Freddie Mercury – a complex piece on Google Doodle

Once in a lifetime we get to know talents that we would look back to because they’re gone too early – by illness, accident or drug overdose or murder…talk about Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, John Lennon and Freddie Mercury…much younger would be Karen Carpenter, Bob Marley, Lisa Lopes, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain and recently, Amy Winehouse (making it to the 27 Club – musicians who died at the age of 27 along with the previous 3 and others). Not even reaching 25 were Aaliyah and Selena. We have long wondered what would their careers have been if they hadn’t died early.

So today, Google Doodlers launched a tribute to Queen’s lead vocalist Freddie Mercury,  “one of rock’s greatest all-time entertainers”, who possessed “one of the greatest voices in all of music” – characterized by AllMusic…A legend to himself, no other singer had that voice “escalating within a few bars from a deep, throaty rock-growl to tender, vibrant tenor, then on to a high-pitched, perfect coloratura, pure and crystalline in the upper reaches” (David Bret).