[custom_adv] These words from Freddie Mercury – born Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar, 1946, dying aged 45 in 1991 – sum his life up pretty damn well. A shy man who became one of the world’s most electric frontmen as soon as he went on stage, Mercury contained multitudes. [custom_adv] At the age of eight he was sent off to a public school in India. He only saw his family annually and the chasm was filled with pop music. From there: London post-revolution, the Swinging Sixties, working as a life model and a caterer. [custom_adv] Between the ages of 9 and 12, Freddie Mercury was a philatelist, collecting stamps including a range from Zanzibar and the UK, as well as British colonies of the time such as Aden (modern-day Yemen) and New Zealand, and Monaco. His collection has been owned by London’s Postal Museum since 1993 and was exhibited in 2016 alongside John Lennon’s stamp collection. [custom_adv] Freddie Mercury’s parents were Parsis – Indians of Persian descent who had historically fled modern-day Iran as Islam replaced Zoroastrianism as the dominant religion in the region. They moved to Zanzibar from Gujarat before Freddie was born and although he went to a Church of England primary school, he was a practising Zoroastrian at the time. [custom_adv] He wasn’t particularly devout later in life, but when he died, almost all his belongings were burned in accordance with Zoroastrian teaching. He designed the logo featuring all the band members’ zodiac signs. And a phoenix. A phoenix is not one of their zodiac signs, but if you had to throw anything in it would probably be that. [custom_adv] Freddie frequently performed with a mic “stick”: basically just the boom and the microphone detached from the stand. The legend goes that Freddie’s mic snapped once during a show and he preferred the new setup much more and decided to make it a thing. [custom_adv] He was never convinced he was a very good pianist but had a habit of composing songs with the instrument in odd positions. He had a piano as the headboard of his bed and, when inspired, would reach back and play what he’d heard in his dreams. [custom_adv] There is also a story that he wrote “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” in the bath after a piano was brought to him. This is not the story that Freddie himself tells, but it’s not hard to believe why people might have thought it was true. [custom_adv] Mercury once helped set up the equipment at a Bowie gig at his art college. Later, the two artists collaborated on “Under Pressure” – an incredibly tense bender of a session that caused some explosive confrontations between the two acts. [custom_adv] Freddie Mercury’s love of his teeth (and consequent fear of dentistry) meant his appointments were few and far between, but one of them was responsible for a part of British punk history. Queen were booked to appear on Tonight With Bill Grundy in December 1976. [custom_adv] The distinctive smile of the Queen frontman was the product of having four extra teeth in the back. He refused to have them fixed, mainly because he feared it would in some way undo his vocal aptitude. [custom_adv] He is said to have had a four-octave vocal range with a very unique tone. A study in 2016 could not confirm whether his range truly was that broad, but he was talented enough to be a baritone who could leap into a full tenor range when required, with a vibrato faster than Pavarotti’s. Researchers believe he may have played with something called subharmonics, something you see more in throat singers than rock stars. [custom_adv] All of Freddie’s close friends had female nicknames – Elton’s was “Sharon”. The two artists were both party animals, but even Elton admitted Freddie could “out-party” him. The Christmas after Freddie died, Elton John received a package wrapped in a pillowcase. [custom_adv] It will come as no surprise that two of music’s most flamboyant artists, Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson, knew each other. They recorded a few songs together and, in 2014, “There Must Be More To Life Than This” was released on the compilation album Queen Forever. [custom_adv] They also worked on a song called “State Of Shock”, which was re-recorded as a duet between The Jacksons and Mick Jagger in 1984 after Thriller (Jagger later performed it with Tina Turner at Live Aid). [custom_adv] Freddie’s last partner was the Irish hairdresser Jim Hutton. They wore wedding rings – even though they could not legally marry – and lived together. When Freddie told Jim that he was HIV positive, he said he understood if Jim left him.
