Mercury: An Intimate Biography of Freddie Mercury by Lesley-Ann Jones

wife-to-be. Yeardon was now a maintenance engineer at Pye Studios in London’s Marble Arch, famous for having nurtured Petula Clark and for the work, particularly for television themes ( Crossroads, Neighbours ) of husband-and-wife composing team Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent. Pye also produced Hendrix’s “Hey Joe” and the Troggs’ “Wild Thing” in 1966, and had welcomed the Kinks, Richard Harris, and Trini Lopez. The studios had even boasted Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones as session musicians before they teamed with Robert Plant and John Bonham to form Led Zeppelin.
    Would-be producer Yeardon arranged a late-night studio session at Pye for Smile. Acetates of the tracks “Polar Bear” and “Step on Me” were cut, giving Smile professional audition material which they were free to take to other labels. Not that Yeardon expected to see so much as a grin of Smile again.
    Brian, Roger, Tim, and a couple of musicians from a northern band called Ibex were by now living in a one-bedroom flat in a semi called Carmel in Ferry Road, Barnes. Two sisters, Helen and Pat McConnell,had seen Smile play in their local pub and had also fallen in with the gang. That cramped, damp flat would be remembered with myopic hindsight as “bohemian.” In fact, the flatmates had lived in stinking squalor, most of them sleeping on filthy mattresses on the floor. To make matters worse, they had recently acquired yet another roommate: Freddie Bulsara. What did he think they should do?

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FRONT MAN
    I was saying to Brian and Roger, “Why are you wasting your time doing this? You should do more original material. You should be more demonstrative in the way you put the music across. If I was your singer, that’s what I’d be doing!”
    Freddie Mercury
     
    You play better when you ham it up a bit. You are different from the guy who goes out on stage. The trick is making sure you are not still the performer when you come off stage. Bowie had it down to a fine art. He was a completely different person every week, practically. Freddie took that ball and ran with it. I’d lay odds that he never choreographed a single move. His showmanship, everything he did, was instinctive. That’s an art form in itself. I have no idea what he might have done had he not been a performer.
    Rick Wakeman
     
    S till obsessed with Jimi Hendrix, and inspired by Brian’s guitar playing, Freddie had obtained a secondhand guitar which he got Tim to refret and modify to suit his needs. Then he went out and bought some Teach Yourself manuals, and started to learn to play. Freddie must have known that he would never make an axe hero. This wasnot, however, his objective. Suddenly anxious to write and compose original songs, he simply needed to know enough guitar to be able to work out the chords. Those initial attempts at composition were like everyone else’s: raw, clumsy, excruciatingly personal. He would soon learn to take a more abstract approach, to delve beneath the surface of his emotions, and to look beyond his own experiences, experimenting with universal themes.
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    The Ibex boys living at Ferry Road were soon joined by the rest of the group from Liverpool, who had convened in London to seek a record deal. Guitarist Mike Bersin, bass player John “Tupp” Taylor, and drummer Mick “Miffer” Smith were road managed by young Ken Testi. Ibex were occasionally joined by Geoff Higgins, who would take a turn on bass so that Tupp could play the flute. Ibex played cover versions of hits by Rod Stewart, the Beatles, and Yes, and usually kicked off their show with “Jailhouse Rock,” a mega-hit for Elvis Presley some twelve years earlier. Impressive though they were, Freddie couldn’t help but notice that they lacked a decent vocalist. Just as he would do with Smile, he had taken to turning up at their rehearsals and gigs, and would occasionally get up and sing with Mike Bersin.
    “He gave the same kind of performance he did at the peak of his career,”