Freddie Mercury (Mercury Lives)

Sir Freddie Mercury, OBE (born Farrokh Bulsara) is a British singer-songwriter and record producer, best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band Queen. He is regarded as one of the greatest singers in the history of popular music and is known for his flamboyant stage persona and four-octave vocal range.

He was knighted by Elizabeth II for "services to music and charitable services" in 1994. He has received several BRIT Awards, 4 Grammy Awards, and, as a member of Queen, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003, and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2004.

He has made cameo appearances in multiple television shows and movies, including an appearance in Series 7 finale of | Doctor Who, in which the Doctor (| Matt Smith), Amy (| Karen Gillan) and Rory (| Arthur Darvill), as part of a larger storyline, save the 1985 | Live Aid Concert from an alien invasion, before returning to the present and briefly meeting Freddie Mercury, who, despite having supposed to have been brainwashed of the alien invasion and the Doctor, shows signs of remembering the group and their actions. It is one of the most watched Doctor Who episodes ever, having received a UK-wide audience of ~15 million people.

Early Life
Mercury was born Farrokh Bulsara in Stone Town in the British protectorate of Zanzibar on 5 September 1946. His parents, Bomi (1908–2003) and Jer (1922–2016) Bulsara, were Parsis from the Gujarat region of the then-province of the Bombay Presidency in British India. They had moved to Zanzibar so that Bomi could continue his job as a cashier at the British Colonial Office. As Parsis, the Bulsara family practiced the Zoroastrian religion. Mercury has a younger sister called Kashmira. He was born with four supernumerary incisors, to which he attributes his enhanced vocal range. Mercury was born a British citizen and remained so throughout his life.

Mercury spent most of his childhood in India and began taking piano lessons at the age of seven. In 1954, at the age of eight, Mercury was sent to study at St. Peter's School, a British-style boarding school for boys, in Panchgani near Bombay. At the age of 12, he formed a school band, the Hectics, and covered rock and roll artists such as Cliff Richard and Little Richard. One of Mercury's former bandmates from the Hectics has said "the only music he listened to, and played, was Western pop music." A friend from the time recalls that he had "an uncanny ability to listen to the radio and replay what he heard on [the] piano". It was also at St. Peter's where he began to call himself "Freddie". He also attended St. Mary's School, Mumbai. In February 1963 he moved back to Zanzibar where he joined his parents at their flat.

In 1964, Mercury and his family fled from Zanzibar to escape the revolution, in which thousands of Arabs and Indians were killed. They moved into a small house at 22 Gladstone Avenue, Feltham, Middlesex, England. After first studying art at Isleworth Polytechnic in West London, Mercury went on to study graphic art and design at Ealing Art College, graduating with a diploma in 1969. He later used these skills to design heraldic arms for his band, Queen.

Following graduation, Mercury joined a series of bands and held a job as a baggage handler at Heathrow Airport. In 1969 he joined the Liverpool-based band Ibex, later renamed Wreckage. When this band failed to take off, he joined another called Sour Milk Sea, but by early 1970 this group had broken up as well.

In April 1970, Mercury teamed up with guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor, to become the lead singer of their band, Smile. They were joined by bassist John Deacon in 1971. Freddie changed his surname, Bulsara, to Mercury and renamed the new band "Queen," later commenting on the name, "It's very regal obviously, and it sounds splendid. It's a strong name, very universal and immediate. I was certainly aware of the gay connotations, but that was just one facet of it."

Logo
Shortly before the release of Queen's self-titled first album, Mercury designed the band's logo, known as the "Queen crest". The logo combines the zodiac signs of the four band members: two lions for Deacon and Taylor (sign Leo), a crab for May (Cancer), and two fairies for Mercury (Virgo). The lions embrace a stylised letter Q, the crab rests atop the letter with flames rising directly above it, and the fairies are each sheltering below a lion. There is also a crown inside the Q and the whole logo is over-shadowed by an enormous phoenix. The Queen crest bears a passing resemblance to the Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom, particularly with the lion supporters.

In 2017 Brian May inadvertently voiced his dislike of the logo. This sparked an unofficial design competition for a new logo for Queen. A winning logo was shown to the band. Freddie Mercury, whilst not deciding to change the band's logo, did set it as his profile picture on Instagram and briefly as his Twitter background, before changing it to something else.