Farrokh Bulsara was born
in Zanzibar to Indian parent w who migrated to England At Ealing
College. Farrokh, or Freddie as he was then called. became friends with
bassist Tim Staffell who took him along to rehearsals of his band called
Smile, with Brian May on the guitar and Roger Taylor on the drums.
Freddie started playing guitar and began writing songs for several local
bands. In April 1970 Staffell decided to leave Smile, and Freddie join
them as lead singer. Freddie decided to change the name of the band to
Queen and he also changed his last name to Mercury.
In Mark Blake's, biography of Queen titled Is
This the Real Life?, we learned that the infamous story that dwarfs were
hired to
provides guests with cocaine from trays attached to their heads at a New
Orleans party in 1978 was false. although it was true that that ion the
early days of Queen Freddie wore white satin pants that were so tight that
he had to unzip them to sit down. The flamboyant Freddie was never open
about his sexuality although it was well know that while he was living
off and on with Mary Austin, the great love of his life, he was having
multiple relationships with men all over the world. Freddie once
reflected that "Love is the hardest thing to achieve and the one thing
in this business that can let you down the most," and "I have built up an
immense bond with Mary. She has gone through just about everything and
always been there for me.'"
In 1983 Freddie attended a performance of
Verdi's Un Ballo In Maschera at the Royal Opera House. It was the
first time when he saw Spanish opera diva Montserrat Caballé, and her voice
mesmerized him. In March 1987 Freddie flew to Barcelona to meet Montserrat
Caballé. He gave her a cassette a few songs which she enjoyed and even
performed one of them at London's Covent In early April, Freddie began work
on the album with Montserrat which was eventually titled "Barcelona" and was
released on October 10th. Two days before the album's release, Freddie
and Montserrat appeared at the huge open air La Nit festival in Barcelona.
They performed three tracks from their forthcoming album. This was his last
stage performance since he was seriously ill with AIDS at that time. He died of
AIDS-related pneumonia on November 24, 1991, only one day after
publicly acknowledging he had the disease.
n the spring of 1992, the
remaining members of Queen founded The Mercury Phoenix Trust and organized
The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness which has since
has since raised millions of pounds for various AIDS charities. The tribute
concert was broadcast live to 76 countries and had an estimated viewing
audience on more than one billion people.
So to celebrate Freddie's birthday, there is
only one possible double entrendre choice for dinner - Chicken al la Queen
which you can enjoy while watching
Sacha Baron Cohen playing him in the biopic
Mercury
(2013).
|
