The last recording artist Elektra Records founder Jac Holzman brought to his label during 1972 was Queen. Jac beat out eager representatives from Columbia Records and the legendary talent scout/A&R man Russ Regan, Vice-President at MCA/UNI Records. Regan had signed Neil Diamond, Elton John and Olivia Newton-John to the label and was in hot pursuit of Queen for their North American rights.
In 1961, Regan, then working for a Los Angeles record distributor suggested to the Pendeltones to change their name to the Beach Boys.
During 1972 Russ heard recordings by Larry Lurex, three members of Queen, covering “I Can Hear Music” and “Goin’ Back.” Brill Building-inspired tunes penned by Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich, Phil Spector Carole King and Gerry Goffin.
When Queen’s manager was negotiating with record labels in America, Regan instinctively knew the commercial recording potential of the group and wanted them for MCA Records.
“Queen were the ones who got away,” Russ lamented in a 2010 interview we conducted. “But if I had to lose out on a band, glad it was Jac Holzman and Elektra.”
In 1972, Jack Holzman, wrote an internal memo to his staff about Queen now displayed at https://queenmuseum.com. He was desperate to sign Queen.
“I have seen the future of pop music, and it is a band called Queen! I knew in my bones they were it, that Queen would thrive at Elektra and we were the perfect label for them.”
Holzman kept up the pressure on the band’s management, visiting them in London, and he slowly began to convince Queen and their manager Jack Nelson, of his commitment.
“We offered the same lure that worked so well with the Doors and Harry Chapin: we wouldn’t release any other album the same month as Queen’s debut appeared. Although we were now part of the Warner Music Group, we were still flexible. We eventually signed Queen for over 60 percent of the world. EMI had Europe. We sold far more Queen records than EMI.”
I saw Queen perform three times during the seventies and also interviewed Freddie Mercury twice- Once in Beverly Hills for the now defunct UK music periodical Melody Maker and in London during 1975. Our first conversation was at the Beverly Hilton Hotel for Melody Maker, with the headline, Killer Queen Slay America!
Freddie Mercury regally waltzed into the room, stuck out his hands, and greeted me and fellow journalist Justin Pierce with “Hello darlings. What do you think of my black finger nail polish?”
I quickly replied to him, “Freddie, I grew up in Hollywood. I know what kind of finger nail color and polish real Queens wear. So, while in L.A. why don’t you go over to Ball Beauty on Fairfax Ave? My cousin Shelia Kaye and Cher get their makeup supplies at that shop. It’s near Norty’s Music Center. Ask one of the girls in the office at your Elektra Records label on La Cienega Blvd. to drive you there.”
Mercury poured a glass of champagne and requested “to please put the tape machine on.” Freddie was a yenta and thoroughly enjoyed trumpeting Queen and discussing the machinations of their mid-seventies career.
We must have spent the first 10 minutes just talking about Liza Minelli and Judy Garland.
I saw Judy sing in 1963 at her CBS-TV Judy Garland Show taping in Television City in a memorable duet with Barbra Streisand. In 1975 I sat next to Liza at a Rolling Stones 1975 Fabulous Forum concert. Freddie had seen Minelli at the London Palladium in 1972. Mercury was very impressed.
Freddie had an air of confidence and mega-stardom destiny about him. He had a keen sense of the pop music process and being a star on and off the stage.
It was mid-afternoon in Beverly Hills as Mercury peered over the swimming pool of the Hilton Hotel and reflected on Queen’s latest tour of the States.
“The tour has been going just great. The only drawback has been the problems with my voice, which I’ve been over-taxing. But since I’ve been taking care of it and resting more, it’s been fine. The problem is that when you do a tour, you try to schedule the concerts as close as possible.
“Therefore, it’s like a constant workout. However, at this moment it’s raring to go and at the conclusion of this tour, we’re going to take a rest in Hawaii, which we really deserve. From there it’ll be on to Japan and Australia.”
The success story of Queen is remarkable when one considers the time in which they’ve become one of the world’s most popular bands. In Japan, they were recently voted one of the top three bands in the world, and that’s without even doing one date in the Orient.
What does Freddie see as being the key to their phenomenal following? “I can’t pinpoint it, but there’s something about our music that’s different and unlike anybody else’s.
“I believe that’s our major strong point. But there’s other ingredients. Besides the fact that our timing has helped, there is the fact that we take risks. We’re not one of those groups that go through every stage, for we skipped a few hurdles and we’re willing to take the chances that brought us to our level of acceptance.
“This American tour is a perfect example. To undertake this kind of massive tour is not unheard of, but it is a risk. People were constantly telling us about the American economy and how the biggest groups are having trouble filling venues.
“And for us to come on as strong as we are, headlining after only half a previous tour, shows how confident we are, or what you can put across unless you were a headliner.
“And now we’ve proved we can do it. Here we are, the first time in L.A. and we’ve sold out two shows, and it’s simply an amazing feeling.”
That feeling is bound to be even greater on subsequent tours for Queen who are only now breaking into the American record charts with their single recording of “Killer Queen” from Sheer Heart Attack.
The gentleness and buoyancy of the tune is in marked contrast to the high level of energy that characterizes their first two albums.
It is only on the third album that the diversity really became apparent. However, Mercury really doesn’t look at it as a great change: “The thing I hate is trying to pinpoint everything for everybody.
“People always ask questions like, ‘Why did you write such and such a lyric and what does it mean? That’s now what it’s all about. The one thing the British press has been trying to do for years is to pinpoint and categorize. It really annoys us.
“We came out with ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ as a single, which is raunchy, and then we decided on ‘Killer Queen’ for a latter release. The first thing they do is go up to you and ask ‘What are you up to?’ This is our music and it’s up to the individual to interpret it. It’s not up to us to come out with a product and label it.
“It would be boring if everything was laid out and everybody knew what it was all about all the time. I like people to make up their interpretation.
“They also want to categorize stage image. I remember back in an interview where I said, ‘I play on the bi-sexual thing.’ Of course I play on it. It’s simply a matter of wherever my mood takes me. If people want to know and ask me if I’m gay, I tell them it’s up to themselves to find out. I’m just being my flamboyant self and having a good time,” he smiled.
Even though Mercury prefers not to try and analyze Queen’s music, he discussed their cumulative work in a logical manner: The first LP was very raw and full of freshness.
“It was simply a reflection of what we’d been doing for so long and we just wanted to get it out of our system. On the second album we found out that even though we had a formula we didn’t necessarily have to keep it.
“Therefore, we dabbled at other things. Sheer Heart Attack was something different again. We wanted to make it interesting for ourselves as well as the listener. Hopefully, we succeeded on both counts. When we’re on stage we try to do the same thing.
“We’re perfectionists. Although all of us write, it doesn’t necessarily mean that every song composed will appear on an album.
“Having all the members write adds to our versatility, and that’s another strong point. On the last album we wanted to create a certain feel, and did. However, there were so many ideas and things that we wanted to do and have yet to carry out.
“You simply can’t do everything on one album. Lots of groups eventually burn themselves out due to lack of new ideas. But at this point, there’s no way we’re going to burn out. In fact, presently we’re stronger than ever.
“We do rock ‘n’ roll, and our presentation is just a way of putting across the music. We view albums and concerts as two spheres of work. There’s a different level in the studio as compared to when you’re on stage. But when we’re before an audience we let loose,” Freddie underscored.
Mercury was at the end of the US tour. It was interesting to know how he felt the English music market differs from the American.
“Even though singles may have been more important at one time in Britain, I feel that the stress on the singles and the albums is becoming pretty even. If you play too much on singles you can quite easily become a singles group.
“At that point it’s almost impossible to revert back to albums. I feel we’re in a fortunate position for we’ve only released four singles, including our new one. Therefore, we’ve achieved a balance. I think the same thing is true in America, though we’ve had to rely on response to our albums to carry us through. It wasn’t really till ‘Killer Queen’ that we received mass exposure on a commercial level.
“Back home, you have to be very careful of what you say or do because you’re in a position of immense responsibility. In fact, it can sometimes get ridiculous.
“We have this black-and-white theme that we carry out in England and it’s very strong. It has even got to the point where the audiences dress and look like me to a tee. They’re very faithful and it’s beautiful. On this tour, in Dallas, there was even a fan dressed with black makeup on one side of his face and white on the other, and it was marvelous.”
We then discussed the 1972 EMI Records Larry Lurex single. At the time I would never associate Queen with songwriters Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich, Phil Spector, Gerry Goffin and Carole King or their group’s cover versions of the Ronettes/Beach Boys and the Byrds.
I asked Freddie, how did this happen in the summer of 1972?
“It was simply a by-product. We’d already completed our first album [at Trident Studios] and a producer friend [Robin Cable] told us about this record he wanted to put out just for fun. He said he wanted us to do it, but we told him he couldn’t use our name. Actually, there were quite a number of studio musicians on it besides ourselves [Mercury, Roger Taylor, Brian May]."
"It was in the days of Gary Glitter and Alvin Stardust. We never took it quite seriously since it didn’t have anything to do with Queen. It was only when we achieved popularity and people started figuring out that it was us that anybody was interested. It was just something rock stars dabble in once in a while and I was quite pleased with the outcome.”
As for his own musical tastes Mercury says: “I listen to all kinds of music from Hendrix to Liza Minelli, all the way back to Mae West. I also enjoy Flo & Eddie when I hear them on the radio. They’re simply a riot.
“I also enjoy Joni Mitchell tremendously, and am constantly awed by her vocal phrasing as well as the amazing things she writes. She’s simply beautiful.”
Mercury, the former Farrokh Bulsara, as a student at Ealing art college, displayed a photograph of Jimi Hendrix on his bedroom mirror.
In 1970, when he was playing in a pre-Queen band called Smile with May and Taylor, on the evening Jimi died, the boys did a trio of Hendrix songs, “Voodoo Chile,” “Purple Haze” and “Foxy Lady.” Freddie and Brian told me they saw the Jimi Hendrix Experience a handful of times during 1967-1970 in the UK. May was at the January 29, 1967 Saville Theatre when Hendrix and Co. opened for the Who.
When I turned the cassette recorder off, Mercury suggested, “If you come to London do call my publicist Tony Brainsby. We must do this again!” And we did, but on my 1975 visit, Freddie was wearing green finger nail polish. It was delightful to talk about records and performers with him.
I remember a 1977 Queen-centric incident in Southern California when current Sirius XM deejay Rodney Bingenheimer, in his 1966 black Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham picked up Roger and Brian at the Beverly Hilton Hotel and they schlepped out to the city of Fullerton in Orange County, to see a Runaways show at a high school.
When they arrived on campus, the head of security quickly spotted the loudly-dressed long-hair trio walking and stopped them in their tracks demanding that they immediately leave the premises.
Rodney then pleaded with the school Principal, “We’re here to see The Runaways play. These are members of Queen!” He swiftly responded, “I don’t care if they are King!” Roger would later come to my 27th birthday party.
I was subsequently quoted describing Queen’s stage show on www.brianmay.com, “As American journalist Harvey Kubernik put it, ‘it wasn’t rock ‘n’ roll, it was Broadway.’”
As Freddie himself once said, “A concert is not a live rendition of our album. It’s a theatrical event.”
Queen’s 1976 stage repertoire included an encore of Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields’ song “Big Spender” first done on stage by Shirley Maclaine in the Broadway musical Sweet Charity. Mercury had heard Shirley Bassey’s 1967 version of the tune on BBC Radio and by Liza Minnelli. “Big Spender” is on Queen Live at Wembley ’86.
In December 1978 I was invited to see a Queen concert in Southern California at The Forum in Inglewood. On their ’78 US trek, Queen on occasion included “Big Spender” in their repertoire. After the show there was a reception in Beverly Hills at a Chinese restaurant. Freddie walked across the room and greeted me. Of course, he mentioned Liza Minelli.
I told Freddie that during 1978 when I was West Coast Director of A&R for MCA Records, label heads demanded that I see Liza Minelli at the Universal Ampitheatre, on the property of the company, about releasing a live album from her act. I took my mother Hilda, but couldn’t convince the MCA brass about doing a deal with Liza.
Freddie Mercury’s fascination with Jimi Hendrix continued. There’s a 1989 Queen track. “The Miracle,” which is on the album of the same name, where lyricist Freddie sings “Jimi Hendrix to the Tower of Babel.”
During 2012 I was interviewed along with Queen guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor in their 2012 Queen at 40 documentary directed by Matt O’Casey for BBC Television. It was expanded and distributed as Queen: Days Of Our Lives The Definitive Documentary of the World’s Greatest Rock Band as a 2014 DVD and Blu-Ray via Eagle Vision.
In 2021, my brother Kenneth and I wrote Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child, and quoted Freddie in the text.
(Harvey Kubernik is the author of 20 books, including 2009’s Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic And The Music Of Laurel Canyon, 2014’s Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In Los Angeles 1956-1972, 2015's Every Body Knows: Leonard Cohen, 2016's Heart of Gold Neil Young and 2017's 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love. Sterling/Barnes and Noble in 2018 published Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik’s The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz. In 2021 the duo wrote Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child for Sterling/Barnes and Noble.
Otherworld Cottage Industries in 2020 published Harvey’s Docs That Rock, Music That Matters. His Screen Gems: (Pop Music Documentaries and Rock ‘n’ Roll TV Scenes) is scheduled for a 2025 publication.
Harvey wrote the liner notes to CD re-releases of Carole King’s Tapestry, The Essential Carole King, Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish, Elvis Presley The ’68 Comeback Special, The Ramones’ End of the Century and Big Brother & the Holding Company Captured Live at The Monterey International Pop Festival.
During 2006 Kubernik appeared at the special hearings by The Library of Congress in Hollywood, California, discussing archiving practices and audiotape preservation. In 2017 he lectured at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, in their Distinguished Speakers Series. Amidst 2023, Harvey spoke at The Grammy Museum in Los Angeles discussing director Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz music documentary.
Kubernik was interviewed for a 2025 documentary, The Sound of Protest now airing on the Apple TV broadcasting service. https://tv.apple.com › us › movie › the-sound-of-protest. Director Siobhan Logue’s endeavor features Smokey Robinson, Hozier, Skin (Skunk Anansie), Two-Tone's Jerry Dammers, Angélique Kidjo, Holly Johnson, David McAlmont, Rhiannon Giddens, and more.
Harvey is also an interview subject with Iggy Pop, Bruce Johnston, Johnny Echols, the Bangles' Susanna Hoffs and Victoria Peterson, and the founding members of the Seeds in director Neil Norman’s documentary The Seeds - The Seeds: Pushin' Too Hard now streaming online on Vimeo. This November 2025, a DVD with bonus footage of the documentary is scheduled for release via the GNP Crescendo Company.
The New York City Department of Education will be publishing in 2025 the social studies textbook Hidden Voices: Jewish Americans in United States History. Kubernik’s 1976 interview with music promoter Bill Graham on the Best Classic Bands website Bill Graham Interview on the Rock ’n’ Roll Revolution, 1976, is included).
