Chapter 2: Early Times

“I thought up the name Queen. It's just a name, but it's very regal obviously, and it sounds splendid . It's a strong name,very universal and immediate. It had a lot of visual potential and was open to all sorts of interpretations. I was certainly aware of gay connotations, but that was just one facet of it.” Freddie Mercury


In 1969, the guitarist Brian May, student at London's Imperial College, and the bassist Tim Staffell decided to form a group. May placed an advertisement on the college notice board for a "Mitch Mitchell/Ginger Baker" type drummer. Roger Taylor, a young dental student, auditioned and got the job. They called the group Smile.

Smile signed to Mercury Records in 1969, and had their first session in a recording studio in Trident Studios that year. Tim Staffell was attending Ealing Art College with Farrokh Bulsara, and introduced him to the band.
Farrokh was born on the spice island of Zanzibar on the 5th of September, 1946. He spent most of his childhood in India, and went to school at St. Peter's British College School a boarding school in Panchgani near Mumbai. While he was there he was very good at sports, especially boxing, in which he even entered competitions. Also, it was around this time his friends started calling him Freddie. Freddie was a keen artist and enjoyed both drawing and singing, playing piano at every opportunity, and eventually getting to Grade IV. His first onstage performance was also at St. Peters, with his five-member school band, the Hectics.

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. This proved to be useful later, when Freddie designed Queen's famous lion and phoenix crest.
At Ealing, Freddie met Tim Staffel, who was in the band called Smile, with Brian May and Roger Taylor. Freddie attended many performances and rehearsals with Tim. By this stage Freddie had started to use the name Mercury after the mythical God.
Bulsara soon became a keen fan. Staffell left in 1970 to join another band, Humpy Bong. The remaining Smile members, encouraged by Freddie, changed their name to "Queen" and continued working together, prior to Mercury himself joining as vocalist. The band had a number of bass players during this period who did not fit with the band's chemistry. It was not until February 1971 that they settled on John Deacon and began to rehearse for the first album.
In 1973, after a series of delays, Queen released their first album, a self-titled project influenced by the heavy metal and progressive rock of the day. The album was received well by critics. Gordon Fletcher of Rolling Stone said "their debut album is superb," and Chicago's Daily Herald called it an "above average debut". However, it drew little attention and the lead single "Keep Yourself Alive," a Brian May composition, sold poorly. Greg Prato of Allmusic called it "one of the most underrated hard rock debuts of all time."
The album Queen II was released in 1974. The album reached number five on the British album charts, while the Freddie Mercury-written lead single "Seven Seas of Rhye," reached number ten in the UK, giving the band their first hit. The album is their heaviest and darkest release, featuring long complex instrumental passages, fantasy-themed lyrics and musical virtuosity. The band toured as support to Mott the Hoople in the UK & United States during this period, and they began to gain notice for their energetic and engaging stage shows. However, album sales in the US were, like those of its predecessor, low.

Because of medical complications, May was absent when the band started work on their third album, Sheer Heart Attack, released in 1974. The album reached number two in the United Kingdom, sold well throughout Europe, and went gold in the United States. It gave the band their first real taste of commercial success. The album experimented with a variety of musical genres, including British Music Hall ("Killer Queen"), heavy metal ("Flick of the Wrist", "Brighton Rock", "Tenement Funster", "Now I'm Here", and "Stone Cold Crazy" – a song which Metallica later covered, earning them a Grammy Award), ballads ("Lily Of The Valley" and "Dear Friends"), ragtime ("Bring Back That Leroy Brown") and Caribbean ("Misfire"). At this point Queen started to move away from the progressive tendencies of their first two releases into a more radio-friendly, song-oriented style. Sheer Heart Attack introduced new sound and melody patterns that would be refined on their next album A Night at the Opera.
The single "Killer Queen" reached number two on the British charts, and became their first U.S. hit, reaching number twelve in the Billboard American Top 40. It combines camp, vaudeville, British music hall with May’s guitar virtuosity. The album’s second single, "Now I’m Here", a more traditional hard rock composition, was a number eleven hit in Britain.

In 1975, the band left for a world tour with each member in Zandra Rhodes-created costumes and banks of lights and effects. They toured the US, headlining for the first time, and played in Canada for the first time in April. At the same time, the band's manager Jim Beach successfully negotiated the band out of their Trident contract. Of the options they considered, was an offer from Led Zeppelin’s manager, Peter Grant. Grant wanted them to sign with Led Zeppelin’s own production company, Swan Song Records. The band found the contract unacceptable and instead, contacted Elton John’s manager, John Reid, who accepted the position. In April 1975 the band toured Japan for the first time.

Later that year the band recorded and released “A Night at the Opera”. Now the band was at that point, when it was so big that even someone who isn’t involved in music could recognize who they were, when listening for the first time on radio one of their new songs. At the time, it was the most expensive album ever produced. Like its predecessor, the album features diverse musical styles and experimentation with stereo sound. They were subconsciously influenced from The Beatles’ albums “Rubber Soul”, “Revolver” and “Abbey Road” as Roger Taylor said in one interview and it was a very eclectic album. On this album they took the recording techniques to an area they never gone before, they pushed the technology to its very limits. Brian considers they are a kind of disciples of Jimmy Hendrix and The Beatles for using the studio almost like an instrument, but obviously Queen had more technology than they have had, so they could push things a lot further. They were such perfectionists that they could work one day for just 15 seconds of what actually ended up on the record. The album was very successful in Britain, and won triple platinum in the United States. It is considered their “magnum opus”. In 2003, it was ranked number 230 on Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The album also featured the hit single "Bohemian Rhapsody", which was number one in the United Kingdom for nine weeks, and is Britain’s third-best-selling single of all time; it also reached number nine in the United States. It was re-released in 1992, because it was used in the movie “Wayne’s World” and reached number two. Bohemian Rhapsody has been voted, several times, the greatest song of all time. The band decided to make a video to go with the single: the result is generally considered to have been the first "true" music video ever produced. Although other bands (including The Beatles) had made short promotional films or videos of songs prior to this, generally those were made for specific showings or programs (such as the Beatles' videos for "Hey Jude" and "Revolution", which were specifically made to be aired on the Smothers Brothers' television show. "Bohemian Rhapsody" was the first musical video offered free of charge, to any program, network or station which would air it. The second single from the album, "You're My Best Friend", peaked at sixteen in the United States and went on to become a worldwide Top Ten hit.

By 1976, Queen was back in the studio, where they recorded A Day at the Races, what may be mistaken simply as a companion album to “A Night at the Opera”. It again borrowed the name of a Marx Brothers' movie, and its cover was similar to that of A Night at the Opera, a variation on the same Queen Crest. Musically, the album was by both fans’ and critics’ standards a strong effort, and reached number one on the British charts. The major hit on the album was "Somebody to Love", a gospel-inspired song in which Mercury, May, and Taylor multi-tracked their voices to make a 100-voice gospel choir. The song went to number two in the United Kingdom, and number thirteen on the U.S. singles chart. The album also featured one of the band's heaviest songs, Brian May’s "Tie Your Mother Down", which became a staple of their live shows. Also in 1976, Queen played one of their most famous gigs, a 1976 free concert in Hyde Park, London. It set an attendance record, with 150,000 people confirmed in the audience.

“News of the World” was released a year later. It contained many songs tailor-made for live performance, including "We Will Rock You" and the rock ballad "We Are the Champions", both of which reached number four in the United States and became enduring international sports anthems. Roger Taylor released his first solo effort in 1977 in the form of a single: the A-side was a cover of a song by The Parliaments "I Wanna Testify", and the B-side was a song by Taylor called "Turn-On the TV".

In 1978 the band released Jazz, including the hit singles "Fat Bottomed Girls" and "Bicycle Race" which were also released as a double-A-side single. The word "jazz" was not used in a strict sense, and the album was noted by critics for its collection of different styles, jazz not being one of them. Rolling Stone Magazine criticised it for being "dull", saying "Queen hasn’t the imagination to play jazz – Queen hasn't the imagination, for that matter, to play rock & roll." Important tracks of the album include "Dead on Time", "Don't Stop Me Now", "Let Me Entertain You", and "Mustapha", in which Arabesque music is combined with heavy rock guitar.

The band’s first live album, Live Killers, was released in 1979; it went platinum twice in the United States. They also released the very successful single "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", a rockabilly song done in the style of Elvis Presley. The song made the top 10 in many countries, and was the band’s first number one single in the United States.