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Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1970. Their classic line-up was Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon (bass). Their earliest works were influenced by progressive rock, hard rock and heavy metal, but the band gradually ventured into more conventional and radio-friendly works by incorporating further styles, such as arena rock and pop rock.
Freddie Mercury was a British singer, songwriter, record producer, and lead vocalist of the rock band Queen. Regarded as one of the greatest lead singers in the history of rock music, he was known for his flamboyant stage persona and four-octave vocal range. Mercury defied the conventions of a rock frontman, with his highly theatrical style influencing the artistic direction of Queen.
The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness was a benefit concert held on Easter Monday, 20 April 1992 at Wembley Stadium in London, England for an audience of 72,000. The concert was produced for television by Ray Burdis, directed by David Mallet and broadcast live on television and radio to 76 countries around the world, with an audience of up to one billion. The concert was a tribute to Queen's lead vocalist, Freddie Mercury, who died of AIDS on 24 November 1991. The show marked bassist John Deacon's final full-length concert with Queen. The profits from the concert were used to launch The Mercury Phoenix Trust, an AIDS charity organisation.
George Michael was an English singer, songwriter, record producer, and philanthropist who rose to fame as a member of the music duo Wham! and later embarked on a solo career. Michael sold over 80 million records worldwide making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He achieved seven number one songs on the UK Singles Chart and eight number one songs on the US Billboard Hot 100. Michael won various music awards including two Grammy Awards, three Brit Awards, three American Music Awards, 12 Billboard Music Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards and six Ivor Novello Awards. In 2008, he was ranked 40th on Billboard's list of the Greatest Hot 100 Artists of All Time.
Jane Seymour, OBE, is a British-American actress, best known for her performances in the James Bond film Live and Let Die (1973); Somewhere in Time (1980); East of Eden (1981); The Scarlet Pimpernel ; Onassis: The Richest Man in the World (1988); War and Remembrance (1988); the French epic La Révolution française (1989) as the ill-fated queen Marie Antoinette; Wedding Crashers (2005); and the American television series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993–1998). She has earned an Emmy Award, two Golden Globe Awards and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2000, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
Band Aid was a charity supergroup featuring mainly British and Irish musicians and recording artists. It was founded in 1984 by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise money for anti-famine efforts in Ethiopia by releasing the song "Do They Know It's Christmas?" for the Christmas market that year. On 25 November 1984, the song was recorded at Sarm West Studios in Notting Hill, London, and was released in the UK on Monday 3 December. The single surpassed the hopes of the producers to become the Christmas number one on that release. Three subsequent re-recordings of the song to raise further money for charity also topped the charts, first the Band Aid II version in 1989 and the Band Aid 20 version in 2004 and finally the Band Aid 30 version in 2014. The original was produced by Midge Ure. The 12" version was mixed by Trevor Horn.
Live Aid was a benefit concert held on Saturday 13 July 1985, as well as an ongoing music-based fundraising initiative. The original event was organised by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for relief of the Ethiopian famine. Billed as the "global jukebox", the event was held simultaneously at Wembley Stadium in London, UK, attended by about 72,000 people, and John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, US, attended by exactly 89,484 people.
Robert Frederick Zenon Geldof, is an Irish singer-songwriter, author, political activist, and occasional actor. He rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Irish rock band the Boomtown Rats in the late 1970s, who achieved popularity at the time of the punk rock movement. The band had UK number one hits with his compositions "Rat Trap" and "I Don't Like Mondays". Geldof co-wrote "Do They Know It's Christmas?", one of the best-selling singles of all time, and starred in Pink Floyd's 1982 film Pink Floyd – The Wall as "Pink".
The Boomtown Rats are an Irish rock band originally formed in Dublin in 1975, that had a series of Irish and UK hits between 1977 and 1985. The group is led by vocalist Bob Geldof. The other members of the original line-up were Garry Roberts, Johnnie Fingers (keyboards), Pete Briquette (bass), Gerry Cott and Simon Crowe (drums). The Boomtown Rats broke up in 1986, but reformed in 2013, without Fingers or Cott.
"Do They Know It's Christmas?" is a song written in 1984 by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure in reaction to television reports of the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia. It was first recorded in a single day on 25 November 1984 by Band Aid, a supergroup put together by Geldof and Ure and consisting mainly of the biggest British and Irish musical acts at the time. The single was released in the United Kingdom on 3 December 1984 and aided by considerable publicity it entered the UK Singles Chart at number one and stayed there for five weeks, becoming the Christmas number one of 1984. The record became the fastest selling single in UK chart history, selling a million copies in the first week alone and passing three million sales on the last day of 1984, on the way to displacing Wings's "Mull of Kintyre" as the biggest-selling single of all time in the UK. It held this title until 1997 when it was overtaken by Elton John's "Candle in the Wind 1997", released in tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales following her death. The original version of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" has sold 3.8 million copies in the UK to date. In a UK-wide poll in December 2012, it was voted sixth on the ITV television special The Nation's Favourite Christmas Song.
Live 8 was a string of benefit concerts that took place on 2 July 2005, in the G8 states and in South Africa. They were timed to precede the G8 conference and summit held at the Gleneagles Hotel in Auchterarder, Scotland from 6–8 July 2005. Both events also coincided with the 20th anniversary of Live Aid. Run in support of the aims of the UK's Make Poverty History campaign and the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, ten simultaneous concerts were held on 2 July and one on 6 July. On 7 July, the G8 leaders pledged to double 2004 levels of aid to poor nations from US$25 billion to US$50 billion by the year 2010. Half of the money was to go to Africa. More than 1,000 musicians performed at the concerts, which were broadcast on 182 television networks and 2,000 radio networks.
Birhan Woldu is an Ethiopian famed for being the starving child, near death, shown in a video at Live Aid in 1985.
Philip "Spike" Edney is an English musician who, since the 1960s, has performed with a number of bands, most notably with Queen in their live concerts, where his participation started in 1984. During the mid-1970s, he recorded and toured with The Tymes and Ben E. King, playing keyboards, bass, guitar and trombone. Subsequently, in the late 1970s, he was musical director for Edwin Starr and, during the early 1980s, worked with Duran Duran, The Boomtown Rats, Dexys Midnight Runners, Bucks Fizz, Haircut One Hundred and The Rolling Stones. He also appeared with Peter Green on his comeback tour.
Harvey Goldsmith is an English performing arts promoter. He is best known as a promoter of rock concerts, charity concerts, television broadcasts for the Prince's Trust and more recently the Teenage Cancer Trust shows at the Royal Albert Hall.
Denis O'Regan is an English rock photographer. His imagery is particularly associated with the punk movement, Queen, David Bowie, and Duran Duran, and O'Regan has photographed everyone from AC/DC to ZZ Top, documenting Punk, New Romanticism, Grunge, and Heavy Metal along the way. O'Regan has undertaken many European, US, and World tours, worked as official photographer at Live Aid and the Concert For Diana, and travelled as official photographer to David Bowie, Duran Duran, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Queen, Kiss, Europe, Neil Diamond, Bee Gees, Pink Floyd and Thin Lizzy. His work has been widely published and exhibited.
A benefit concert or charity concert is a type of musical benefit performance featuring musicians, comedians, or other performers that is held for a charitable purpose, often directed at a specific and immediate humanitarian crisis.
"The Miracle" is the fifth and final single from Queen's 1989 studio album of the same name. It was composed by the entire band, though Freddie Mercury and John Deacon were the main writers. It was released as a single in late November 1989, some six months after the album.
Oz for Africa was an Australian concert held on 13 July 1985 at the Sydney Entertainment Centre. It was broadcast locally and internationally as part of the worldwide Live Aid performances to raise money for famine relief in Africa. The concert featured 17 bands performing some of their best-known songs. All groups donated their services and the concert helped raise $10 million throughout Australia.
References
- ↑ Live Aid on Bob Geldof's official site Archived 2011-02-05 at the Wayback Machine