MY SMILE STILL STAYS ON

“Underneath it all I’m quite shy. Very few people know what I’m really like. I don’t like the way my teeth protrude.”

"When he sat down at the piano to improvise, I realized that a true musician was before me...” - Montserrat Caballé

“If only I knew how big he would become, I would have applied for the post of his manager.” - Bruce Murray

“He was warm, generous of spirit and he didn’t mind taking a joke at his expense but you had to be prepared for the comeback. He was never short of a good line! One of his favourite sayings was if a thing is worth doing, it’s worth over-doing. I can’t put my finger on anyone who has gone out and completely invented themselves in the manner in which he did. If he had contracted it a few years later he would have survived. What would he have given us if he had survived?” - Ken Testi

“Freddie was shy offstage, but he knew how to front a show. It was his way of expressing that side of his personality. Everything on stage later in Queen, he was doing with Ibex at his first gig: marching from one end of the stage to another, from left to right and back again. Stomping about. He brought dynamics, freshness and presentation to the band that had been completely lacking previously.” - Ken Testi

“We used to have jam sessions in the college. The first time I heard Freddie sing I was amazed. He had a huge voice. Although his piano style was very affected, very Mozart, he had a great touch. From a piano player’s point of view, his approach was unique. I was doing a music degree at the same time, and I had the keys to the music department. Freddie used to get me to open it up, where we’d hammer away at the piano, trying to write. We were hopeless. He’d say, ‘How come Brian and Tim can write songs like ‘Step On Me’ and ‘Earth’?’. We were in awe of the fact they could do this it was quite magical. Only the Beatles could really write proper tunes. Freddie and I eventually got to write little bits of songs, which we linked together like ‘A Day In The Life’. This makes sense when you consider ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. You know: ‘woke up, fell out of bed’, and ‘I see a little silhouette of a man.’ It was an interesting way of getting from one piece in a different key signature to another. But I don’t think we actually finished anything. There was a cowboy-type song called ‘The Real Life’, which was actually reminiscent of the first part of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. That was the chorus at that time, although it could have been one of Brian’s songs. I remember that distinctly. Freddie certainly taught me a lot at those sessions. He had a great, natural sense of melody. I picked that up straight away. For me that was the most interesting aspect of what he was doing.” - Chris Smith

“Freddie was always interested in music. The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix were his favourites, he was always playing air guitar and doing his Hendrix impersonations. He used to do a sort of showbiz stance. We thought he was joking around to amuse us. We used to call him Freddie Baby, and he’d say, ‘Don’t worry; I’ll be big one of these days. I’ll be a real star’. No-one believed, because no one had heard him sing at that point.” - Paul Humberstone

“He was very conscious of his protruding teeth. He used to keep trying to cover them with his upper lip, and when he laughed he had the habit of covering his mouth with his hand. Later on in life he grew a moustache, probably to try and cover his teeth. [...] He was born with the gift. Even as a toddler I believe he loved to sing at family get-togethers and parties – and he loved all the attention it got him. That is something that never changed as he grew up. [...] From what I’ve heard, that’s how Freddie remained all his life: a great showman on stage, but very shy in real life. A kind of dual personality. - Farang Irani

“Yes, Freddie was very shy. But he was also “a born show-off”, and his entire personality would transform once he was performing. To give you one example: one evening, as teenagers, we were walking on a beach in Zanzibar. Music was playing and Freddie spontaneously started to do the twist, the popular dance move of the time. It was such a mesmerising performance that the next thing we knew was that a group of conservative local girls, wearing burqas, had formed a circle around Freddie and began to twist with him. That was the power of his showmanship, even back then.” - Subash Shah

“He was a prodigy. He could play anything! He had the unique ability to listen to a song on the radio, just once, and be able to play it perfectly. Our favourite programme was the Binaca Hit Parade, which was broadcast every Wednesday, if I remember correctly. If we heard a new song and liked it, Freddie would quickly learn the chords, and I would scribble down the words. And it would be the Hectics’ next hit number. Simple!” - Bruce Murray

“Freddie was hugely talented. He was a natural musician. And he had an amazing voice. He could sing anything – from rock ’n’ roll to classical music. For example, apart from the Hectics, he was also part of a Western classical music group at school, where three boys would sing in three different keys. And that is probably one of the reasons for the eclectic sound he created for Queen in later years. By the way, his voice never changed over the years. If you listen to a Freddie Mercury CD, it sounds just like the young Freddie did back then, singing for the Hectics in Panchgani.” - Victory Rana

“Freddie knew where he wanted to go. That's why he was an international star. It wasn't an accident. It happened because that's what he wanted to be from the moment I first met him. He was a man with a goal and a drive." - Mike Bersin

"Right from the start, before he'd even joined a band, Freddie would say, 'I'm going to be a pop star, you know'. I remember walking into the West Kensington pub in Elsham Road one day and Freddie was there with his head in his hands. 'What's the matter with you?', I asked. 'I'm not going to be a star', he replied. I said, 'You've got to be a star, you've told everyone. You can't let them down now. Come on.' And then he stood up, put his arms in the air and said, 'I'm not going to be a star. I'm going to be a legend!'." - Chris Smith