Were he still on this side of the lawn, Freddie would be turning 66 today.

A self proclaimed ‘man of extremes’, he’s been gone since ’91, and never before or since has rock known a greater technical singer.  Nobody could hit the notes like Freddie.

As a kid in India, Freddie took piano lessons and later while living in London learned to play guitar.

He was a fan of bands like The Who, Beatles, Hendrix, Bowie and Led Zeppelin.

It was in the spring of 1970, Freddie joined the great guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor, and regardless of certain reservations by the others, chose the name ‘Queen’ for their new band.   Freddie would later say of the name, “I was certainly aware of the gay connotations, but that was just one facet of it”.

Queen went on to release some of the 1970′s most elaborate and inventive music, both hard and melodic music as Freddie went on to perform an estimated 700 concerts around the world with Queen.

We’re still waiting for the film, Brian May revealed news about two years ago, in September 2010, as he told the BBC that Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat, Ali G, Bruno, The Dictator), would play Freddie in a film about his life.   The movie is written by Peter Morgan who also wrote screenplays for ‘The Queen’ and ‘Frost/Nixon’.   Co-produced by Robert De Niro’s TriBeCa Productions, the film will focus on Queen’s formative years and the period leading up to their monumental performance at Live Aid (1985).

In April 2011, May confirmed that filming would begin later that year and that Baron Cohen’s eagerness had been key to the progress.   The film is tentatively scheduled for release in 2014.

To celebrate Freddie’s life, a few videos, including a favourite Queen groove called ‘Dragon Attack’.

Enjoy,

Jeff.