Product Description

The first biography of the legendary British band to focus on their formative years. it highlights the desperately urgent days of pre-stardom, when the Queen quartet played with bands like The Reaction, The Opposition, 1984 and Sour Milk Sea. Author Mark Hodkinson has interviewed over 60 friends and colleagues of Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon and pieced together a fascinating web of stories that for the first time tell the story of the emergent Queen. From the tiny downbeat village of Oadby in Leicestershire, where John Deacon grew up to the exotic splendour of Zanzibar, where Faroukh Bulsara was born, Hodkinson offers a new and enticing version of Queen. In tracing these unpublished stories he also examines the Queen era before and immediately after stardom. This is the first genuine account of Queen's rise to stardom, as told by those who knew the band and watched from the front row. Illustrated with many previously unseen early photographs of the four members of Queen.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #45265 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 220 pages

About the Author
Mark Hodkinson has earned acclaim for his biographies of Prince, Simply Red, Marianne Faithfull and The Wedding Present.

Customer Reviews

Queen before Queen...
The best parts of this book are the ones dealing with the young Roger Taylor and John Deacon. Freddie has had so many biographys written about him that most Queen-fans know his story by heart, and Brian has also had a very comprehensive biography. Roger and John have so far been left out, but this book goes some way to making up for their neglect. There are pictures of the group as teenagers, stories from some of their school and college friends. This book is well worth getting, and is one of my favourites.

Decent
Rather than focusing on the various record deals and contracts the group went through like all the other books, this focuses on the four individual personalities in the group. There is no bias towards either Freddie or Brian May- all four men are discussed equally, with quotes from family members and friends.

It covers the time from when they were children to the making of Bohemian Rhapsody, when their fame and glory began.