Freedy Mercury was born Farookh Bulsara in Zanzibar in 1946 and spent most of his childhood in India before his family settled in England in 1964. Freddie Mercury, Roger Taylor, Brian May and Mike Grose formed Queen in 1970. The band is noted for its musical diversity, multi-layered arrangements, vocal harmonies and incorporation of audience participation into their live performances. Queen had moderate success in the early 1970s, with the albums Queen and Queen II, but it was the release of Sheer Heart Attack in 1974 and A Night at the Opera the following year that the band gained international success. Since 1973, they have released fifteen studio albums, five live albums, and numerous compilation albums, and have sold (by some estimations) over 300 Million albums. Freddie composed several hits, including “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Killer Queen”, “Somebody to Love”, “We Are the Champions” and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”. According to companion Jim Hutton, Mercury was diagnosed with HIV in the spring of 1987. Mercury continued to record music in the studio until the month before he died in November of 1991. During the final year of his life, Queen was at the height of its commercial success, and the album Innuendo entered the British charts at the number one position and sold 250,000 copies in the first week alone.

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