Freddie Mercury

November 24, 2022 143 12 5

Farrokh Bulsara was born on 5th Sept 1946, on the small spice island of Zanzibar. His parents, Bomi and Jer Bulsara, were both Parsee (Persian). His father, Bomi, was a civil servant, working as a High Court cashier for the British Government. In 1954, at the age of eight, Freddie was shipped to St Peter’s English boarding school in Panchgani, about fifty miles outside Bombay. It was there his friends began to call him Freddie, a name the family also adopted.

Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody

He was music mad and played records on the family’s old record player, stacking the singles to play constantly. The music he was able to get was mostly Indian, but some Western music was available. The principal headmaster of St Peter’s had noticed Freddie’s musical talent, and wrote to his parents suggesting that they might wish to pay a little extra on Freddie’s school fees to enable him to study music properly. They agreed, and Freddie began to learn to play the piano.

In 1964, many of the British and Indians, due to political unrest in Zanzibar, left their country, Freddie who was seventeen, moved with his family to Feltham, Middlesex, with Freddie eventually enrolling Ealing College where he gained a diploma in graphic art and design.

After Jimi Hendrix exploded onto the scene in 1967, Freddie became an ardent fan. He later through a friend was taken along to rehearsals of a band called Smile, with Brian May on the guitar and Roger Taylor on drums. Freddie hit if off with the pair and inspired by Smile, began to experiment with music for the first time since leaving India.

Queen - We Are The Champions

He made his live debut with a group called Ibex in the showbiz capital of nowhere – Bolton, Lancashire in August 1969. Freddie still loved Jimi Hendrix, (he once saw Hendrix perform live 14 night in a row), and was a huge fan of Cream and a new group called Led Zeppelin. The singer was restless, he quit Ibex (who were now called Wreckage) and joined a band called Sour Milk Tea who were working – but Freddie wasn’t happy.

Then in a twist of fate, he heard that his old mates from Smile were looking for new singer, and he did of course get the gig. Bassist John Deacon was recruited, Freddie changed their name to Queen, and using his art and design skills, designed the band’s logo – using their birth signs: two fairies for him (Virgo), two lions for Roger and John (Leo) and a crab for Brian (Cancer) and wrote what would become the group’s first hit “Seven Sea Of Rhye”. If only all bands histories were this easy!

July 13, 1985 was a special day for Queen and Freddie. It was the day of their memorable performance at Live Aid, a tremendous show at Wembley Stadium in front of 72,000 people. Queen secured their place in history, as every media person, journalist, fan and critic unanimously agreed: Queen stole the show. In reviewing Live Aid in 2005, one critic wrote, “Those who compile lists of Great Rock Frontmen and award the top spots to Mick Jagger, Robert Plant, etc all are guilty of a terrible oversight. Freddie, as evidenced by his Dionysian Live Aid performance, was easily the most godlike of them all.”

Widely considered as one of the greatest vocalists in popular music history, Freddie Mercury possessed a very distinctive voice. Although his speaking voice naturally fell in the baritone range, his singing voice was that of a tenor. His recorded vocal range spanned nearly 4 octaves (falsetto included), with his lowest recorded note being the F below the bass clef and his highest recorded note being the D that lies nearly 4 octaves above. In addition to vocal range, Mercury often delivered technically difficult songs in a powerful manner. However, due to vocal nodules (for which he declined surgery), he would often lower the highest notes during many concerts. Mercury claimed that he never had any formal vocal training.

Freddie Mercury

A study by Austrian, Czech, and Swedish researchers released in 2016 concluded that Freddie Mercury had a rare and unique singing voice. The study stated that Mercury likely employed subharmonics, in which the ventricular folds vibrate along with the vocal folds. Most human vocal patterns never use the ventricular folds, with the exception of Tuvan throat singers. In addition, Mercury’s vocal cords just moved faster than other people’s. While a typical vibrato will fluctuate between 5.4 Hz and 6.9 Hz, Mercury’s was 7.04 Hz. To look at that in a more scientific way, a perfect sine wave for vibrato assumes the value of 1, which is pretty close to where famous opera singer Luciano Pavarotti sat. Mercury, on the other hand, averaged a value of 0.57, meaning he was vibrating something in his throat even Pavarotti couldn’t move.

Mercury died of bronchopneumonia on November 24th, 1991 aged 45, just one day after he publicly announced he was HIV positive.