freddie mercury

Farrokh Bulsara was born on Thursday, 5th of September 1946 on African spice island of Zanzibar, to parents Bomi and Jer Bulsara. His early schooling was spent away from the family at a boarding school in Bombay. His father Bomi, was a British diplomat, so they were often moving from one place to another. In 1954, aged 8 years, Freddie started to attend British College School, St. Peter's in Panchgan (near to the city of Bombay). At this time his schoolmates started to call him by the name of Freddie. The school was typically British and in sports Freddie was very strong in boxing and in table tennis, winning many trophies and medals. He also loved art and music and showed great talent in both areas ; playing the piano and performing in school shows and also joining the school choir. Freddie, with the encouragement of the headmaster of the school, did piano lessons and applied himself to them very well achieving Grade IV in both practical and theory. In 1958, five friends at St Peter's School formed a rock'n roll outfit called 'The Hectics' - the members were Freddie Bulsara, Bruce Murray, Derrick Branche, Victory Rana and Farang Irani (Freddie was the piano player in the band). They played at school parties, at annual events and school dances.
His family eventually settled in England in 1964, the same year he enrolled at Ealing College of Art. In 1969, Freddie graduated from Ealing with a Diploma in Art and Design Freddie was a huge fan of Jimmy Hendrix and was still very interested in music.
It was a Ealing that Freddie met Tim Staffel, who was in a band called Smile, with Brian May and Roger Taylor. Freddie attended many performances and rehersals with Tim and became great friends with Brian and Roger also. By this stage Freddie had started to use the name Mercury after the mythical God. In 1969 Freddie graduated with a diploma in art and design.

Freddie, as he was known by now, he played in a series of groups from 'Ibex' to 'Sour Milk Sea' and then 'Wreckage' which he founded himself. His friends, Tim, Brian and Roger were having good but slow progress with Smile - but it was too slow for Tim and Smile broke up, with Tim joining another band as things weren't happening fast enough for him. Freddie soon left his band 'Wreckage' and joined Brian and Roger because he felt the previous band 'Smile' was very good and had all the elements that he wanted in a band. In 1970 Freddie Mercury, Roger Taylor, Brian May and Mike Grose formed a band called 'Queen'. After a turnstyle type rotation of bass players, John Deacon joined Queen in 1971 and Queen as we know it was formed. (You can read the main bio to see what happed in Queen after this point...)
Freddie now went and designed the band's logo with his Diploma being put to work. He used the birth signs of everyone in the band : 2 fairies for him (Virgo), 2 lions for Roger and John (Leo) and a crab for Brian (Cancer). Queen recorded a debut album which had limited success but Queens early hits were Freddies songs, 'Seven Seas Of Rhye', 'Killer Queen' and 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.
In 1980 Freddie changed his image, cutting his hair and growing a moustache with hard-core fans sending gifts of nail polish and razor blades. Freddie, during a Queen break in 1983, wanted to record a solo album and booked studio time at Musicland in Munich. On September 10, 1984 Freddie's first solo single, 'Love Kills' was released. Other solo releases included 'I Was Born To Love You' and this preceeded the April 9, 1985 release of Freddie's first solo album Mr. Bad Guy was released by CBS Records.
The late 1980s was very good for Queen with the Live Aid performance on July 13, 1985 and the huge Wembley shows in the summer of 86. Freddie went back to the studio in 87 to do some more solo work, resulting in a cover of the classic Platters song 'The Great Pretender', and was released on February 23rd. In March '87 Freddie flew to Barcelona to meet opera singer Montserrat Caballé who Freddie had seen in 1983. In April, Freddie began work on a co-venture, which was an album with Montserrat Caballé. On Saturday, October 8th, 1988 Freddie and Montserrat appeared at a huge open air festival called 'La Nit' which was held in Barcelona. They performed three tracks from the forthcoming album - 'How Can I Go On', 'The Golden Boy' & 'Barcelona', accompanied by Mike Moran on piano, who also recorded on the album. The 'Barcelona' album was finally released on Monday, October 10th. October 8th was actually the final time Freddie Mercury performed on stage.
Between the release of Barcelona and the 90s, Freddie was seen less and less and also looking at times frail. This is most seen in the final 2 videos of I'm Going Slightly Mad and These are the Days of our Lives. The final time he appeared on camera, he whispered the words, 'I still love you', perhaps a message to the fans, perhaps a good bye.