On Wednesday 25 March 2026 we listened to a presentation by Martin Orkin on the history of the Pop Band Queen.

Martin had an excellent range of slides, many of which were accompanied by music from his super sound system which showed the dynamic range of the music to the full.

He started with the historical background of the four members of Queen, and included details of the one member who left in the early days making a vacancy for a bass player. We had childhood photos of Freddie Mercury, Brian May (including the guitar made by his father from an old mantelpiece), Roger Taylor and John Deacon.

Freddie Mercury, who had been born Farrokh Bulsara, had talked his way into the original trio after offer advice on staging, on the music, and on promotion of the band – some say without being asked for it. Tim Staffel, the first bassist left, and Freddie was taken on. Freddie did not play the bass guitar, and so John Deacon was invited to join. The group’s original name had been “Smile”, but Freddie wanted it changed to Queen.

Martin took us through the many albums and hit records produced by Queen, and described how the band had moved genres from one record to the next. The band had struggled at times, particularly with the arrival of Punk Music which decried the orchestral and operatic influences in Queen’s repertoire. When the 6-minute long single Bohemian Rhapsody had been recorded, many record companies thought it was too long. However, encouragement did come from Kenny Everett, and they found a company that would release it as recorded. It went straight to Number One and had that position in the UK for 9 consecutive weeks.

America did not warm to Queen as much as the European Countries, and the video made for “I want to break free” did not go down at all well in the United States. Martin continued into the period of Freddie Mercury’s declining health, and the band’s involvement in “Do they know it’s Christmas?” and “Live Aid”. With Freddie Mercury’s death the band stalled a little, but did eventually manage to find another new front man in Paul Rodgers.

This was a most interesting lecture, and Martin is to be congratulated on his detailed research and visual presentation. Our next Monthly Meeting will take place on Wednesday 22 April 2026 at 10:00am.