Freddie Mercury and The St Helens Connection
I discuss here the St Helens (and Liverpool) connection with Queen, investigating the role that my home town (and the county of Merseyside) played in the rise of the band to global success.
The photos show a young Freddie Mercury (then Bulsara) as a member of Liverpool rock band Ibex. The date I have for these photos is 24 August 1969
L-R Freddie Bulsara (Mercury) Paul ‘Flogger’ Fielder, John ‘Tupp’ Taylor (no shirt), Pat McConnell, Sian Ollet, Ken Testi, Bruce Sanderson, and Mike ‘Miffer’ Smith.
When I wrote on all the great music that has come from the city of Liverpool, I really should have put Ibex in there, and thus found a way of linking to my most favourite band of all, the incomparable Queen. The photo is often said to have been taken in St Helens in August 1969. As a Queen fan since 1974, coming from St Helens, I would dearly love this to be true. I’ve never found conclusive evidence to confirm the claim. The identification seems to have been made true by repetition.
The links of Freddie Mercury with both St Helens and Liverpool are definitely there. Freddie Mercury was a member of Liverpool band Ibex, and Ibex played St Helens College of Technology in 1969, as did Queen, with Freddie, in 1970.
It’s amazing to think of Freddie as a struggling musician in and around the Merseyside area.
I love these photos from 50 years ago. Freddie would go on to become one of the biggest and brightest stars on the planet. But he worked hard and - creatively - to get there. I’ve been reading his life story, all the way from his birth in Zanzibar, sent to boarding school at 8, with Freddie as Farrokh Bulsara, a world away from the glitz and glamour of his Queen heyday.
One photo shows young Freddie on a patch of waste ground in August 1969, in a white top with shoulder-length curly dark hair on the extreme left. I can’t place the location as St Helens, but many things have changed in the town since then. I’ve never found anyone able to make the positive identification from an authoritative position.
Freddie Mercury’s Mersey connections can be established. Local historian, writer, and musician Mike Royden is a school friend of one Mike Bersin, the guitarist who formed Ibex in the late 1960s. Royden says: "Freddie Bulsara's time in Merseyside is not spoken about very much. It's only hardcore Queen fans who know the story and there are so many different versions of it.”
If there are many different versions of the one story, then we are left wondering which one we can trust. It’s an invitation to wishful thinking, each of us can have our different dreams and desires come true. I have two different dreams and desires here. The one is that the photo of Ibex from 1969 was taken in St Helens; the other is that Freddie discovered his ‘bottomless-mic’ trademark in St Helens also. Royden and Bersin went to the same school, Wade Deacon in Widnes, which presents a rival claim to have been the origin of Freddie’s use of the mic as a stick, which he wielded as a magic wand on stage.
Let’s first look at Freddie Mercury’s Mersey links. Royden says: "It was Mike's mum who told me that Freddie Mercury was the same guy who used to doss on her floor in Halewood. I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed before, especially as he'd sang at my school.
Freddie Mercury has other links to Liverpool. He lived for a time in digs above Dovedale Towers in Penny Lane of all places, made famous by The Beatles.
Then there is the story of Freddie performing with Ibex at the old Sink Club in Hardman Street, September 9, 1969, and was joined on stage by two members of another band, Smile - future founder members of Queen, guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor.
There’s also a local legend that Freddie got the idea for both Queen's band name and its famous crest logo from the Queen Insurance Buildings in Queen Avenue (off Dale Street) in Liverpool. It’s still there, you can still see it. Freddie always said the name Queen was very regal.
(It’s worth mentioning in passing that Bohemian Rhapsody was first performed live in Liverpool, at the Empire theatre in November 1975. (Have a search on You Tube, you can find the Queen concerts in Liverpool, November 14th and 15th 1975).
Now we come to Freddie’s trademark. Freddie discovered his world-famous 'bottomless mic' gimmick – the one he performed magic with in concert - by accident. In the general telling of the tale, the mic stand snapped mid-performance in an early concert. Rather than stop the show, Freddie continued to perform and was obviously impressed with the freedom it gave him to move around as well as the spell it cast on the audience.
The question, though, is where the accident took place.
The claim is that it was in St Helens that Freddie Mercury is said to have discovered his trademark ‘bottomless mic’ gimmick, with which he would go on to hypnotize the biggest stages across the world.
But is it true, or just a local legend?
I quote from the documentary Becoming Queen. Freddie had been having trouble clipping his mic into the stand: ‘One night while playing a show at St Helens Girls’ School, the bottom of Freddie’s microphone stand fell off halfway through the show. The consummate professional, Freddie carried on and a trademark was born.’
What is the source of this claim? I have no idea to what this ‘St Helens Girls’ School’ could refer. I know of no such place. Without a precise location, all we can say is that some people claim that Freddie found his gimmick somewhere in St Helens. As to who it is that makes that claim with an authoritative voice, there is no one I can find. The status of that claim is uncertain. What is certain is that, in time, it became a magic wand he would wave over the stage, casting a spell over audiences everywhere. It’s just that when you try to locate the place where this accident took place that things get fuzzy. Some say it happened at Cowley Girls' School, which makes more sense than St Helens Girls’ School, because at least it exists. The problem is that no one who attended the school remembers Freddie performing there. It is easy enough to find general references:
“During a Queen performance at St. Helen's women's school, part of Freddie Mercury's microphone support broke loose and fell to the ground, keeping the microphone hooked to the first part of the stand. Mercury followed with the performance. From there arose the characteristic cane with microphone that used during all the concerts since then.”
This merely retells the familiar story. But its details are not trustworthy (it is St Helens and not St Helen’s, and there is no ‘St Helens women’s school.’)
In the absence of hard evidence, all we can do is tell the story based on what we do know, and form a judgement as best we can.
My home town of St Helens is an unlikely place to feature in the story of a band as flamboyant as Queen, being an old industrial town obsessed with rugby league. But it features all the same. As a Queen fan in St Helens, I loved to hear the stories of Queen playing gigs in St Helens. The gigs that Queen played in the early years of the band were not big; they played small theatres and colleges.
Queen, the biggest and best stadium band the world has seen, had played in the unlikeliest of venues in my home town of St Helens in their early days. But Freddie’s connections to St Helens go back further.
Freddie Mercury was a member of Ibex for a short time (Spring-Autumn 1969). Ibex played St Helens College of Technology in August 1969 and again on 19th September 1969. Freddie’s name is given as Freddie Bulsara. The records reveal this Tour itinerary:
23.05.1969 Honiton Hall, Penketh, UK
1969 Wade Deacon Grammar School For Girls, Widnes, UK
August 1969 Technical College, St. Helens, UK
23.08.1969 The Bolton's Octagon Theatre, Bolton, UK
24.08.1969 Open Air Festival, Queen's Park, Bolton, UK
09.09.1969 The Sink, Liverpool, UK
19.09.1969 College Of Technology, St. Helens, UK
There are two particularly interesting details here – the Bolton and Wade Deacon, Widnes references. The 1969 photo is said to have been taken in Bolton rather than St Helens, and the Wade Deacon Grammar School For Girls seems a more likely venue for the bottomless mic discovery than vague references to girls’ schools in St Helens.
In no time, Freddie instigated a name-change for Ibex to Wreckage. A Tour Itinerary for Wreckage also records a date at Wade Deacon Grammar School For Girls, Widnes (24.11.1969). It seems a rather genteel place for the discovery of such a device, but it may well be true, whether the discovery was made with Ibex or Queen.
But St Helens also looms large in the early days of Freddie’s musical career. Ken Testi, music promoter and entrepreneur, takes up the tale:
‘I’d become the social secretary of the college I was at in St Helens, in the north west, and I was booking Queen in for every support slot I could. We booked them into the college not once but several times, and we were able to do that because right from the off the audience really loved the band.’ (Ken Testi, Ibex/Wreckage)
St Helens was a venue for Queen on a number of occasions. As detailed in 'Queen - The Complete Works and the book Queen Live. A concert documentary by Greg Brooks and Gary Taylor,' early Queen, featuring Brian May, Freddie Mercury, and Roger Taylor, (but with Barry Mitchell on bass rather than John Deacon), played St Helens College of Technology on 30th October and again on 18th December 1970 and then the Congregational Church Hall, St Helens on the 19th December.
As a Queen fan from St Helens, I loved hearing about the days when Queen played St Helens. Having attended St Helens College of Technology in one capacity or another over the years (1983-84, 2004-09), I was frequently told of the Queen connections. I was still a tiny tot when I first came across the band in 1974, with ‘Killer Queen.’ But it’s good to know that we trod some common ground and shared a little time and space along our way. The concert performances have documented evidence behind them; neither the ‘bottomless mic’ story nor the wasteland photograph do. I was told of the St Helens origins of Freddie’s ‘bottomless mic’ gimmick, just as I was told of the early concerts – but whilst I could find evidence for the latter, I could find none for the former. Freddie certainly performed in St Helens, and may even have stayed in St Helens. Ken Testi, music entrepreneur and St Helens College social secretary, claims that Queen stayed at the Testi family’s pub, the Market Hotel, in St Helens. ‘It is worth mentioning,’ he says, ‘that for a Northern lad to be able to introduce such idiosyncratically dressed friends from London to his mum and for them to be so well- mannered was fantastic.’
It is also easy to find claims that Freddie discovered his ‘bottomless mic’ gimmick in St Helens. I could settle for that as a Queen fan from St Helens. But my training in history denies me the pleasure of such wishful thinking. Everyone else from the many other towns where Freddie performed could advance the same claim, and also be happy in their aspirations. It seems a common enough tale. Equipment was shoddy and ramshackle for struggling bands everywhere, and would frequently fall apart mid-performance, leaving singers and bands having to improvise. I suspect that everyone from everywhere that Freddie performed in those early days could claim that the famous stage gimmick happened first in their town. As Ibex member John Taylor says “The microphone thing happened everywhere where we played, the equipment was really shoddy. It was a bl***y pain to be honest.” He guesses that Widnes could be the place where it all started, though. He doesn’t elaborate beyond that, though.
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/runcorn-widnes-weekly-news/20190314/281659666363784
That St Helens seems to be the town mentioned the most may be due to no more than repetition, people merely repeating the most common version of the tale. I’m a historian by training and good old habits die hard. I went in search of evidence and found none. I did, however, find a rival claim in favour of a much more plausible location – Wade Deacon Grammar School for Girls, more plausible because it is at least identifiable. The fact is, that Ibex played a girls’ school in Wade Deacon. I find no evidence of Freddie playing for any girls’ school in St Helens, whether in Ibex, Wreckage, or Queen.
Then there is the photograph of Ibex featuring Freddie Mercury. Search the Internet, and the photo is frequently said to have been taken in St Helens, England, 24th August 1969.
I’d love to believe that the photos were indeed taken in St Helens. At the same time, I would love even more to have the evidence to back that belief up. Something isn’t true just because you want it to be true. I could go along with the general consensus and say the photo was taken in St Helens. But when I hold a view of any kind, I tend to search for reasons and evidence not merely in its support – which is easy enough to do – but which indicate that that view may not be true, even wrong. The photo may well have been taken in Bolton and not, as frequently stated, St Helens.
In the article, Freddie Mercury and the Wade Deacon/Halewood Connection, Mike Royden writes, ‘Although these photos have previously been said to have been taken in St Helens, guitarist Mike Bersin road manager Ken Testi claims that the photographs were taken in Bolton.’
[Photos – Mark and Colleen Hayward/Redferns]
Bolton seems a definite possibility. Mike Royden tells the tale of Freddie’s connection with Bolton. Freddie’s debut performance in public was with Ibex in Bolton, the 23rd August 1969. He had only met the band on 13th August 1969, but had learned their entire set and introduced a few songs of his own by the 23rd. The event was one of Bolton’s regular afternoon ‘Bluesology’ sessions, held at the town’s Octagon theatre. For Ibex and friends, it was the event of the summer. Ibex appeared in Bolton the next day, too, the first ‘Bluesology pop-in’, an open-air event on the bandstand in Bolton’s Queen’s Park. Freddie’s first-ever public performance was well documented, with the event being covered in Bolton’s Evening News again on 25th August. An uncredited photograph of Freddie was published, with the caption: ‘One of the performers gets into his stride.’
“Freddie really loved going up to Bolton to play with Ibex,” recalls Paul Humberstone. “He was really on form. The band was very basic, but good. They did very reasonable cover versions, and were very loud. That was his very first outing with the band, but Fred struck his pose. Remember him doing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’? He was like that only without the eye makeup.”
That sounds like Freddie, keen on image, presentation, and projection – and packed with panache and flair.
And that’s really as far as I can go with that. I’ll keep my eye out for any positive identification of the Freddie/Ibex photo and Freddie’s ‘bottomless mic’ gimmick with St Helens. I suspect that the origins of the mic legend are lost somewhere in time, but St Helens was at least a prominent place in that time.
I’ll end with more quotes on Freddie in the early days.
As Mike Royden says: "Freddie definitely livened up Ibex while he was a singer with them. Before they were a classic Hendrix/Cream three-piece, but he stood out and made them more showy."
That’s what he was to do with Queen. “Freddie was shy offstage,” recalls Ken Testi, “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.”
Mike Bersin agrees: “As a three piece, we’d thought it was sufficient to play fairly basic music and not worry too much about stage craft. Freddie was much better at putting on a show and entertaining people. That was pretty radical for us. I thought that’s what the light show was for, you know, we make the music and the audience can watch the pretty coloured bubbles behind us, but Freddie was different. He was so wonderfully camp in that beautifully English foppish way. With hindsight, I recognise the determination to succeed that he had in spades. He demanded to be treated as a star before he was one. His talent and ambition made people react in very different ways, but it wasn't an unpleasant thing.
As the rest of us would wear jeans and trench coats, he was the fur-and-satin man and all the moves and poses he had with Queen, were already there with Ibex, he never imitated anybody, Freddie was Freddie from day one, he was entirely his own creation and a culture shock. He worked extremely hard to be something worth to look at and to listen to. He only had one pair of boots, one t-shirt, one pair of trousers, one belt and one jacket. Still he remained immaculate. We had some gigs in Bolton which were very significant to the band. While we were getting ready, Freddie had been backcombing his long hair to make it stand out more and twitching himself in the mirror for ages. I eventually yelled at him: 'For God's sake, stop messing with your hair, Freddie!', to which he responded: 'But I'm a star, dear boy!'. There is not a lot you can say to that. In many ways, you felt Freddie almost wasn't real.”
“I don’t think Freddie developed,” argues Ibex member John ‘Tupp’ Taylor. “The first day he stood in front of that crowd, he had it all going. It seemed as if he’d been practicing for years to be ready. We’d only ever sang together as mates before that. We’d never done anything by way of trying it out. He was going to be in the band and everyone was happy with that. Once Freddie was in, we changed in loads of different directions. We began to play ‘Jailhouse Rock’, for a start! I think that was the first thing we did with him on stage.”
Mike Bersin: “Freddie was the most musical of all of us. He was trained on the piano, and he could write on the black notes. He said ‘We’re never going to get anywhere playing all this three-chord blues crap, we’ll have to write some songs.’ A couple of things came out of it, but they’ve all vanished now. I can’t imagine they would be very satisfactory anyway – largely because he was working with me, and my understanding of music was incredibly rudimentary. We used to argue about whether we should put in key changes. I’d say ‘What do you want a key change for?’ And he’d say that it made a song more interesting, it gave it a lift. I’d think ‘Why has he got this thing about gratuitous key changes?’ The idea of changing the key of a song just because it made it more interesting to listen to was really alien to me.”
I heard Freddie Mercury in an interview in 1977 say this:
“Hard rock was always in the blues way, 12 bars with heavy crashing chords. And then there was the other side, a lot of melodic, ballad type things, and I just thought why can’t the two come together. Why can’t you have a good melodic song with a heavy content.”
That’s Queen in a nutshell.