Queen Frontman Freddie Mercury loses battle with AIDS November 1991

It is difficult to express in words just how upset I was when Freddie died. I never knew the man, of course, but despite that he played an important part in my life. I well remember sitting in my student bedsit playing Sheer Heart Attack at the maximum volume I could get away with without upsetting the landlady. I loved that album, and those before it and after it, but especially that album. Killer Queen was the track that did it for me, every time, Freddie's vocals, Brian May's exquisite guitar solo, brilliant lyrics, I still go weak at the knees when I think of it.
When the student grant would stretch to it I would go to see the boys live, they were quite a "heavy" rock band in those days and packed a terrific punch with such songs as Seven Seas Of Rye, Brighton Rock, March Of The Black Queen, etc. As they matured over the years, so did I. There was a synergy there and Queen were hardly ever off my playlist, (no MP3 players then, I mean an actual list).
To be fair, many of the tragedies I have written about in "RockBottoms" have touched me at a very personal level and, as I say in my introduction, I write about them with respect and due deference. This is never more so than with this piece about the singer I loved the most. I really do put him up there with Robert Plant, Paul Rogers, et al.
So, to business, Freddie was only 45 when he died at his home in Kensington, London. The cause of death was bronchial pneumonia resulting from AIDS, the disease with which he has since become associated by way of the charity set up in his honour, The Phoenix Freddie Mercury Trust, which funds research into the disease.

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