ROCK REVIEW
7
One of the most flamboyant, outrageous and best-loved bands of
all time – Queen is nothing if not bold. It is this boldness that made
the
band superstars, and secured a legacy that sees them selling
out arenas to this day. Here we look the story of Queen from their
infancy to the release of the classic album
A Night at the Opera.
On 5 September 1946, Jer Bulsara
gave birth to a handsome baby
boy in Zanzibar, an African Island
situated just off the coast of mainland
Tanzania. Farrokh Bulsara was the
first of two children born to Jer and her
husband Bomi, a civil servant working
for the British government. Living a
fairly restricted childhood, Farrokh
stated years later, ‘I was a very insecure
young boy, probably because I was a bit
sheltered.’
Raised a Zoroastrian, a devotee of a
philosophical religion based upon the
idea of one true Creator, Farrokh (also
known as Freddie) grew up alongside his
sister Kashmira, and the two of them,
along with their parents,
moved to
India when he was just seven years old.
They were later educated at an English
boarding school near Bombay, and
finally moved to England when Freddie
was seventeen, as a result of the 1964
Zanzibar Revolution.
Nearly 5,000 miles away in England –
long before Freddie had even set foot on
its green and hallowed land – three other
boys were born between the years 1947
and 1951. Brian Harold May was born
at Gloucester House Nursing Home to
Ruth
and Harold May, and soon became
fascinated by the music industry: ‘When
I was a boy, we used to play a lot in
the lunch hour in the cycle sheds. We
weren’t allowed to play in the school
’cos rock music was unacceptable, not
cultural, so it was kind of underground.
We’d go and see bands around
Richmond and Twickenham, and I saw
people like the Yardbirds,
the Stones and
Clapton at the local club – they were
really hot news!’
Roger Taylor was born on 26 July
1949, in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, and also
recalled an early fascination with music,
reminiscing, ‘I remember when I was a
really young kid, I was inspired by Jerry
Lee Lewis, Little Richard, all the really
early rockers. I didn’t
even have a record
player at the time! My cousin had one
though. Later on, my big all-time heroes
became: Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon
and Bob Dylan. Archetypal influences I
suppose, but why not?’
Three years later, on 19 August 1951,
John Deacon was born in Leicestershire,
completing
the foursome that would
become one of the biggest British rock
bands of all time. The seeds of Queen had
been sown, and this is their story…
QUEEN
A Bohemian Rhapsody
