Roger's input during the 1991 sessions

Amidst all the speculation about Freddie and his last recording, the few bits that have been revealed suggest very little input from Roger during those sessions. 'Lost Opportunity' is the only track out of those four to feature human drums at that point. 'Mother Love' and 'A Winter's Tale' were programmed and 'You Don't Fool Me' had only its bare vocal bones and that was it... maybe some synth chords by either Freddie or John, but no Maylor involvement as far as it's been reported.

Roger's the only band member not to have written or co-written any of those tracks and he only actually played on one of them in those days; there are no 1991 backing vocals from Roger in any of those four songs (what he did on 'A Winter's Tale' came in the 1993-1995 period). So what did he do?

John, conversely, co-wrote a song (that's more than what he did on the 'Innuendo' album) and played bass on two recordings; Brian wrote one, co-wrote another and played both guitars and keyboards on two tracks. Freddie wrote one, co-wrote two, sang three and possibly played some keyboards as well.

Great detective work.

Perhaps he was more with the Cross those days.

What's actually amazing is how MUCH Freddie did.

Roger was busy with the cross at this time....two bands....where does rodg get his energy....?

Good point Sebastian.

However, I would counter that I suppose it wasn't unusual when Queen were recording for the writer of any given song to lay down a lot of the basis instruments, vocals, arrangements etc.. in demo/working form before the others got to contribute to it. The fact that Roger hadn't contributed a song at that point could be attributed to heavy work with The Cross at that point, and so he was essentially 'waiting in the wings' for the others to present their working versions of songs before starting any work on them that they wanted him to do.

The fact that he didn't do this sooner bearing in mind Freddie's ailing health at that point is surprising, although I suppose there's nothing to say that he wasn't actually present at all those sessions, but they perhaps went with the already existing drum machine and keys parts from Freddie/John/Brian's demos so that they could get the most out of Freddie, rather than waste time Roger re-doing the drums, adding his vocals etc.. at that point, when those could easily be done later.

Indeed, it does look as if Freddie was still very much a driving force in both creativity and volume of output, despite the circumstances.

It is suprising how little Roger submitted in the way of full songs in total after Shove It to up to just before Made In Heaven. Yes, he was working with The Cross, but after Shove It! (which is essentially a solo album), he only penned two tracks on Mad Bad, and two? (working from memory!) to Blue Rock. If he didn't contribute any 'full' songs to either Innuendo or Made In Heaven he certainly had a fallow period Queen-wise (albeit he did produce Happiness? at that time).

[QUOTE] [b]cmsdrums wrote:[/b]

The fact that Roger hadn't contributed a song at that point could be attributed to heavy work with The Cross.[/QUOTE]

He was working with The Cross in 1990 (touring and promoting the MBaDtK album), but that didn't stop him from writing two full songs for 'Innuendo', contributing lyrically to other two, musically to another one, playing drums on six full songs, keyboards, programming, singing backing vocals... that's a hell of a lot more than what he did in 1991.

Moreover, it's not as if he did a lot for The Cross in '91 either: two songs, a bit of another one, didn't play any instruments... he was far more involved on earlier albums of both bands, even though sessions and commitments often overlapped... and he was also going through marriage and divorce in the late 80's.

[QUOTE] [b]cmsdrums wrote:[/b]

Indeed, it does look as if Freddie was still very much a driving force in both creativity and volume of output, despite the circumstances.[/QUOTE]

It could've been *because of* the circumstances.

[QUOTE] [b]cmsdrums wrote:[/b]

It is suprising how little Roger submitted in the way of full songs in total after Shove It to up to just before Made In Heaven.[/QUOTE]

Not really: he wrote two tracks that were included on 'The Miracle' (that's as much as Brian did), and two that were included on 'Innuendo' (that's twelve times as much as John did). That's four full album songs (plus most lyrics of another one, some lyrics for further two and part of the music of another one, and a B-Side) in a 2-year frame.

Put like that, I can see your points! :-)

[QUOTE] [b]pestgrid wrote:[/b]

Roger was busy with the cross at this time....two bands....where does rodg get his energy....?[/QUOTE]

Roger got his energy from Debbie.
Hell, after a rumpy pumpy session I always have a lot of energy.... ;-)

Sorry but I think they all contributed very very little at this time. I have never understood how is it possible that after Freddie asked the others to write songs for him, during a period of about six months Brian, Roger and John managed to write altogether... two songs.

2 songs in six months isn't exactly high speed songwriting. They didn't all write 2 songs separately, which would have still been a very small effort for a friend who was dying, but the three of them combined could come up with only two songs. It's a shame that they couldn't bother doing more as they were quite capable if they had only wanted.

They should have had a much bigger pile of songs to work with already during the Innuendo sessions as Freddie's situation must have been very apparent all throughout 1990 and he wanted to keep working.

As far as Roger's writing goes it's a pity that he didn't write for example Freedom Train earlier as that is an atmospheric piece of music that would have been a perfect fit on Made In Heaven.

[QUOTE] [b]brians wig wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]pestgrid wrote:[/b]

Roger was busy with the cross at this time....two bands....where does rodg get his energy....?[/QUOTE]

Roger got his energy from Debbie.
Hell, after a rumpy pumpy session I always have a lot of energy.... ;-)[/QUOTE]

I don't, I just roll over and go to sleep...but that could be an age thing ;-)

[QUOTE] [b]aion wrote:[/b]
Sorry but I think they all contributed very very little at this time. I have never understood how is it possible that after Freddie asked the others to write songs for him, during a period of about six months Brian, Roger and John managed to write altogether... two songs.[/QUOTE]

Indeed. Freddie himself wrote two as well (one and two halves), which is just as much as what his bandmates did combined.

Of course, there's the possibility of other tracks written but not used.

There's the possibility too that Roger may have been emotionally affected by watching his friend wither away, and couldn't write anything of worth, or even write anything at all. Just because Freddie was willing to fight to the end doesn't mean that his bandmates were able to do so as admirably.

Besides that Brian and Roger did all the promotion work for Innuendo in '91.

I have always been interested about the studio times between Miracle-Made In Heaven material. Miracle was done during one year period January 1988-Janyary 1989. During which time Roger was on the road with Cross and also in on of the interviews did mention "I really don't know if we are doing something with Queen ..ever.". Then Innuendo was done between 1989 (spring?) until 1990 (autumn?) and again Roger was away most of the time.

Both of the albums do have considerable amount of programmed drums. Infact, are there any real LIVE drums on Miracle album, execpt on the songs "Khashoggi's Ship", "I Want It All" and "Was it All Worth It"?

To mee it has always seemed that they must have either worked on a week basis. Like one week there and another week there OR otherwise they just weren't doing it as a band at all? So it was mainly Freddie and Brian and David Rochards doing sequencing?

Does someone have any, more specific info on these late 1980's sessions?

I used to have a website with those timelines and stuff. Anyway, John wrote a letter to the Fan Club in February 1989 claiming they were still working on what would become 'The Miracle'. Liner notes were wrong as usual.

Sometimes sessions for 'The Miracle', 'Shove It', 'Barcelona' and 'Back to the Light' overlapped, as did sessions for 'Innuendo', 'Back to the Light', 'Macbeth' and 'Mad Bad and Dangerous to Know', and sessions for 'Back to the Light', 'Blue Rock', 'Made in Heaven' and 'Happiness'.

'Innuendo' sessions properly started in November 1989 at Mountain Studios, then they moved to Metropolis and continued on a semi-regular basis throughout the year. The March 1989 credit refers to either 'Delilah' having been started then, or perhaps 'All God's People' (it was included on promos for 'The Miracle' album), but from Spring to Autumn 1989 they were all involved in other things.

'Khashoggi's Ship', 'The Miracle', 'Too Much Love Will Kill You', 'Was It All Worth It' and most (not all) of 'I Want It All' have real drums, as do 'Innuendo', 'Don't Try So Hard', 'The Hitman' (except the synth part) and 'Days of Our Lives' (congas are programmed but drums aren't). 'Show Must Go On' is a mixture, as are several others from those days (e.g., 'Invisible Man' and 'Ride the Wild Wind'). 'All God's People' only has real drums for a small portion of the song, otherwise it's programmed.

'Headlong', 'I Can't Live with You', 'Delilah', 'Mother Love', 'Rain Must Fall', 'My Baby Does Me', 'Breakthru', 'Slightly Mad' and 'Party' are either completely or chiefly programmed, although Roger played some e-drums on 'Rain Must Fall' to emulate the Latin percussion.