Picture Credit: Carl Lenderderivative, Freddie_Mercury_performing_in_New_Haven,_CT,_November_1978.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13182007
British Rock Singer, Songwriter, and Producer • 1946-1991
Fast Facts
- Freddie Mercury was born in Zanzibar to Parsi parents from India.
- His birth name was Farrokh Bulsara.
- Freddie spent most of his childhood in India, where he began taking piano lessons at age 7.
- At age 12, he formed a school band called “The Hectics.”
- In 1963, when Freddie was 17, his family escaped political violence in Zanzibar and emigrated to Middlesex, England.
- After working a series of odd-jobs, he eventually met musicians that would form a rock band called “Queen.”
- The most notable aspect of his songwriting are the wide ranges of genres that he used which included, among others, rockabilly, progressive rock, heavy metal, gospel, and disco.
- Mercury wrote many of Queen’s most famous songs including “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “We Are the Champions.” These two songs have both been voted as “the greatest song of all time” in major polls by Sony Ericcson and Guinness Book of World Records, and both songs have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
- Queen has been inducted into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and The UK Music Hall of Fame. They have received the Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Song Collection, and in 2018 were presented with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
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