ROCK-on Worldwide

November’s deaths have no patterns to them, just losses from the world’s greatest band, the world’s most popular Rock singer and the drummer for the world’s greatest Rock guitarist.

GEORGE HARRISON – BORN 24TH FEBRUARY 1943 – DIED 29TH NOVEMBER 2001
I remember George Harrison describing life in the Beatles when he was interviewed alongside Ringo for a TV documentary at the time they released the Beatles 1 CD. He said that people had forgotten how good they were as a live band: “we were just so tight” and people also forget in the post Cream, post Prog Rock era of long, self indulgent, “virtuoso” guitar breaks and meandering tunes that the musicianship of the Beatles was focused on the band as the entity, not on individual members and that they perfected the 3 minute single, “She Loves You”, the LP “Revolver” and the Concept Album “Sgt Pepper” before anyone else had ever thought of it.

It took Beatles fans a while to realize just how good George was – it was his misfortune to be a very fine songwriter alongside the greatest popular song writing duo of the 20th century. Frank Sinatra famously enthused about Something, but I guess for sentimental reasons I will always prefer

“Life flows on within you and without you.”

FREDDIE MERCURY – BORN FAROKH BULSARA 5TH SEPTEMBER 1946 – DIED 24TH NOVEMBER 1991
It’s difficult to write an obit for this spectacularly talented singer as our Finance Director (Paul) is a Queen fan and will complain about whatever is written here. Actually the term “fan” understates the case as I believe our FD holds the world record for seeing “We Will Rock You” – 4 times, since you ask, and he still hasn’t worked out the plot. There’s a razor thin line between “fan”, “obsessive” and “stalker”, Paul, and you are in danger of crossing all of them.

The facts are simple and well known. Indian and a Parsi by birth, his father was employed in the British Colonial service on the Island of Zanzibar while Farokh attended boarding school in India. The family moved to the UK in 1964 as a result of the revolution.

Once in the UK, he attended Art College before meeting Brian May and Roger Taylor – and the rest really is history, Paul – really!!

INTERESTING FREDDIE FACTS

• Although his speaking voice naturally fell in the baritone range, his singing voice was that of a tenor and his recorded vocal range spanned nearly four octaves (falsetto included), with his lowest recorded note being the F below the bass clef and his highest recorded note being the D that lies nearly four octaves above.

• Mercury wrote most of his songs on the piano, often choosing keys that were technically difficult for Brian May (e.g. E flat major).

• An Ericsson poll of 600,000 people in 66 different countries found “We Are the Champions” to be the world’s most popular tune. This contradicts another major poll by Guinness World, which had previously found “Bohemian Rhapsody” to be the world’s most popular song from the past 50 years.

“Freddie, if you’re out there and you want to choose any artist to channel your work, please give me an album, or at least a middle eight” ROBBIE WILLIAMS.

And the video – well some might not call it a Rock song, but if you want to be this much of a purist you can go straight to 4’ 13” and Rock on!

Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody


MITCH MITCHELL – BORN 9TH JULY 1946 – 12TH NOVEMBER 2008
When Mitch Mitchell died last year, Bob Stanley in The Times, wrote a piece which encapsulated the era of Jimi Hendrix and the birth of The Experience. He concluded that “On many of the best Jimi Hendrix Experience recordings, such as Fire and Manic Depression, Mitchell is as much a lead musician as the guitarist, fizzing, roaring, shifting the songs like a racing driver going through chicanes. Just as it is hard to believe that there is only one guitarist on some of their cuts, Mitch Mitchell did the work of two drummers.”