Freddie Mercury

When Freddie Mercury died in November 1991, he left behind a body of recorded work spanning twenty years. The bulk of that naturally relates to the fifteen studio albums and seven hundred live concerts recorded with Queen, but Freddie also recorded two solo albums, several non-album solo singles, and a number of little-known guest appearances on projects by friends. Add to this the material he produced, co-produced and co-wrote for other artists, and his legacy proves far larger and more diverse than one might expect.

Though Freddie recorded the acclaimed ‘Barcelona’ album with opera diva Montserrat Caballe in 1988, the ‘Mr Bad Guy’ LP from three years earlier remains his only true solo album. This relatively small output, however, belied a significant volume of out-takes and rarities that remained unheard until the turn of the millennium. On October 23, 2000, the long-awaited Freddie Mercury Solo box set was finally released. Conceived as the definitive collection, the 128-track, twelve-disc set — ten CDs and two DVDs — emerged after eighteen months of painstaking work.

It was the culmination of enormous effort from a small and dedicated team who approached the project with great care and love for Freddie’s legacy. Listening through every tape was an exhaustive process, undertaken with the certainty that nothing could resurface years later, once it was too late.

Archivist Greg Brooks recalled: "I focused on Freddie's solo material until I had heard and catalogued every tape — and I do mean every tape. Every reel was scrutinised from beginning to end, because you never know what might be lurking at the end of a spool and not every recording is detailed on the box. Some of the tracks in the collection — particularly on the three 'Rarities' discs — are just brief extracts from sessions, sometimes less than a minute long. Very often I would listen through an hour's worth of tape only to end up with a 45-second snippet of amusing dialogue for potential use. Even in those instances, it was always worth the effort."

On ‘Rarities 2’, one lovely extract captures Freddie and Mike Moran jamming together: one moment Freddie is ad-libbing like a man possessed, the next he slips into a beautiful, soulful Aretha Franklyn-esque piece — the perfect ending to the disc.

Recording engineer Justin Shirley-Smith commented: "It was strange hearing the 'late night jam'. I was there at the original session, and I never thought I'd ever hear it again. It was material like this that was the biggest challenge. I think Freddie would have approved it for release. We didn't want any tracks to be featured which Freddie might not have approved of. On the other hand, this being a fan-driven project, we wanted to include as much material as possible. Consequently, there has been a certain amount of studio trickery to enable us to present some material which might otherwise have been left off."

The presentation of the collection matched the care taken with its contents. Queen art director Richard Gray produced a superb 120-page-book, its illustrations of rare Freddie solo releases from around the world drawn from Brian May's own collection, along with photographs unseen prior to 2000. Also included were some of Freddie's original college sketches and paintings, and a substantial appraisal by music journalist Sean O'Hagan. Though oriented toward Freddie's solo career, the project naturally carried numerous references to Queen throughout, including a warm introduction from Brian May covering ground never explored before.

The aim throughout was to compile something substantial and impressive for fans to cherish, yet one Freddie himself would have approved of — the latter being paramount and a difficult balance to strike.

Greg Brooks: “Some felt the collection offered too much of Freddie at work, but that inclusion was deliberate: a unique opportunity for insight into the process of the great man and musician; out-takes and all. I thought that element was important, and so too did the fans I spoke with later, once they’d heard it. We hear Freddie getting things wrong sometimes — he was human after all!!! — but ultimately triumphing into the amazing familiar songs we all love.”

In addition to the nine music discs and the interview audio CD, the box included two DVDs: a collection of Freddie's solo videos, remixed in surround sound and featuring interviews with the directors who worked on Freddie's solo clips, and a two-hour documentary about his life: Freddie Mercury: The Untold Story.