Roger Taylor (drummer)
Roger Meddows Taylor OBE (born July 26, 1949 in King's Lynn , England ) is a British multi-instrumentalist , singer, founding member and - like the other three band members - composer of the rock group Queen . His best-known contributions to their song catalog include the pieces Radio Ga Ga , A Kind of Magic , Breakthru , These Are the Days of Our Lives and I'm in Love with My Car . Taylor was also the head of the band The Cross and also appeared solo.
Life
Roger Meddows Taylor is the son of Michael Taylor, a food inspector at the Department of Agriculture , and Winifred Taylor. Meddows is an intermediate name that comes from the father's family.
After moving to Truro in Cornwall , he went to the Truro Cathedral School, a boarding school that he only attended as an external student, as he had received a scholarship . He joined the local choir and put together his first drum kit ; He had already taught himself to play the guitar and ukulele himself . In Cornwall, Taylor was relatively well known for his band The Reaction, in which he played drums and later sang - a fact that later benefited both Smile and Queen.
In 1967 he began studying dentistry in London at the Hospital Medical College in White Chapel . He soon switched to biology at the North London Polytechnic; he completed the course with the academic degree Bachelor of Science . He replied to an advertisement on a notice board and became a member of Smile, a band founded by Tim Staffell and Brian May in 1968. The first concert Smile played in October 1968 as opening act for Pink Floyd .
Through Tim Staffell, Taylor also met his fellow student Freddie Mercury . They later shared a room and ran a boutique in Kensington Market . In the smile song April Lady by May and Staffell, Taylor can already be heard as a backing singer with his characteristic voice. He used his musical contacts in Cornwall to organize some concerts for Smile there.
After Staffell left the band, Taylor and May stayed together, won Mercury as singer and founded the band Queen , which together with bassist John Deacon existed in this lineup until Freddie Mercury's death in November 1991.
In 1976, he began a partnership with Dominique Beyrand, then personal assistant to Richard Branson , whom he met during the Queen's concert in Hyde Park . With her he has a son (* 1980) and a daughter (* 1986). Shortly before the separation in 1988 he married her on January 25, 1988. The divorce took place in 2006.
Between 1981 and 2013 he recorded five albums as a multi-instrumentalist, but they received little attention outside the Queen community. The first four albums made it into the UK charts. After Queen was unable to go on concert tours from 1986 due to Mercury's illness, Taylor founded the band The Cross in the fall of 1987 in order to be able to go on tour again.
Since 1988 Taylor has had a relationship with model Debbie Leng, who can also be seen in the Queen video Breakthru and the video for Cowboys and Indians . With her he has three other children, the son Rufus (* 1991) and two daughters, who were born in 1994 and 2000. She left him in 1999 after having an affair with a stripper. They got back together in 2002, but separated again in 2004.
After Mercury's death and the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert held in his honor , May and Taylor, who had also worked together on various AIDS projects, continued to perform under the name Queen at numerous concert events with the approval of John Deacon.
Taylor is the most politically active Queen member. This is mainly reflected in the lyrics. B. The dangers of nuclear armament in Strange Frontier (from the album of the same name), poverty in Revelations and the media in Dear Mr. Murdoch (both from the album Happiness? ). In Nazis 1994 from the same album, Taylor condemned the neo-Nazis .
Roger Taylor was one of the band's wild partiers alongside Freddie Mercury. He smoked heavily until about 1986 and is known for his love of fast cars and boats, alcoholic beverages, and women. Before each concert he drank two shots (approx. 90 ml) of Scotch - “no more, no less”.
Taylor married Sarina Potgieter in 2010, with whom he has been in a relationship since 2004. He composed the music for the film Solitary , which she produced . In addition, Taylor inspired the stage name of the drummer Taylor Hawkins of the band Foo Fighters , who sees Roger Taylor as his great role model.
His fortune was estimated at £ 80 million in 2011 .
Taylor and Queen guitarist Brian May performed the Queen's song We Will Rock You , sung by Jessie J , on August 12, 2012 during the closing ceremony of the Summer Olympics in London .
Meaning for Queen
Instruments
At Queen, formerly with John Deacon, Taylor provides his band's songs with a stable rhythmic framework. He plays a rock beat on most of the recordings that Taylor can be heard drumming on. However, he also repeatedly plays rhythms from other genres, such as funk on Hot Space . Occasionally Taylor also used electronic drums for recordings with Queen, for example in Drowse or Fun It . Taylor can only be heard on a Queen recording - the guitar solo from I Want It All - with a double bass drum .
Based on his experience with the synthesizer in the production of his solo album Fun in Space (1981), Taylor was able to convince his band members to use this instrument in the Queen productions as well. An Oberheim OBX synthesizer was heard for the first time on Queen's album The Game (1980) .
On many of his compositions for Queen Taylor played rhythm guitar and electric bass , occasionally also keyboard and synthesizer. Examples of this are Fight from the Inside and Sheer Heart Attack from the album News of the World as bassist and rhythm guitarist and Fun It and More of That Jazz from the album Jazz .
singing
As the lead singer, Taylor has a characteristic, rough rock voice. On the Queen studio albums released in the 1970s, he sang the lead vocals on all of the pieces he wrote except for Sheer Heart Attack (1977: News of the World ). Subsequent songs in which Taylor played a major role as lead singer include Action This Day (1982: Hot Space ), Let Me Live (1995: Made in Heaven ) and No-One But You (1997: Queen Rocks ). In addition, the backing vocals recorded in numerous songs by Taylor with May and Mercury are a special feature of the sound of Queen. In particular, Taylor contributed characteristic, extremely high backing voices ("screams"), which sometimes merge with Brian May's singing guitar solos to form a unified sound. Examples are Seven Seas of Rhye , The March of the Black Queen , The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke , Ogre Battle , In the Lap of the Gods and Father to Son . Also worth mentioning is Seaside Rendezvous , where Taylor and Mercury imitate tubas , clarinets and kazoos only by manipulating their voices .
live
At concerts, Mercury usually sang all the songs, only Roger Taylor interpreted the song I'm in Love With My Car himself. Mercury and Taylor sang together under Pressure . On the 1986 Magic Tour , Taylor took to the stage with Mercury, Deacon and May in the rock 'n' roll titles of the 1950s and played with them, supported by Spike Edney, (You're So Square) Baby I Don 't Care , Gimme Some Lovin' , Hello Mary Lou and Tutti Frutti (see e.g. the album Live at Wembley '86 ).
Songwriting
Until 1980, Roger Taylor usually sang his own songs:
- 1973: Queen : Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll
- 1974: Queen II : The Loser in the End
- 1974: Sheer Heart Attack : Tenement Funster
- 1975: A Night at the Opera : I'm in Love With My Car (dedicated to the racing enthusiast Queen roadie John Harris)
- 1976: A Day at the Races : Drowse
- 1977: News of the World : Sheer Heart Attack (sung mainly by Freddie Mercury) - Fight from the Inside (Taylor also plays bass and guitar on both songs)
- 1978: Jazz : Fun It - More of That Jazz
- 1980: The Game : Rock It (Prime Jive) - Coming Soon (both sung by Mercury and Taylor)
- 1980: Single Play the Game : A Human Body
- 1980: Flash Gordon : In the Space Capsule - In the Death Cell - Escape from the Swamp - Marriage of Dale and Ming (co-author May) (all instrumental)
From 1982 onwards, Freddie Mercury sang (with one exception) the songs written by Taylor:
- 1982: Hot Space : Action This Day (partly sung by Taylor) - Calling All Girls
- 1984: The Works : Radio Ga Ga - Machines (or Back To Humans) (co-author May)
- 1984: Single Thank God It's Christmas (co-author May)
- 1986: A Kind of Magic : A Kind of Magic - Don't Lose Your Head
- 1986: Single A Kind of Magic : A Dozen Red Roses for My Darling (instrumental)
- 1989: The Miracle : The Invisible Man - Breakthru
- 1989: Single The Invisible Man : Hijack My Heart (sung by Taylor)
- 1991: Innuendo : Innuendo (probably written together with Mercury) - Ride the Wild Wind - These Are the Days of Our Lives
- 1995: Made in Heaven : Heaven for Everyone (the original version appeared on The Cross album Shove It in 1988 )
In addition to those already mentioned (from 1989 to 1991), other songs were only published under the author's name “Queen”, see Queen - The authors of the Queen songs .
Solo projects
In his solo projects, Roger Taylor often played guitar, bass and synthesizer in addition to drums.
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His first solo release was the single I Wanna Testify (1977), on the B-side of which the title Turn On the TV is included.
His first solo album, Fun in Space , was released on April 4, 1981 . All the titles are authored by Taylor, who also recorded almost all of the instruments himself. As singles were FutureManagementGroup and My Country decoupled.
The next album Strange Frontier followed on June 25, 1984. On the song It's an Illusion , John Deacon on bass and co-author Rick Parfitt of Status Quo on guitar are guests ; Deacon was also responsible for the single remixes of I Cry for You (published on B-sides) . The voice of Freddie Mercury can be heard briefly in Killing Time . This time Roger Taylor also recorded cover versions of Bruce Springsteen ( Racing in the Streets ) and Bob Dylan ( Masters of War ). The album's singles were Man on Fire and Strange Frontier . The album was produced by Taylor and the producers Mack and David Richards, who are known from Queen productions .
In 1987 Roger Taylor formed his own band, The Cross ; u belonged to her a. Spike Edney , who had already accompanied Queen as a tour keyboardist. Three albums were released in the following years; on the first Taylor is the author of all songs, on the following two you can hear songs from all five band members:
- The Cross: Shove It (1988)
- The Cross: Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know (1990)
- The Cross: Blue Rock (1991)
The band was disbanded in 1993. With Josh Macrae , the drummer of The Cross, Taylor produced his solo albums in the following years.
Taylor's third (sole) solo album Happiness? was published on September 9, 1994. All the pieces were written by him , Yoshiki was co-author of Foreign Sand . This time numerous guest musicians were involved, u. a. Jason Falloon (guitar), Phil Spalding and Phil Chen (bass), Mike Crossley (piano and keyboard) Catherine Porter (backing vocals) and Joshua Macrae (synthesizer programming). The recordings were made in Taylor's own studio in Cosford Mill.
In 1998, Roger Taylor's fourth solo work, Electric Fire , was released. As on the previous album, Joshua J. Macrae, the former drummer of The Cross, co-produced with Taylor . Treana Morris can be heard as a guest singer. The tracks Pressure On and Surrender also appeared as singles.
On November 23, 2009, the single The Unblinking Eye (Everything Is Broken) was released (on Queenonline.com and ITunes ) . In this song he is critical of the Afghanistan war and the European policy of the British government. The song was the first time Taylor played stylophones on a release .
In November 2013, Roger Taylor released his fifth solo album Fun on Earth . At the same time, the box set The Lot , comprising twelve CDs and one DVD, was released. It contains all of Taylor's and The Cross albums, plus four other CDs with singles and unreleased tracks.
In April 2019, the digital single Gangsters Are Running This World was released .
More shots
Roger Taylor was a singer, drummer, guitarist and producer a. a. involved in the following projects of other groups and musicians:
| year | Interpreter | song | Album / single / film | Taylor's contribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1973 | Al Stewart | Past, Present & Future | percussion | |
| 1975 | Fox | Survival | Tails of Illusion | Backing song |
| 1975 | Eugene Wallace | Dangerous | Drums | |
| 1976 | Ian Hunter | You Nearly Did Me In | All-American Alien Boy | Backing vocals from Taylor, Freddie Mercury , Brian May |
| 1979 | Hilary Hilary | How Come You're So Dumb? | Author, arrangement, production, guitar, drums, keyboard, bass, backing vocals | |
| 1981 | Mel Smith | Mel Smith's Greatest Hits - Richard and Joey | Mel Smith's Greatest Hits (Single) | Production, all instruments, backing vocals |
| 1981 | Gary Numan | Crash - You Are You Are - Morality | Dance | Drums and percussion |
| 1982 | Kansas | Right Away - Diamonds & Pearls - Play the Game Tonight | Vinyl Confessions | Backing song |
| 1982 | Billy Squier | Emotions in Motion | Emotions in Motion | Backing vocals by Taylor and Freddie Mercury |
| 1983 | Brian May & Friends | Star Fleet (Single) | Star Fleet Project (mini album) | Backing song |
| 1985 | Jimmy Nail | Love Don't Live Here Anymore (single release) | Take It or Leave It | Percussion, synthesizer; Produced together with David Richards |
| 1985 | Camy Todorov | Bursting at the Seams | Bursting at the Seams (Single) | Drums, produced with David Richards |
| 1985 | Elton John | Too Young | Ice on Fire | Drums (John Deacon: bass) |
| 1985 | Feargal Sharkey | Loving You (Single) | additional drums, coproduction with David Richards | |
| 1985 | Debbie Byrne | Fools Rush In | Persuader | Drums |
| 1986 | Virginia Woolf | Virginia Wolf | Produced together with David Richards | |
| 1986 | Roger Daltrey | Under a raging moon | Under a raging moon | Drums together with other drummers |
| 1986 | Elton John | Angeline | Leather jackets | Drums (John Deacon: bass) |
| 1986 | Magnum | When the World Comes Down - Sometime Love | Vigilante | Production of the entire album, backing vocals in two tracks |
| 1987 | Freddie Mercury | The great pretender | The Great Pretender (Single) | Accompanying singing (also in the video) |
| 1989 | Sigue Sigue Sputnik | Dancerama | Remix production | |
| 1989 | Rock Aid Armenia | Smoke on the water | Drums | |
| 1989 | Ian & Belinda | Who Wants to Live Forever (multiple versions) | Who Wants to Live Forever (7 "or 12" benefit single for the British Bone Marrow Donor Appeal) | Drums (Brian May: production, guitar; John Deacon: bass) |
| 1991 | Hale and Pace | The Stonk | Drums (Brian May: guitar) | |
| 1992 | Shakin 'Stevens | radio | The Epic Years | Drums |
| 1997 | SAS tape | That's the Way God Planned It | SAS tape | Drums, vocals (John Deacon: bass) |
| 2001 | Geldof | Sex, Age & Death | Drums, backing vocals | |
| 2010 | Kerry Ellis | No one but you | Anthems | Drums (produced by Brian May) |
| 2011 | Bob Geldof | How to Compose Popular Songs That Will Sell | Backing vocals, percussion | |
| 2015 | Sarina Taylor | Solitary | composition | |
| 2010 | Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders | Your Shoes | Red light fever | Backing song |
literature
- Jacky Gunn, Jim Jenkins: Queen. As It Began. Sidgwick & Jackson, London 1992, ISBN 0-283-06052-2 (German edition: Queen. Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-442-42083-0 ).
Web links
- Roger Taylor in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Concertography Roger Taylor. Queen Concerts - Directory of Concerts
- Roger-Taylor.Net - extensive fan website with forum (English)
- Roger Taylor interviews. Queen Archives (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandpopmusic/8785343/Being-in-Queen-was-a-privilege.html ; accessed on March 16, 2018.
- ^ Roger Taylor ; accessed on March 16, 2018.
- ↑ Katie Nicholl: A mighty bash as Queen drummer Roger Taylor ties the knot . Mail Online, October 3, 2010; accessed on March 16, 2018.
- ↑ Solitary in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ↑ thisismoney.co.uk: The top 50 richest people in music: Sunday Times Rich List
- ↑ Chart discography singles and albums
- ↑ Roger Taylor - Official: New music Monday! Roger Taylor, April 8, 2019, accessed April 16, 2019 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Taylor, Roger |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Taylor, Roger Meddows (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British drummer for the rock group Queen |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 26, 1949 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | King's Lynn , England |