“Sir, are you married?” asked Marianne, a pupil in Mr May’s mathematics class. “Sir, if you’re married, why doesn’t your wife iron your shirts?” she added, giggling.
Marianne Elliott-Said attended Stockwell Manor School in Brixton. It was spring 1972. Queen were making slow progress, so Brian May took a student teacher’s job while he worked on his PhD.
Marianne and her friends liked Mr May. He looked a bit like Mick Robertson from children’s TV show Magpie, and sometimes brought his guitar to class. He lived with his future wife, Chrissie, in a bedsit with limited space for ironing clothes.
“Brian was a very good teacher,” Marianne recalled, decades later. “But he used to come in with his long hair and holes in his shoes, and we used to tease him.” And so “Sir, are you married?” was often heard while May tried to teach some complex long division or geometry.
The joke ended in September that year when Queen’s management put the band members on £20-a-week wages and Mr May handed in his notice. One of the senior staff took him aside. ”You’ve got a proper job here, Brian,” he said incredulously. “You’re giving it up for a pop group?” But Mr May wouldn’t be swayed. Queen were hungry, desperate even, for success.
Today, Queen + Adam Lambert are still basking in the box-office glow of the film Bohemian Rhapsody and rehearsing for another US stadium tour. It’s easy to forget that Queen’s global conquest was a long time coming.
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Denne historien er fra Summer 2023-utgaven av Classic Rock.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Bright Sparks - Undertakers, band managers and museum workers by day, pop-charged rockers by night, The Hot Damn! are a gang you'd want to join.
Gill Montgomery has come straight from the mortuary. Her mortuary, to be precise. Some rockers wait tables, others teach music or pick up temp work. The Hot Damn! frontwoman looks after dead people.“It’s interesting,” she muses, of her day job running a funeral home in South East London. “It’s very hands-on. I think you’re either for it or you’re not.”
Motörhead
“Once we'd cracked the formula of how to work together on Overkill,\" said Eddie Clarke, that's when we really started to take off.” And it was all thanks to Phil Taylor's new drum kit.
LET'S DANCE
Dialling back on the aggressive approach that has helped bring Idles this far, and putting swing to the stomp, their new album is intended to make you shake a leg rather than a fist
Steve Hackett
The former Genesis guitarist’s latest themed’ tour enables him to visit the best of both worlds”.
Monster Magnet
“It's all-energy. It's rock excitement, psychedelic glory and space-rock hooks.” Sounds good to us!
MADE FRIENDS.INFLUENCED PEOPLE
In the 90s they were high flyers, then the fall hit them hard. Having picked themselves up, Terrorvision are back with their first new album in more than a decade, and it’s full of top tunes.
DON'T FENCE US IN
Embracing their roots on record for the first time, Don't call us southern” band The Cold Stares’ seventh album is both a love letter to Kentucky and a Call for unity in volatile times.
"I JUST WANTED TO BE RESPECTED FOR BEING IN A KICKASS BAND."
1976 was a pivotal year for Thin Lizzy. Guitarist Scott Gorham, one half of the band's classic twin-guitar sound, takes a trip down memory lane to the year that was...
Jerry Cantrell
The Alice In Chains guitarist on his forthcoming album and its guests, songwriting, AT, algorithm bots, AIC’s legacy...
THROUGH THICK AND THIN
In 1976, Thin Lizzy were touring Jailbreak in the US and were breaking big. Then disaster struck. Band manager Chris O'Donnell details the roller-coaster year in which they were cruelly robbed of their American dream.
