Smile (band)

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Smile
General information
Genre (s) skirt
founding 1968, 1992
resolution 1970, 1992
Founding members
Tim Staffell
Guitar , vocals
 Brian May
Drums , vocals
 Roger Taylor
former members
Keyboard
 Chris Smith

Smile was a British rock band that became Queen in 1970. Founded in London in 1968 by guitarist Brian May , members of the band were alongside May Tim Staffell as singer and bassist and later drummer Roger Taylor . Keyboardist Chris Smith was also part of this formation for a short time .

Band history

In 1968 guitarist Brian May, a student at London's Imperial College, formed a band with bassist Tim Staffell. With an advertisement on the college bulletin board they were looking for a " Ginger Baker / Mitch Mitchell-like " drummer, whereupon the medical student Roger Taylor got in touch and got the job. They called the band now Smile and were signed by Mercury Records in 1969 , giving them their first experience with a recording studio at Trident Studios in the same year . Staffell attended Ealing Art College with Farrokh Bulsara (later known as Freddie Mercury ) at that time and introduced him to the band. Bulsara became a huge fan of Smile.

The band's logo, designed by Staffell and showing a smiling mouth, is similar to the trademark later used by the Rolling Stones . Instead of the sticking out tongue, however, it includes a teeth-pointing grin.

The band's biggest public performance took place on February 27, 1969 at the Royal Albert Hall at the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and Her Child. Smile appeared as a trio after keyboardist Chris Smith was fired the day before, according to Tim Staffell. Smith, on the other hand, claims he went on his own because he wanted to try other styles.

Shortly after being spotted by an A&R employee at a concert in April , Mercury Records signed them up for a one-off studio recording. They then recorded the songs Earth (Season), Step on Me (May) and Doin 'All Right (May / Season) at Trident Studios in June 1969 . The producer was John Anthony . A promo single with the tracks Earth and Step on Me was released in the United States in August.

Mercury Records hired the band to record three more songs in September of that year: April Lady (Stanley Lucas), Blag (Taylor) and Polar Bear , (May). The recordings produced by Fritz Fryer, the former guitarist of the Four Pennies , took place this time in the De Lane Lea Studios . These songs weren't released until 1982 on the mini album Gettin 'Smile .

When Tim Staffell finally left the group in 1970 to join the band Humpy Bong , Smile were practically dissolved. May and Taylor formed a band with lead singer Bulsara. In the following period - after the band name was changed to Queen at the suggestion of Bulsara - the group tried various bassists, but none of them fit into the band. In 1971, with John Deacon , the classic line-up of Queen was finally complete, which would last until Freddie Mercury's death in 1991.

For her debut album , Queen re-recorded the smile song Doing All Right (May / Season). According to the book "Queen: The Early Years," Tim Staffell was very well settled with the royalties from the album sales.

Two years after Staffell's departure, the song Earth became part of the Nova Solis suite on the debut album of the same name by Morgan Fisher's band Morgan, whose singer was Staffell.

There was a reunion of Smile at the Marquee Club on December 22, 1992 , when Roger Taylor's band The Cross performed and May and Staffell joined in to play Earth and If I Were a Carpenter . In addition, the 2003 season album aMIGO contains new recordings of Earth and Doin 'Alright , in which Brian May took over the guitar and parts of the vocals.

Discography

Singles

  • Earth / Step on Me (7 "): A 1969 US promo single.

Compilations

  • Gettin 'Smile (LP): A compilation of the six recorded Smile songs released in Japan on September 23, 1982 by Mercury Records. The sleeve contains imprecise information about the lyrics and authors of the song. This publication was used as the source for all subsequent bootlegs.
  • Ghost of a Smile (CD): A compilation of the six recorded Smile songs released in the Netherlands in 1997 by Pseudonym Records. All tracks have been remastered and the detailed booklet includes comments from Tim Staffell. The cover shows a version of the smile logo, also revised by Staffell. In addition, there are two versions of Eddie Howell's single The Man from Manhattan , which Freddie Mercury produced in 1975 and whose only reference to Smile is the fact that Brian May plays guitar on this piece and is involved in the backing vocals on the album .

There are also numerous bootlegs that contain smile songs, for example Queen: Pre Ordained or Queen in Nuce .

Songs

The following songs have been confirmed as part of the repertoire by the members of the band:

The following songs were re-recorded by Queen in the early 1970s: Doin 'Alright (album Queen ), Polar Bear and Silver Salmon (both not officially released) and See What a Fool I've Been (B-side of the single Seven Seas of Rhye ).

swell

  1. ↑ http://www.queenfans.com/articles/pics/chrissmith.jpg (currently offline)
  2. ↑ For details see Queen Concerts .

literature

  • John S. Stuart, Andy Davis: Queen before Queen. The 1960s recordings - Part 3: Smile. In: Record Collector , January 1996, pp. 84-90. (See QueenCuttings )

Web links