With 128 music tracks, many
previously unheard, a 120 page photo book, interview
tapes released for the first time, and a 2-hour new
documentary on his life, Freddie Mercury: The Solo
Collection meticulously assembles in one definitive
package the life and works of the man who was born
Farrokh Bulsara, and became known to the world as
Freddie Mercury, incomparable, extraordinary, and as
writer Sean O'Hagan says in his appraisal of the
artist and man: "the like of which we will not
see again."
Public property as the posturing, mercurial lead
singer of Queen, with whom he shared twenty years and
nearly 200 million record sales, there was, however,
much about Freddie that either remained concealed or
simply became eclipsed by the rock stadium roller
coaster that Queen rode through three generations.
While the masses adopted as anthems
the all-conquering Queen rock signatures of the
band's 70's and 80's hey-days - We Will Rock You,
Radio Ga Ga, Under Pressure, Another One Bites The
Dust - few seemed to be aware that at the same time,
away from Queen, Freddie was busily getting on with
channeling his inexhaustible love for music into solo
projects. He was tireless in the pursuit of new
musical adventures, some intensely personal projects,
others providing the excitement of collaborations
with writers and performers who fired his
imagination, such as his well documented love affair
with the Spanish opera singer, Montserrat Caballe.
There were also tracks with less well known musicians
and songwriters such as Eddie Howell and Billy Squier
who Freddie produced and wrote with simply because
they provided interesting diversions..
Just how much Freddie achieved in his
forays away from Queen is likely to surprise those
who think of Mercury's solo career as being confined
to a handful of hits, most notably, the posthumous
No.1 Living On My Own; the title song from Dave
Clark's 1986 stage musical Time; his cover version of
The Platters' classic The Great Pretender, and his
flirtation with opera with Montserrat Caballe which
produced the Olympic anthem Barcelona.
Apart from the three albums which are
the central pieces of this collection - Mr. Bad
Guy(1985) Freddie's only true solo album, Barcelona
(1988) , and The Great Pretender (1992 US tribute
album) - this collection houses dozens of tracks
which show the true extent of Freddie's solo work
with three CD's of songs, and versions of songs which
were never released at the time. They also provide a
fascinating insider view into Mercury at work.
Listen, for example, to Freddie's improvised jam
recording, When This Old Tired Body Wants To Sing'
(Rarities II) in which Freddie calls a halt to the
session in his own inimitable style.
Some ignorance of Freddie's output is
understandable. Not all of his solo singles were
widely accepted at radio; two tracks many consider
among his finest tracks - his versions of the Beach
Boys' I Can Hear Music and Goffin-King's Goin' Back,
released as the A and B sides of his first solo
single, surfaced under the name of Larry Lurex (a
play-on-words joke at the expense of Gary Glitter).
Since the single disappeared without trace, not many
are aware of this inauspicious start to Freddie's
solo career. Both these tracks are included here.
At the heart of the Rarities CD's is
an absorbing insight into the evolution of Freddie
the writer, musician and singer and his experiments
with different styles of music in the years 1973 -
1988. They include intriguing alternative mixes of
familiar songs, acapella mixes, out-takes, unfamiliar
demo recordings, unreleased 12" extended mixes,
and even out-takes from orchestra sessions. Present
are such gems as Hold On, a duet with American
actress Jo Dare recorded for the German feature film
Zabou, (the self-confessing?) Money Can't Buy Me
Happiness and New York, two of five out-takes
intended for the Mr. Bad Guy album before being
discarded, Holding On, an up-beat live studio take
with Freddie improvising what few lyrics there are,
and the electrifying It's So You, a song that Freddie
revisited on two more occasions, but, regrettably,
never progressed further than this sparse recording.
There are then the tracks which
highlight the collaborations, where Freddie
participated as producer and/or guest vocalist: the
Eddie Howell 1976 recording The Man From Manhattan,
produced by Freddie as well as featuring his vocals
and piano (as well as Brian May. The rest of Queen
weren't asked to contribute as Freddie thought it
would make the track too Queen); and two tracks with
Billy Squier from Freddie's very fertile mid-80's
period: Love Is The Hero which features a distinctive
vocal introduction by Freddie, and Lady With A Tenor
Sax, co-written and arranged by Freddie. Although the
final version of the latter did not feature Freddie,
this version is Freddie's guide vocal version, heard
here for the first time. Freddie also contributed to
the early solo work of Queen band member Roger
Taylor, providing vocals for Taylor's first The Cross
album track Heaven For Everyone (later re-recorded
with the band and the first single release from the
Made In Heaven album).
The hundreds of hours Freddie spent
with opera diva Montserrat Caballe crafting the
Barcelona tracks come to light on Rarities II.
Considered by Freddie to be one of the most
productive and exciting periods of his recording
career, he spent endless hours experimenting in his
wish to provide the singer with eight very different
pieces of music. Many ideas born out of those
sessions are heard here for the first time: early
versions laid down by Freddie, improvised where he
has yet to come up with the lyrics; tracks where
Freddie sings not only his part but those of
Montserrat too; falsetto guide vocals which his
co-star would later use to record her own parts. The
most intimate and compelling of these have to be
extracts from a recording made on a modest cassette
recording by Freddie's assistant Peter Freestone on
the night Freddie and Montserrat first sang together
around the piano at Freddie's home. It includes
extracts of their conversation that night as well as
the historic moment that Freddie first played his
house guest a musical idea that was later to become
Barcelona. Friends claim that Mercury was obsessed
for a period with the Spanish singer and nervous
about what he could deliver, and certainly his
pursuit of perfection shows in the very many
work-in-progress recordings heard here.
Mercury was much more than just
singer and writer. He was also a musician capable of
complex, meticulously constructed arrangements. The
Instrumentals is a volume solely given over to
appreciating his intricate and often breathtaking
musical arrangements and vocal harmonies on tracks
such as Guide Me Home, How Can I Go On and The Fallen
Priest. Thirteen of Freddie's most accomplished
tracks are heard in an entirely new form - without
the man himself.
Perhaps the greatest surprise of all
in reviewing this massive body of work created
outside of Queen is how grossly undervalued Freddie's
solo recorded work now appears. Even CBS boss Walter
Yetnikov who signed the solo Freddie admits of the
Mr. Bad Guy album in The Untold Story DVD programme:
"We sold 160,000 copies. For another person that
would have been an interesting result. For an
off-shoot of Queen that was a great disappointment.
It was certainly not one of the best deals I've done.
But I'm glad we did this together." He adds: I
think Freddie Mercury was a genius. If you are a
genius, you have certain liberties which are given to
you by society, you can act a little different, you
can act other than you're expected to."
The Video Collection DVD
All of Freddie's solo video performances, specially
remixed for surround sound audio, feature on the DVD
The Video Collection: the majesty of Freddie and
Montserrat and fire and fountains in Barcelona;
Freddie and 300 Amazonian women in I Was Born To Love
You; men in women's clothing in Living On My Own; and
Freddie recreating some of his personal favourite
video characters in The Great Pretender. Mott The
Hoople's Ian Hunter once observed there were some
alarming lapses of taste from the Queen camp over the
years. The extended version of the Pretender video,
though a solo endeavour, may well be the kind of
thing he had in mind; humour, theatricals, colourful
language - and frocks to match. Last word from
director David Mallet:
"Freddie was always involved - with Queen or
with his own single records - in every aspect of it.
Any video that you made with Freddie was always a
dichotomy between laughing so hard that you felt you
just couldn't stand up - because he was one of the
funniest men I have ever met - and moments of utter
despair, when everything was going wrong and he was
unhappy and miserable. But everybody came away
enriched in some way. Freddie was one of the really
great originals of the second half of the Twentieth
Century. There was nobody like Freddie. There was
no-one even a bit like Freddie. There was just nobody
like him at all."
The video ends with a stirring version of Mercury's
Guide Me Home performed by Swiss jazz pianist Thierry
Land. It is one of five compositions specially
arranged and recorded by Lang for this box set - the
other four appear on the DVD Rom section of The
Untold Story which invites viewers in to a private
view of The Freddie Mercury Photographic Exhibition.
This exhibition, first staged at The Royal Albert
Hall in London in 1996 and continues to travel the
world promoting AIDS awareness.
The David Wigg Interviews
Much has been written about Freddie, most
particularly since his death in November 1991. During
his life he consented to very few interviews,
although when he did provide a rare quote he could be
relied upon to produce a scorcher: "Darling. I'm
simply dripping with money. It may be vulgar but it's
wonderful! All I want from life is to make lots of
money and spend it." And then there was a
different Freddie Mercury, one capable of a totally
contradictory remark. "It needs a strong willed
person to survive. You have to be so astute, so
strong. You have to be a hard faced bitch - and a lot
of us can't be."
Few but the closest of his circle
knew the real Freddie Mercury at any given time. The
David Wigg Interviews, recorded in the late 70's and
early 80's by one of the few writers he felt he could
trust, provide a fascinating insight into the
changing world of Freddie over a decade. In Wigg's
first encounter backstage, Freddie stormed into the
dressing room and hurled a clothes iron at a
full-length mirror smashing it to pieces, an outburst
sparked by an on-stage technical fault that night.
"Some people can take second best but I can't.
If you have the taste for being No.1 then No.2 isn't
good enough. I'm a spoilt child."
In the mid-eighties, interviewing him
in the grounds of his new Kensington home, it was a
more tranquil Freddie that David found himself faced
with: "Everyone wants a…everybody wants a
lovely relationship and at the same time to go out
and have fun. For me at the moment in time, I'm quite
happy just coming home and tickling…my
peonies."
Says Wigg in his written introduction to his taped
conversations: "Although these interviews
obviously explore certain stages of Freddie's
outstanding musical career with Queen, at the same
time I attempted to penetrate the veneer of this
flamboyant but somewhat private rock star."
Available on audio for the first time, The David Wigg
interviews provide an opportunity to eavesdrop on a
number of intimate and frank conversations between
two friends.
"It's my career that keeps me going, What else
am I going to do - dig weeds, get fat and be
beautifully in love? No, I'd like to remain as
successful as I am, writing beautiful songs and be in
love. That's my priority. Would I miss fame? I know
nothing else. To me it's a normal life. It's like
winning the pools every day."
The Photographic Book
Friends and family of Freddie also contribute to his
story in the centre-piece of the Freddie Mercury: The
SOLO Collection box set - a 120 page book which
traces Freddie's life in photographs and supporting
text. Freddie is first photographed aged six months
as the winner of a local Zanzibar beautiful baby
competition - "Even at that age he loved to
pose", says mother Jer Bulsara; taking part in
the now classic Queen II cover shoot - "There
was a feeling that the Dietrich shoot might be
pretentious. To Freddie that word was meaningless -
'but is it fabulous?' was all that mattered"
(photographer Mick Rock); Freddie on stage and at
play on the road, his image constantly taking on a
new identity. "We got more publicity for Fred
growing that moustache and shaving his chest than we
did at almost any other point" says band member
Roger Taylor reflecting on a photo of Mercury during
his clone era. The album closes on the last photo
Freddie approved of himself, an image of him wearing
his favourite waistcoat, a present from a friend who
had it specially painted with pictures of Freddie's
much-loved six cats.
The collection is drawn from family,
photographers who penetrated the inner sanctum, as
well as from Brian May's and other private
collections. Together they illustrate and note
Freddie's most public and private moments.
"My favourite shot of me and Fred together is
the one of us on stage at the Marquee Club, London,
1973" writes Brian May (Page 46). "The shot
was taken from underneath the (only!) vocal monitor -
this is the black shape at the bottom of the picture.
Little did we know what the years would
bring….".
The Untold Story DVD
By Those Who Knew Him Best
"Of course I couldn't get Queen, so I
thought, to hell with it, I'll have Freddie Mercury.
I liked him. He was very bouncy, very effusive - very
drunk." CBS boss Walter Yetnikov on signing
Freddie Mercury.
"When we first arrived in London, Freddie stood
out from all the other boys of his age. The fashion
for hair styles was long and shaggy. Freddie had his
hair short in a Cliff Richard style. I used to walk
behind him so people didn't think I was with
him." Freddie's sister, Kashmira Cook.
"He was always coming into Biba and just
hanging around me. It took about 5/6 months before he
asked me if I wanted to go out on a date. Five months
later we were living together." Mary Austin.
There were those who shared an extremely close
relationship with Freddie: his mother and father Jer
and Bomi Bulsara, sister Kashmira; Mary Austin, his
long time girlfriend who continues to live at Garden
Lodge, his last home; designer Diana Mosely, who
first met him on his Born To Love You video and
became designer of his private wardrobe and public
costumes; Peter Freestone, personal assistant for
more than 10 years; Jim Hutton, his boyfriend at the
time of his death. Outside of this close circle there
were the friends, photographers, record producers,
and record bosses; and back in Zanzibar and India the
relatives, school friends, even his first child
sweetheart, Gita RGoshi, on whom he had a crush
during his school day years at St. Peter's in
Panjghani, India. Together they weave the rich
tapestry that was the life of Freddie in this
powerful programme.
A documentary feature by the DoRo
film-making team of Rudi Dolezal and Hannes
Rossacher, who worked with Queen and Freddie over
more than a decade, The Untold Story DVD, a journey
across time and culture, tracks the life of the young
Farrokh Bulsara from The Hospital Government Zanzibar
where he was born on a Thursday, September 5, 1946
and where his childhood friend John Baptist da Silva
is still lobbying the islanders to recognize him,
through schooldays in India, the working class
suburbs of 60's Bohemian London, and over the twenty
plus years which followed; years of extraordinary and
fabulous success. The story finishes without end.
Even today Freddie's final resting place remains a
secret. "He suddenly announced one day, after
Sunday lunch, 'I know where I want you to put
me," recalls Mary Austin. "But I don't want
anyone to know. I don't want to be dug up. I want to
rest in peace'".
Mary Austin, the person perhaps
closest to Freddie throughout his life, talks
lovingly and at length about the man who she was all
but in name 'married' to: "It was a relief when
he told me he was gay. How could I deny him the right
to be at one with himself? It was a love that you
accept and understand because you want the person
inside to grow, and fascinating to see this person
finally at ease and at one with himself; it was an
almost euphoric feeling."
Jer Bulsara, Freddie's 'mummy' and
sister Kashmira tell how it was inevitable that
Mercury would want to leave Zanzibar: "for a boy
like him there wasn't much for him to do, instead he
was always looking at magazines which came from
overseas and wanting to know what it would be like to
be there. Jer talks about Freddie's first journey
away from the family, sent just before he reached his
9th birthday to St. Peter's, a residential boarding
school in India, a period that was to have a dramatic
influence on his development as a budding musician
and performer.
It is the section of the programme
filmed at Freddie's school that we get the first real
insight into Freddie' burgeoning talent as musician
and performer. His aunt recalls how she encouraged
him to take piano lessons, which led to the young
Freddie forming his first band The Hectics. While
Freddie and The Hectics may not have shaken the world
outside India, the impression they made locally was
seismic. Gita Gosh recalls: "The Hectics, I
think were more important to us than Elvis Presley or
anyone else and we were very proud of them,
especially the girls who were associated with them on
a regular basis."
Freddie's former teacher recalls that The Hectics
even made an impression on the staff: "Freddie
was playing the piano…remove the piano and there
was nothing left of The Hectics. All the symptoms
were there, plenty of noise and I could say, very
melodious. Even people like myself enjoyed their
music."
A fellow member of The Hectics, Zahid
Ali Abrar recalls how the normally reticent Freddie
took on a new persona once he was at the piano:
"he didn't have stage fright -
otherwise he would be a shy boy - but when he went on
the keyboard he would be in a bliss, playing like, I
would put it crudely, multiple orgasm."
It was perhaps Freddie's preoccupation with music
that resulted in his leaving
St. Peter's having failed his academic exams, and a
report which rounds up his achievements as:
"accomplished boxer, good singer, outstanding
pianist, unbeatable table tennis player, thoroughly
mediocre cross country runner.."
Assessing the years in which Freddie
reigned one of the world's most fabulous rock stars ,
fashion designer Zandra Rhodes talks about the
evolution of the Mercury image: "He was a free
thinker; I think those changes of image show a
wonderful free-spirit."
Spanish Opera legend Montserrat
Caballe 'the voice that sang with Freddie Mercury the
song for my city', recalls how nervous he was at
their first meeting: "I felt the cold on his
hand, I thought he's nervous too, so that's good,
because when people are nervous it means both are
expecting something from one another".
Montserrat also recalls the night spent around
Freddie's piano when they first got to know one
another. "It was a very special night, a
wonderful night I will never forget. It was such a
wonderful time that we didn't realise that time
passed so quickly. It was 6 o'clock in the morning
when I left and there were lots of people in the
street, surprised that I had spent the night in
Freddie's home!"
Freddie's final days are movingly
told by his family, boyfriend Jim Hutton, assistant
Peter Freestone, and Mary Austin, who says:
"Freddie had given himself a limit. I think
personally that when he couldn't record anymore, when
he didn't have the energy to do it, it would be the
time, because his life had been his work and his joy,
and without it he wouldn't have been strong enough to
face what he had to face."
Further information:
Phil Symes/Rob Deacon
Cowan/Symes
Tel: 020 7323 1200
Fax: 020 7323 1070
e-mail: cowansymes@msn.com
FREDDIE MERCURY
The SOLO Collection
A 10 CD and 2 DVD Set
Presented in deluxe 120 page slipcase hard-backed
book
Contains the CD's:
Mr. Bad Guy (1985 album)
Barcelona (1988 album)
The Great Pretender (1992 album)
The Singles (1973-1985)
The Singles (1986-1993)
The Instrumentals
Rarities 1
Rarities 2
Rarities 3
The David Wigg Interviews
Also includes the DVD's
The Video Collection
The Untold Story
Release Date: 23rd October, 2000
ICPN: 7243 5 2777964 0 3Also Available:
3-CD Set
Freddie Mercury Solo
Includes the albums Mr. Bad Guy and Barcelona
Plus Bonus CD featuring hits and rarities.
ICPN: 7243 5 28047 2 6
VHS/DVD
The Video Collection
Freddie Mercury Solo Videos
ICPN: 07243 492443 37 (VHS) / 07243 492443 00 (DVD)
