NOTW 40th anniversary - "Raw sessions" track descriptions

Bet he wouldn't have called him Frederick to his face.

Golden Salmon wrote:

According to Peter Hince, the inner circle used to call him "Fred" rather than Freddie or any other variant. Or at least he did call him Fred in his book.

In documentaries, the band members usually say "Freddie", but maybe tecause they're mostly posthumous docs.

No Ratty has never claimed that in his book or elsewhere. He called him Fred, always did and so continued to do so iwhen he wrote the book, but that's a long way from saying that "the inner circle" called him by that name.

Fred and Freddie are both common ways to call someone whose name is Frederick.

Same as many people call me Seb, or call people by their initials (TJ, AJ, CJ, DJ...) or refer to James as Jim.

Again, nothing to get too excited about. It's not like I'm calling him Epaminondas, Coriolanus or Asclepius.

Epaminondas Mercury. Has a certain ring to it.


. . . John Deacon. Bass
Epaminondas Mercury. vocals. . . . .

That name alone would have sold a few million more albums!

Vocal harmony wrote:
No Ratty has never claimed that in his book or elsewhere. He called him Fred, always did and so continued to do so iwhen he wrote the book, but that's a long way from saying that "the inner circle" called him by that name.

Yup, I read that again and he simply says that the crew usually called him Fred, but that wouldn't include the band members.

Sebastian wrote:

Actually, it was his name.

By the time he signed the Trident contract in 1972, his legal name was Frederick Bulsara. That means he legally changed it at some point between childhood and his mid-twenties (educated guess: when he moved to England in the sixties).

After a few years, his legal name changed to Frederick Mercury. That's the name on the Trident severance (from 1977 IIRC) and on his death certificate, leading me to suppose that was also the name on his passport, his NHS ID (or whatever was used back then), etc.

It's not like I'm referring to him as 'Mike' or 'Cletus,' I'm calling him by his real name.

Cool.. I didn't know that. Even though I've also seen a scan of his death certificate and I (now) remember being weirded out by that name I figured it was probably a mistake.

A quick Google search shows it's possible to sign a contract using a pen name/artistic name provided certain circumstances (i.e. you provide a valid Tax ID, etc.) but I have no way of knowing if Freddie did that.

Then again, it's super weird to hear him be referred to as Frederick. To me, at least :).

Getting back on topic now... ;)

Whose arse is firmer today: Anita Dobson or Kashmira Cooke?