Читать книгу Somebody to Love - Matt Richards - Страница 15

Roger Taylor had a passion for music from an early age, forming his first skiffle band, The Bubbling-over Boys, while still at primary school. By the age of 12 Taylor had been given his first rudimentary drum kit and would practise diligently in the garage of the family home on the outskirts of Truro, Cornwall. In 1965 he joined a band that was to become known, eventually, as The Reaction, and over the next few years they became well established throughout the Cornish music scene. Despite their provincial success, The Reaction split up in the summer of 1968 and two weeks later, Roger Taylor shared a lift to London in Les Brown’s purple Triumph Herald to begin his studies in dentistry at the Royal London Hospital Medical and Dental School.

‘I came to London to go to college to meet other people, to be in a band and that was my plan and the college was a way of getting to London and meeting like-minded people,’ Taylor recalls.¹

Roger and Les lived together in a rented ground-floor flat at 19 Sinclair Gardens in Shepherd’s Bush and it was to this flat that Les returned one evening with Brian May’s advert for a drummer. Roger applied immediately and soon Brian May and Tim Staffell were heading over to his flat with their acoustic guitars for an audition. The three of them struck up an immediate friendship, Roger was hired, and soon afterwards they began rehearsing properly at Imperial College.

‘I remember being flabbergasted when Roger set his kit up at Imperial College,’ recalls May. ‘Just the sound of him tuning his drums was better than I had heard from anyone before. It was amazing.’²

The band needed a name. They settled on Smile, suggested by Staffell, and began rehearsing intensively. Not content with playing cover versions, the band, specifically May and Staffell, began composing their own songs too.

The three of them continued with their studies during the day and spent whatever other spare time they could find rehearsing or discussing music. As a result, Taylor’s flat in Shepherd’s Bush became a frequent meeting place and crash-pad for members of the band and their entourage, which included Freddie Bulsara, who was there by association with his friend and classmate, Staffell. Freddie immediately struck up a friendship with Roger Taylor, which was ignited by their shared passion for Jimi Hendrix, and he became a regular hanger-on at Smile gigs, the first of which was at Imperial College on 26th October 1968 when they supported Pink Floyd.

In February 1969, Smile played their second major gig at Richmond Athletic Club and just a couple of weeks later, played their third major concert (though not the main attraction by any means), which just happened to be at the Royal Albert Hall and was a charity concert for Imperial College. It resulted in Smile’s first ever review in which a Times journalist referred to them as ‘the loudest group in the Western world’.

Following a short tour of Cornwall, Tim Staffell took Freddie along to one of their London rehearsals. ‘He came over with Tim one day,’ recalls Roger Taylor, ‘and he just became one of the circle. He was full of enthusiasm – long, black flowing hair and this great dandy image.’³

Freddie immediately liked their sound and started to regularly attend gigs, even taking it upon himself to offer advice, whether it was needed or not. ‘Freddie was a very big advocate and appreciator of our talents,’ remembers Brian May. ‘He had this thing that we were presenting ourselves all wrong. He was into the show as a show, which was a pretty unusual idea in those days because the fashion was that you had to wear jeans and they had to be split and you had to have your back to the audience, otherwise it was pop. Freddie had the idea that rock should be a show, that it should give you something that was overwhelming in every way.’⁴

Freddie was desperate to join Smile but the only room found for him was in the van as he accompanied them to gigs around London and, later in the year, on another tour of Cornwall, where they played venues as diverse as Fowey Royal Regatta, Falmouth Art College and St Minver’s Perceval Institute. By now, Roger Taylor had taken a hiatus from his studies to concentrate on his musical career and it appeared his decision might pay off when Smile were offered a one-single deal for the US by Lou Reizner of Mercury Records. In June 1969, Smile decamped to the Trident Recording Studios in London’s Soho, where, with producer John Anthony, the band recorded three songs.

To see Smile in the recording studio with a deal for a US release must have been a bitter pill for Freddie to swallow. His route into the band seemed blocked for good and any hopes of a musical career appeared to be diminishing while the possibilities for his friends were potentially limitless. To make matters worse, he had completed his education and his only source of income was from the ‘Kasbah’ stall he had recently started with Roger Taylor in Kensington Market. ‘We had a dream of being in a working band, but the only way to live was to sell the sort of outlandish clothes we loved,’ remembers Taylor. ‘So we ponced around in velvet capes and tight trousers, and sold the look to other people.’⁵

Eventually, the musical salvation that Freddie hoped for arrived while Smile were awaiting the release of their debut single in America. A band from Liverpool, called Ibex, had arrived in London seeking their own fame and fortune. Like Smile, they were a trio and consisted of Mike Bersin on guitar and vocals, Mick ‘Miffer’ Smith on drums and John ‘Tupp’ Taylor on bass. They were managed by 17-year-old Ken Testi, who had accompanied them down from Liverpool. Ken was dating Helen McConnell at the time, whose sister, Pat, knew Roger Taylor and Smile. Consequently, they were all regulars at The Kensington pub and on 31st July 1969, Smile and Ibex found themselves hanging out together there, celebrating Pat’s birthday, along with Smile’s chief hanger-on, Freddie Bulsara.

Later that evening, everybody decamped to Pat McConnell’s flat at 36 Sinclair Road. Here, while the party continued, Brian May began playing the guitar. Before long, an impromptu acoustic Smile gig was underway but this time, rather than shouting suggestions, Freddie simply joined in with the singing. Mike Bersin, the guitarist and lead singer with Ibex, was all too aware of his own limitations as a lead vocalist and realised that Freddie Bulsara might be just the person they were looking for. Their manager, Testi, agreed: ‘Ibex were going nowhere fast. They had so much talent though, and it didn’t go unnoticed by Freddie.’⁶

One evening, after the bands had met once again at a local pub, Freddie offered a suggestion to Mike Bersin: ‘What you guys need is a singer.’ Testi was all too aware that Freddie’s heart was set on joining Smile, ‘but that wasn’t going to happen, so that’s why he turned his sights on Ibex.’⁷

Soon after, Freddie Bulsara auditioned for Ibex and was quickly accepted into the band as lead singer. ‘Once we had Freddie, we were a little rough and ready, but we showed a lot of potential,’ remembers drummer Mick ‘Miffer’ Smith.⁸ The mix of three working-class northerners and a London-based dandy originally from Zanzibar was a strange combination but, finally, Freddie was fronting a band. However, as he quickly discovered, Ibex’s 17-year-old manager was having no luck finding them any gigs in London. He did, though, have two shows lined up in Bolton and the first of these performances, a lunchtime gig at the Octagon Theatre on 23rd August, was the debut show for Ibex with Freddie Bulsara as lead singer.

Ken Testi remembers Freddie’s stagecraft at that first gig more than his vocal performance: ‘Freddie was shy off-stage but he knew how to front a show. It was his way of expressing that side of his personality. Everything on-stage later in Queen, he was doing with Ibex at his first gig: marching from one end of the stage to another, from left to right and back again. Stomping about. He brought dynamics, freshness and presentation to the band that had been completely lacking previously.’⁹

After their next gig the following day at an open-air festival in Bolton’s Queen’s Park, Ibex didn’t perform live again until 9th September in Liverpool. The intervening period saw them rehearse whenever possible, practising songs by Rod Stewart, Yes and The Beatles. Most of these rehearsals took place in London and Freddie had, by now, moved out of his parents’ house in Feltham and was living in a flat in Ferry Road, Barnes. But he was not alone there; most of Smile and Ibex were also crashing out in any room they could find and their musical instruments and equipment took up any other free space going. In the front bedroom were three single beds, and one of these beds was where Freddie slept, along with any combination of people who happened to find themselves occupying the other two.

Denise Craddock was a student at Maria Assumpta Teacher Training College alongside Pat McConnell, and they were both sharing the house too. She recalls the arrangements at Ferry Road: ‘People would just sleep in the sitting room. There were couches and cushions, and other things that could be laid out. It was £25 a month, I think, which sounds nothing now but we had to scratch together as students, and we were not well-off. Freddie was especially struggling to make ends meet. He had very few clothes and his shoes had holes in them.’¹⁰

Freddie accepted a few commissions as a graphic artist to earn whatever money he could, but his heart was still set on music as a profession. On 9th September, Ibex had their next gig, again in the northwest. It was held at The Sink, a basement venue in Liverpool, and this performance should not have been remarkable except for the fact that, during the encore, Ibex were joined on-stage by two members of the audience: Brian May and Roger Taylor, who were in Liverpool performing with Smile at another venue.

By this point Freddie’s stagecraft had improved immeasurably and he had already adopted an on-stage device that would later become one of his signature moves in Queen. ‘His mic stand technique, this half mic-stand thing, I think traces back to Ibex,’ recalls bass player John Taylor. ‘In those days, you’re talking 1968, 1969, you know equipment wasn’t very good or professional and I think he was just swinging a mic stand around and the bottom fell off and he couldn’t get it back on. Nobody had road managers, well, we didn’t in those days, so nobody came rushing back with it to fit back to the thing, and he was just prancing around and made the most of it.’¹¹

With no performances lined up in London, Freddie and other members of the band were growing tired of the constant driving up and down the motorways of England to perform in Liverpool. For Freddie, London was where he had to be, even though he had little money and life in Ferry Road consisted of constant bed hopping in a marijuana-filled household.

While Smile threw themselves into playing as many shows as they could, Freddie was beginning to plot his next move. He thought that a change of name for Ibex might result in more success. One night he phoned guitarist Mike Berson, who had remained in Liverpool, and suggested they call the band Wreckage. The rest of the band agreed, but not all of them made an appearance at Wreckage’s first gig at Ealing College on 31st October 1969. Drummer Mike ‘Miffer’ Smith had left the band. Smith’s decision to leave Wreckage angered Freddie. He wrote a letter to his friend Celine Daley on 26th October in which he laid into Smith: ‘Miffer’s not with us anymore ’cos the bastard just upped and left one morning saying he was going to be a milkman in Widnes.’ The letter continues: ‘Miffer, the sod, went and told everyone down here that I had seriously turned into a fully fledged queer.’¹² Certainly, other members in Ibex were making fun at the expense of Freddie’s campness, as bassist John Taylor recalls, ‘Fred’s nickname, within the band, he was quite camp and we all made the most of that. We called him the “old queen”.’¹³

Whether or not he was aware of how his bandmates referred to him behind his back, Freddie was almost certainly struggling with his own sexuality at this point. His camp, dandy persona was obvious, but to confuse matters, in 1969 he was dating one of his old Ealing classmates, Rosemary Pearson. She had been drawn to him the first time she saw him – and he to her. ‘He didn’t do that much work. In the studio he just sang all the time. He was charismatic, dressed outrageously – sometimes in shorts, no top and a fur coat – and was determined to make it as a singer. He was a clown, so much fun to be around. Freddie was also the only truly fearless person I ever met.’¹⁴

Together they would spend an increasing amount of time together; she would show him around the art galleries of London and he would introduce her to different types of music. ‘He always behaved as though he were in front of an audience, even if he was just with me. His gestures were theatrical, and often he’d break into song embarrassingly in the street. Yes, he liked to be the centre of attention, but he was sometimes remorseful about that, and was always genuinely interested in me and my work,’ she remembers.¹⁵

She would accompany him shopping on Portobello Road, they went to parties together, and soon their relationship blossomed. ‘We were in a restaurant holding hands and kissing. Next thing I knew we were back at his flat at Barnes. It wasn’t like a romantic sweeping me off my feet. I was talking about going to Moscow on my own so we’d be apart and we were feeling really warm about each other and close and comforting. He loved to be affectionate, he’d always put his arm around you and kiss you and be cuddly. It wasn’t as though he suddenly made a pass, because we weren’t like that anyway,’ she recalls.¹⁶

When they first met, Rosemary had no inkling that Freddie might be gay, but as their relationship grew ever more closer, she began to notice that Freddie showed an increasing interest in her circle of gay friends, which included the film-maker Derek Jarman and the artist David Hockney. Rosemary was the only female invited to their dinner parties and Freddie pestered her to introduce him to the circle. She began to feel confused, especially when Freddie expressed longings to explore gay relationships. ‘I felt that if he ever met these people, then that would be it. They would take him from me, and I would be shut out.’¹⁷

Reluctantly, Rosemary decided to end the relationship in 1970 after a year together. ‘It was awful. He begged me not to go, and said he didn’t understand. I knew that I could not bear to be simply his friend, hearing about his other relationships. So it had to be the end.’¹⁸ Looking back on the relationship over 35 years later, she said, ‘He was a very ardent lover, he was faithful to me, he was devoted to me although we didn’t live together. But it wasn’t as though we’d just met and it was mad passionate sex, just a very good closeness. I don’t think I could say I was passionately in love with him. We weren’t ever right for each other.’¹⁹

Freddie’s relationship wasn’t the only part of his life that had ended at this point. After playing only ten gigs or so, Wreckage disbanded just before Christmas, 1969. Freddie auditioned for a few other bands and eventually joined Sour Milk Sea after seeing an advert in Melody Maker. ‘Freddie auditioned with us in a youth club in the crypt of a church in Dorking,’ recalls drummer Rob Tyrell. ‘We were all blown away. He was very confident. I don’t think it was any great surprise to him when we offered him the job.’ Rhythm guitarist Jeremy Gallop agrees: ‘He had an immense amount of charisma, which was why we chose him.’²⁰ Guitarist Chris Chesney, also recalls the audition: ‘I remember Freddie being really energetic and moving around a lot at the audition, coming up and flashing the mic at me during guitar solos. He was so impressive. There was an immediate vibe. He had a great vocal range. He sang falsetto; nobody else had the bottle to do that.’²¹

Once accepted into the band, Freddie played a number of gigs in and around London but soon his desire for creativity and control became too much for the other members of the band, Chesney remembers: ‘When Freddie joined, the band lost its focus. The cohesion between the four of us was significantly weakened. Musically, we were more pastoral than what Freddie was into, he was coming from a different place. He was heavily into Led Zeppelin. I thought the musical frictions were very exciting. We became un-blues based, whereas before we were stuck on that R&B template.’²²

Jeremy Gallop also recalls the dynamics at the time: ‘Freddie very quickly wanted to change us. I can remember him trying to make us learn “Lover”. I can still recall how it went. We were all thinking – me especially – “Fucking hell, this isn’t the way we want to go!” If only we could relive life again . . . but Freddie was a very sweet man. He was a very good arbitrator. Chris and I used to argue like hell. I used to have fights with the bass player – and get beaten up – and Fred was always the one who’d cool down the situation with diplomacy. On-stage, Freddie became a different personality – he was as electric as he was in later life. Otherwise he was quite calm. I’ll always remember him being strangely quiet and very well-mannered. Extremely well-mannered, in fact. My mum liked him.’²³

Drummer Rob Tyrell, though fond of Freddie, felt the singer had another agenda with Sour Milk Sea. ‘We liked Freddie,’ he admits. ‘He was fun, but he was quite a schemer in a way. He had other things cooking. I could feel it in my bones he wasn’t really interested in us. He knew he was good. He used us as a kind of stepping stone.’

In the spring of 1970, Sour Milk Sea disbanded and Freddie found himself, once again, without a band. He had been through Ibex, Wreckage and Sour Milk Sea in little more than seven months.

Meanwhile, Smile were also struggling. Their US single had disappeared without a trace. Then they played a showcase gig at London’s Marquee Club in December 1969, which failed to cause a stir, and were dropped by Mercury Records as a result. To make matters worse, bass player and vocalist Tim Staffell had had enough and quit the band. Suddenly, Brian May and Roger Taylor were left with no group. ‘We wondered if we should give up,’ remembers May, before adding, ‘But then young Freddie Bulsara arrived on the scene.’²⁴

Freddie had been on the outer periphery of Smile for a couple of years and watched jealously as they flirted with success. Now, suddenly, he found himself without a band, and Smile found itself without a singer. As May remembers, ‘Freddie was always there, you know, Freddie was always saying, “Well, I’ll sing, we can do this, you know, put the band together like this, etcetera, etcetera, and we can do this, this, this and this,” and we kind of gradually went, well, okay.’²⁵

Freddie jumped at the chance to be Smile’s vocalist and, in the early part of 1970, although still called Smile, three quarters of what was to become Queen were about to take the stage together for the very first time. Freddie’s journey to rock’n’roll stardom had well and truly begun.

‘It was exactly right,’ says a gracious Tim Staffell. ‘Freddie wanted to do the kind of theatrical stuff that Smile was moving towards and I gradually got uncomfortable with it and moved away. Good job I did. I’m glad I got out of the way because if I hadn’t, the world wouldn’t have had Queen.’²⁶