded and released separately like Mercury included the solo version of “There must be more to Life Than This” on his Mr. Bad Guy Album and Jackson recorded the single “State of Shock” with Mick Jagger for the album Victory. There are a few more such singles recorded and played by Mercury with Michael Jackson. As recently as in 2020, the music video released by Mercury, “Love me like there is no tomorrow” was nominated for Best Animation at the Berlin Music Video Awards. 

Death and Legacy

Freddie Mercury had encountered AIDS. He died on 24th November 1991 because of bronchial pneumonia which resulted from AIDS. 24 hours before his death he had released a public statement informing his friends and family across the globe regarding his health and his condition with AIDS. At the time of his death, Freddie Mercury age was 45 years. Freddie Mercury family was informed by telephone from Mary Austin with whom he had been in a long-term relationship.

His legacy is his greatest contribution to the world of rock and roll music. He is regarded as one of the greatest lead singers to have ever performed in the history of rock music. He is remembered for his flamboyant stage performances and his special four-octave vocal range, due to which he did not make any changes to his front-row teeth which he considered the reason for his possible four-octave range. He changed the view with which people used to see rock frontman and were responsible for the artistic direction of Queen through his theatrical style. Although a tragic affair, his death brought an increase in his popularity in regions where there was a lag during the late 1980’s such as the US.

The grandness of his legacy can be seen from the record sales of his works. Total worldwide record sales to date have been set at as high as 300 million. Also, until recently, Queen has spent more collective weeks on the UK Album Charts in comparison to any other musical act which also includes the Beatles. Also, Queen’s Greatest Hits is the best-selling album of all time in the United Kingdom. Two of the most famous songs of Mercury are - “We are the champions” and “Bohemian Rhapsody”. These two songs have been voted as the greatest songs of all time in the major polls held by Sony Ericsson and Guinness World Records. 

Queen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001 and in 2003 all the four band members were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame after the death of Freddie Mercury. Their Rock Hall of Fame citation reads - “in the golden era of glam rock and gorgeously hyper-produced theatrical extravaganzas that defined one branch of ‘70s rock, no group came close in either concept or execution to Queen.