Legends of Rock & Roll: Queen

By James Hoag

Queen is a legendary rock group who started in the late 60's and became one of the greatest rock bands in the world. Their
music is still played by radio stations everywhere. Even to this day, Queen is the second best-selling group of all time in England,
second only to the Beatles

The Legends of Rock & Roll - Queen covers the journey of the band from its infancy to the death of Freddie Mercury and after.

This book concentrates on the music that was produced by Queen. It also discusses the rise and fall of Freddie Mercury, its iconic leader.

Queen has sold over 170 million albums, worldwide, had 18 number one hits and performed in 700 concerts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Hoag
• Release date: Jan 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005441111

James Hoag

James Hoag has always been a big fan of Rock & Roll. Most people graduate from high school and then proceed to "grow up" and go on to more adult types of music. James got stuck at about age 18 and has been an avid fan of popular music ever since. His favorite music is from the Fifties, the origin of Rock & Roll and which was the era in which James grew up. But he likes almost all types of popular music including country music.After working his entire life as a computer programmer, he is now retired and he decided to share his love of the music and of the performers by writing books that discuss the life and music of the various people who have meant so much to him over the years.He calls each book a "love letter" to the stars that have enriched our lives so much. These people are truly Legends.

Book preview

Introduction

Raise your hand if you’ve seen Wayne’s World from 1992, the movie which starred Mike Myers and Dana Carvey. My favorite scene in that movie is the guys driving in their car with Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody playing on the radio. The guys are all head-banging and rocking to the music. I love that scene.

The main reason I like that scene is how much I like Bohemian Rhapsody which is, in my opinion, one of the greatest rock songs ever written. I have written several books about different rock-and-roll performers, but I’m so glad I’ve included Queen. They are easily one of my favorite acts of the ‘70s and ‘80s.

However, did you know the movie studio wanted to use a Guns N’ Roses song instead of Bohemian Rhapsody, but Mike Myers insisted it be Queen. There was a big argument about the choice of song, and Myers threatened to quit the production if he didn’t get his way. Thus, the studio caved, and we got Queen in the scene instead of Guns N’ Roses. Aren’t we glad?

Queen has made a huge impression on everyday American life. Sports activities, like football games, are fond of playing We Are the Champions or We Will Rock You before and during the game.

Therefore, if you like Queen, read on and find out how it all came to be. We will cover the early years of the members of the band, how they got together and came up with the name, and, especially, talk about the music. The Legends of Rock & Roll series is all about the music. I enjoy finding out about the performers, their lives, and why things happened the way they did. However, if I could only write about one thing, it would be the music. Go with me now as we trace the history of not only one of the greatest bands ever to come out of England, but one of the greatest bands, period. Here is Queen.

Before Queen

Queen was composed of four main members: Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon. Let’s look at the lives of these four before they came together as the band Queen.

Freddie Mercury

Freddie Mercury was born Farrokh Bulsara on September 5, 1946 in Stone Town, the British protectorate of Sultanate of Zanzibar, East Africa. Zanzibar is an island off the east coast of what is now part of Tanzania. His parents, Bomi and Jer Bulsara, were Parsis, from the Gujarat region of the province of Bombay Presidency in British India. They were employees of the British government. Parsi is a community of people who follow Zoroastrianism. Farrokh was ceremonially accepted into the faith when he was about seven or eight years old. The Parsi people are mainly located in India and Pakistan, but Farrokh’s father moved the family from British India to Zanzibar, so he could continue his job as a cashier for the British Colonial Office there. Farrokh had a younger sister named Kashmira, born in 1952. Farrokh remained devoted to the Parsi faith for his entire life and, as Freddie Mercury, he was given a Parsi funeral when he died.

When Farrokh was eight-and-a-half-years-old, his father decided he would get a better education in the boarding schools of India and so, in the summer of 1955, he sent Farrokh on a ship that sailed across the Arabian Sea to Bombay, India (today called Mumbai). After spending two months on a ship and then on a train, he arrived at St. Peter’s School in Panchgani, India. This was a totally foreign country. Farrokh knew no one and had left behind everything he knew. Remember, this was 1955, he was eight-years-old and, he did all of this entirely alone. No one came with him. He would spend eight years at St. Peter’s School.

It was while at St. Peter’s that he became known as Freddie. It is also said it was during his stay at St. Peter’s that gay tendencies began to manifest themselves. At the time, there really wasn’t a name for it, but the teachers and other students knew Freddie was different. The time he spent at St. Peter’s was equivalent to secondary and high school in the United States. He left St. Peter’s in 1963, but he had failed his final exam, so he did not get a diploma. While he was at St. Peter’s, he acted in several plays, often playing the part of a woman. He learned music and began singing in public. He was athletic. He was a boxer and a cross-country runner. He learned to play the piano and became very accomplished.

When Freddie was about twelve, he and some school chums formed a band called The Hectics. Freddie played the piano, and the band specialized in music from the western world, such as the United States. Listening to people who were there, the band should have been called Freddie and the Hectics. He was definitely the star of the show.

Freddie left St. Peter’s in 1963 and returned to Zanzibar and his parents. In the fall of 1964, the Zanzibar revolution occurred. Zanzibar had been given its independence by Britain the year before, and an Arab minority had succeeded in gaining control of the government. The Bulsara family feared there would be trouble and so left Zanzibar and moved to Feltham, Middlesex, England. Since Freddie didn’t have high school credentials, he enrolled in Isleworth Polytechnic in West London where he studied art. In 1966, he graduated from there with an A average. He then went to Ealing Art College to study graphic design and earned his diploma. Ealing was the center of the Bohemian culture in London in the late ’60s. It produced many people who we would come to know like Pete Townshend and Ronnie Wood. Freddie used the skills he learned at Ealing later to design the coat of arms that defined Queen.

In 1969, the band Ibex came to town and was in need of a lead singer. Freddie auditioned and won the part. Ibex soon became Wreckage. When Wreckage died, he went on to a band called Sour Milk Sea but, by early 1970, that band had broken up as well. Freddy started following around a band called Smile which was fronted by a friend of his from Ealing Art College, Tim Staffell. Staffell was Smile’s lead singer. At once, Freddie started trying to change Smile, making them more theatrical and suggesting that the band put on more of a show. Tim Staffell didn’t want that. He just wanted to sing music. The other two members of Smile were Brian May and Roger Taylor, and they were leaning toward Freddie’s idea of what a band should look like, so Staffell left Smile. That left an opening for a lead singer, which Freddy filled. By 1970, three-fourths of Queen was together. In 1971, they found