Eponymous Queen or debut album.

Some bits and pieces of info that may be totally useless for many, but at least 'kinda' interesting for some. And that's enough for me to put them here:

I can't promise anything, but I may be scoring an interview with Neil Kernon, who used to work at Trident as tape-op about the time Mike Stone was promoted from tape-op to engineer. He worked as assistant to virtually all of Trident's in-house engineers and also got to meet the gr8 l8 Geoff Workman. And, of course, he was there when Queen recorded I, II and (mixed) SHA. So... fingers crossed.

Now, about the drums: I've got very strong suspicious thatm for most of the album, Roger not only played a poorly produced/mic'd kit, but also not his own: considering they were recording downtime, it'd be often the case that they didn't even have enough time to set up the drums so Roger had to stick with what was housed in the studio. A giveaway is the very thin sound of the bass-drum and the way the snare 'cracks' (classic Hayman sound, not Ludwig which is way warmer and deeper).

So (and this is an educated guess of course), Roger seems to have played Trident's Hayman drums (sometimes there weren't even toms, it seems) on:

Keep Yourself Alive
My Fairy King
Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll
Son and Daughter
Seven Seas of Rhye
Mad the Swine

And Ludwig (poorly mic'd, unfortunately) on:

Liar
Great King Rat (you can tell on the first take as well)
Jesus
Doing All Right

And of course De Lane Lea and BBC sessions... you can tell the difference!

Now, on those two sets of tracks, not only drums are different but also bass: my guess - on the former, he used the studio amplification, on the latter, he used his own.

Last but not least, some comments on vocals:

The three of them sang on everything (except SSOR of course), except for Modern Times R'n'R, which lacks Brian completely (I'm not 100% sure about that but I don't hear him anywhere, though maybe he's buried somewhere in the mix). Most of the times, Brian sang in tenor range (exceptions: Keep Yourself Alive, Liar and Mad the Swine where he was a baritone).

Ranges by each member on each song:

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KEEP YOURSELF ALIVE:

Freddie: f#' to a' (minor 10th)
Roger: e to a' (perfect 11th)
Brian: d' to g' (perfect 4th)

Of course, it changed on live, demo, BBC and retake versions. The lowest note on the album version is sung/spoken by Roger ('every DAY').

----

DOING ALL RIGHT:

Freddie: a to d" (perfect 11th)
Roger:e' to d#" (major 7th)
Brian: b to b' (octave)

They switched the line-up depending on the section. Sometimes Fred took over the top voice, sometimes he was in the middle, and before the last verse he's on the bottom. Live versions and BBC had different setting although the actual notes sung were the same.

-------

GREAT KING RAT:

Freddie: e to a" (perfect 18th)
Roger: e" to g" (minor 3rd)
Brian: g' to c" (perfect 4th)

One of the few songs where Fred sang the top note instead of Roger (more examples: Under Pressure, Show Must Go On). During the chorus there's an 'ah ah ah ah' bit where they're indeed Roger-Freddie-Brian from the top (which was not as usual as one may have thought at first). There's a bit after the 'gypsy break' where Fred sings a three-part by himself: tenor, baritone and (for the first time on a Queen record) bass (topping on middle C).

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MY FAIRY KING:

Freddie: e to e" (perfect 15th)
Roger: b to a" (minor 14th)
Brian: e' to f#' (major 2nd)

Roger's high screams peak on 880-Hz A (the same note Fred hit near the end of Great King Rat).

--------

LIAR:

Freddie: e to g#" (major 17th)
Roger: e' to d" (minor 14th)
Brian: a to e' (perfect 5th)

Without multitracks I'm sure I made several mistakes or failed to hear a couple of things, but so far this is the best I can do: top note sung by Freddie again (not that uncommon, but not that common either, especially in that era).

--------

THE NIGHT COMES DOWN:

Freddie: g to c#" (diminished 12th)
Roger: a' to c#" (major 3rd)
Brian: f#' to a' (minor 3rd)

One of the few songs where Freddie sang lead but not backing vocals.

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MODERN TIMES ROCK 'N' ROLL

Freddie: Just d' (unison).
Roger: a to e" (without falsetto!) (perfect 12th)
John Anthony: G to eb (minor 6th)

The chorus harmony (AFAICH) is a two-part between Freddie and Roger in fourths. If there's Brian there (or anybody else for that matter) on a second harmony, he's probably doing a b... or maybe there's another Roger doing b' instead? or both? Please, let those multitracks surface...

----------

SON AND DAUGHTER:

Freddie: g#to g' (major 7th)
Roger: c#" to d" (minor 2nd)
Brian: e' to g' (minor 3rd)

None of them got to a full octave. Another one of those few songs where Fred sang lead but no harmonies. Guitar-wise, the range of this one is the largest in the album (E to f#"', a major 30th) thanks to varispeed.

-------

JESUS:

Freddie: g to b' (major 10th)
Roger: a#' to d" (major 3rd)
Brian: f#' to a' (minor 3rd)

The chorus is a four-part (rare case for this era) where the lead is the 3rd from the top. Both Roger and Brian are adding higher harmonies (Roger higher than Brian, of course) and the bottom voice (baritone, not bass) is Freddie. It seems that the trick of all of them singing each part and then moving on to the next only started on Queen II (Father to Son's break), but here each took a part or two and that was it.

---------

MAD THE SWINE:

Freddie: f to db" (minor 13th)
Roger: f' to bb' (perfect 4th)
Brian: bb to e' (tritone)

Again, Fred sang both the highest and the lowest notes in the song. Brian sings an e (more exactly fb) near the end, giving a nice bluesy touch to the harmony (driven by D-Flat major chord). Now, was it Brian's idea or Freddie's? IMO, Brian's ... he was more into those sorts of things (e.g. Too Much Love - his own version, near the end).

Tbc...

An absolutely magnificent post, Sebastian; more, please!

I was thinking, shouldn't we also include the Larry Lurex recordings with this? Since they were recorded whilst Queen were recording Queen 1.

Another question/idea that's been on my mind is; various sources have stated that Freddie was asked by Robin Geoffrey Cable to perform lead vocals for the 2 Larry Lurex songs. Freddie then brought his bandmates (Brian and Roger) along, to record percussion and guitar.
The questions this raises are:

Does this mean John wasn't present during some parts of recording Queen 1? Or are the sources incorrect and did John also participate on the 2 Larry Lurex songs? Or was he around and did he just not partake in the Larry Lurex sessions at all?

And did they record just the 2 songs, or did they record more for mr Cable?

Would be much appreciated if someone could shed some light on this!

I don't really recall, it's been a few years since I listened to these two tracks, but is there actually a bass on the recordings? In a Wall of Sound-approach, a bass tends to get drowned out rather quickly (analogue recordings!!! not *necessarily* so if you do it digitally, of course), so it might be kinda obsolete.

I'm fairly sure the intention was that Mr. Cable would put out a single as an experiment, so I doubt more than these two tracks were recorded. I've never heard anything, even rumours, about more material from the Larry Lurex-sessions.

As for Queen /Liar

Most of Queen sound muddy and turbid, with the instruments mixed not to complement each other as they would on later albums,
but instead to blend with each other, unfortunately obfuscating the results. The effect was certenly unintentional: as mentioned before, the band
recording during down-time, and the mixing table levels would often have to reset after every recording, resulting in an uneven sound from song to song.
In an anguished moment, it was discovered that "Liar" had been overdubbed onto the wrong backing tape, necesseitating a remix of the track.