A first guest post by Matt Podbury.
Uncovering the lost Freddie Mercury photos
I have been a big Queen fan for as long as I can remember, and over the years I have built up a large collection of memorabilia. I also collect vinyl records in particular that today numbers into the thousands.
I have everything from Air to ZZ Top in the collection and have always enjoyed sifting through the 45s, 12"s & LPs in record shops in any city that I visit.
However, the really valuable stuff, the stuff that is in protective covers, and the stuff that my kids can sell off for a small fortune when I pop my clogs is by Queen and their varied associated solo projects.
The reasons for this were brought back to me recently when I was invited by Russel Tarr – my friend and history teaching colleague at the International School of Toulouse – to be the next guest on a series of 'Desert Island Discs' secondary assemblies.
I recounted how I played the piano from a young age and so I have naturally been attracted to music involving the piano and piano players. Early on, I remember hearing ABBA playing at Christmas parties at my grandparents’ house in Yorkshire and listening to Stevie Wonder in amazement at how fast and talented these artists were at playing live and in the studio.
I explained to Russ how my Uncle Dave introduced me to the world of collecting as we used to go ‘bottling’ in the old Victorian dumps around Harrogate in the early to mid-1980’s.
We used to come back with all sorts of treasures including marble bottles and porcelain marmalade jars! Whilst uncovering hidden treasures, I used to love listening to his stories about travelling around Europe in the 60’s and 70’s following bands and living an amazing footloose existence.
I particularly remember Dave’s story about him and his brother - my Uncle Brian, heading down to Wembley Stadium to watch a collective of artists perform at a charity concert for Ethiopia in 1985 – Live Aid.
He originally went down to watch ‘The Quo’ but was so taken aback by Freddie and the boys that day, that later in July of 1986 he headed back down to Wembley with Uncle Bri for one of the two dates that Queen was performing with ‘The Quo’ in support. Incidentally, when they arrived back at Leeds train station after Live Aid, his Ford Escort had had its windscreen bricked in and so they had to drive back up to Harrogate with the wind blowing through their hair! Rock ‘n roll!
That story and many others he recounted made visiting W.H. Smith’s a must and I spent hours and hours thumbing through music books and magazines trying to find out everything I could about Queen and their secretive singer.
I have early memories of listening to and buying the Queen Album ‘A Kind of Magic’. However, Dave told me that ‘the’ song to listen out for was from way back and was called 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.
A visit to Woolworths later and I had managed to secure Queen’s Greatest Hits 1 on cassette with my Christmas money, and I didn’t get much past track 1.
What a song!
What a bit of piano work!
What a genius!
In fact, for my Desert Island Discs, I didn’t choose 'Bo Rhap' but went in with a deep cut track that clearly showed Freddie building up to writing this opus. The track that I chose is called 'The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke' and I recounted how I used to listen to the 1974 album containing that track (Queen II) at a time when everyone else at school was listening to Guns N Roses and Ice Cube! Give it a listen – it is truly bonkers, and I have no idea how you even start to write and record something like that on your second album! The piano work is magnificent.
Fast forward a few years to around about 1993, and on one visit up to Harrogate I remember Dave talking about his mate named Paul who he had lived with in London, and back in his Ealing Art School days happened to know and hang out with a certain Freddie Bulsara (as he was then known) and had taken some photos of him during his pre-Queen days as a student.
Sadly, by 1993 Freddie had died and Queen were working on what would be their last album containing vocals left behind by their singer. There was peak interest in the band and at the start of ‘93 some relatively unknown Freddie solo songs had been remixed and released to great commercial success.
Freddie’s solo work with Montserrat Caballe had also been played extensively the year before as the soundtrack to the Barcelona 1992 Olympics.
I said to Dave that he really should tell Paul to dig out the photos and see what they were like, as there was bound to be huge interest in anything Freddie related, particularly from this time period where there were no photos in circulation.
I was sure that my favourite monthly magazine, Record Collector would be more than keen to have a look.
About a year later, I got a lovely surprise when Dave posted me a birthday card with a very cool black and white image of a guy playing a guitar in a room with a Jimi Hendrix poster on the wall behind him.
Image courtesy of Matt Podbury
Dave was a brilliant graphic designer and always used to come up with something special for birthday cards!I didn’t register who the guitar player was and opened it to find a birthday note from him with an additional section telling me that he hoped I enjoyed this never-before published photo of Freddie on the front!
Bloody hell!
It was him too, and Paul had finally located the old albums and found some real gems! Paul also lived about five doors down from Dave in Harrogate and so a conversation started about what he should do with them.
At this point, it is worth mentioning a guy called Chris Smith who also lived locally.
Amazingly, he was the bassist together with Brian May, Roger Taylor and Tim Staffel in a pre-Queen group called Smile.
Tim left Smile to be replaced by Freddie, and Chris left to be later replaced by John Deacon.
Paul knew Chris from years back, and had been in contact with him after talking to Dave. They had set off down to London to go and visit Queen's HQ and some auction houses with the photos.
You can read a copy of the letter below that Dave sent me in late 1995 with the details of what happened that day, and how they bumped into Brian May while they were there...
Paul managed to make some decent money from the pics, and they began to appear in other music publications and even on the 1996 Freddie Mercury Solo collection – a lavish box set that cost me a small fortune back in the day!
Matt Podbury is a Geography teacher with nearly a quarter of a century of classroom experience, and he has been teaching at the International School of Toulouse for the last 17 years. Matt authors www.geographypods.com and www.ibgeographypods.org and also works for the IBO. He can be found on Discogs with the user name podders79 and adds a few extra vinyl records to his collection every month.
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