Roger Meddows Taylor is an English musician, singer and songwriter. He is a multi-instrumentalist, but best known as the drummer of the rock band Queen. His musical career began early. Due to the unique manner of playing the drums and a strong, high voice, he soon became very famous after the beginning of his creative activity.
Confession
Taylor was named by Planet Rock radio station eighth in the list of greatest drummers of the 20th century. This survey was conducted in 2005. Since then, the popularity of Roger Taylor has not only not faded, but has also increased, thanks to the numerous projects in which this musician has recently participated.
Further in the article, we will talk about the beginning of the career of this outstanding musician, his work in the Queen group, as well as what he is currently doing.
Childhood
Maternity hospital, in which the future musician was born, was once visited by Elizabeth II. During this visit, the titled person was introduced to sixteen expectant mothers, including Roger Taylor's mother.
At the age of seven, he and several of his friends formed a group in which the boy played ukulele. At the age of 15, Taylor joined the Reaction ensemble, which by that time was already considered semi-professional and toured a lot. Initially, the hero of this article played the guitar in this band, but then decided to become a drummer, as he felt a great interest in this instrument. The boy's professional idol was Keith Moon of The Who. Roger tried to copy the powerful sound of his drums.
Education
In 1967, Taylor went to London to study as a dentist in the capital's medical college. Soon he was bored with the science of dental treatment, and he transferred to the biological department of the London Polytechnic Institute.
Roger Taylor in his youth
In 1968, the hero of an article at Imperial College saw an announcement that a novice group needed a drummer. He responded to him and met with Brian May, the guitarist of the band, and Tim Staffel, who was at that time a vocalist and bass player. As a result, he was accepted into the team, which lasted 2 years. "Smile" broke up after the vocalist left for another band. The musicians wrote 9 songs, one of which was included in the Queen's repertoire. Smile reunited for one introduction in 1992 to perform several songs during a concert by Roger Taylor and The Cross.
In 1969, the protagonist of the article worked with Freddie Mercury at the Kensington Market store. Both guys lived nearby at this time. Freddy was then a big fan of the Smile band. When the team broke up, then Freddy agreed with two of its members to create a new team. For him, he came up with a catchy name - Queen.
Member of the legendary group
While working at Queen, Roger Taylor (photo can be seen below) regularly wrote songs. As a composer, he contributed to the creation of all the albums of the group, starting with the earliest. For each record, he composed at least one song and always recorded vocals for his works. Taylor also created a huge number of songs in collaboration with Freddie Mercury. Three compositions, in the writing of which he took part, reached first place in the UK charts.
Among the most famous songs of Roger Taylor are: These are the days of our lives, Innuendo, Under pressure and others. He is also considered the main author of the hit One vision, although this composition was composed by the entire group.
In addition to drums, Taylor sometimes plays keyboards, guitar and bass during recording and concert performance of his own songs. In the eighties, in parallel with his work at Queen, he also performed and created albums with his own band called The Cross. In this group, he was a vocalist and played rhythm guitar.
Solo career
Roger Taylor recorded his first song during a break in work on the Queen News of the world album, which was released in 1977. The composition was called I wanna testify.
Roger Taylor's first album Fan in space was released in 1981. The musician independently recorded for him parts of all the instruments. However, this disc did not receive much fame. The musician because of the busy touring schedule of Queen did not have enough free time to engage in the promotion of the album.
The 1984 Strange frontier was recorded by Queen Roger Taylor's fellow Queen band members: Freddie Mercury, Brian May, and John Deacon. The album completely repeats the fate of the previous disc. Due to the huge number of concerts in support of The works by Queen, Taylor was not able to perform solo with his own material.
In 1986, Roger tried himself in a new role. He was one of the producers of the album of the band Magnum. Then he organized his own team called The Cross. Over the 6 years of the existence of this collective, three albums have been created.
In 1994, Roger Taylor released his most successful album, Happiness. One of the songs on this disc rose to first place in the English charts. After that, the musician created 3 more solo albums, each of which was highly appreciated by music critics.
Taylor spoke about the latest disc, as well as the reunion of Queen with vocalist Adam Lambert in an interview. Roger Taylor in 2014 released a collection of 18 of his best songs. This record is composed of compositions from different times, starting with 1977 I wanna testify and ending with tracks from the last album called Fun on earth.
In November of the same 2014, the complete works of Roger Taylor were released on 12 discs. The kit also includes DVDs of fragments of his concerts and a 64-page hardcover book. In one of his interviews, Roger Taylor said about this edition as follows: “This is not a collection of my best drum solos. I wanted to create a collection of songs that I have ever recorded not only as part of Queen, but also solo. This is a very responsible step for me. But at the same time I feel satisfaction that I have put together everything that I have ever done and put it under one cover. It turned out great. Now I can put an end and move on. "
In the same year, the drummer announced the release of the album with the best songs of the Queen group called Queen forever, which includes 3 tracks that had never been released before. One of them is the Mercury duet with Michael Jackson, recorded in the late eighties. Two legendary artists sang together There must be more to life than this. This and two other new tracks are unknown versions of songs from Mercury's solo albums. Roger Taylor also said that there is another unreleased work where Freddie and Michael sing together, but the group failed to get permission to publish it.
Queen and Adam Lambert
In January 2015, Queen, along with American singer Adam Lambert, went on a tour of Europe. The hero of this article also participated in this event, remaining faithful to his team. He said so about the upcoming tour: “I would like new songs to be recorded in the process of this collaboration. I think this would be a good experiment. It’s just interesting to see what comes of it. Will the album come out or something else, I I don’t know yet. "
“We were happy everywhere,” Roger admits, recalling the previous tour, and adds: “We performed in a new place every evening and were greeted with great love everywhere. It was a surprise for me. Just think, after so many years on stage we still in service! "
Great company
The musician from the group Foo Fighters Taylor Hawkins invited Roger Taylor to perform in the fall of 2018 at their concert. The veteran of the scene gladly accepted this offer and joined the star company consisting of Hawkins himself and his friends. The group, assembled for one single performance, performed the song Under pressure, which in 1982 Freddie Mercury sang a duet with David Bowie.
Movie work
In 2014, Roger Taylor starred in the TV series Life of Rock. This tape was broadcast on the BBC channel. The protagonist of the film is Brian (a fictional character) - a member of a popular rock art group in the 1970s. Roger Taylor plays himself in this series.
Conclusion
Roger Taylor is one of the greatest drummers in rock history. His skill can be appreciated by watching a video of the concert of Queen We will rock you, in which he plays a brilliant solo. The original manner of singing this musician for several decades has been enthralling music lovers. The high notes he takes with falsetto are so natural that when listening to Queen's first albums, many people thought that a woman performed these vocal parts. The clip of Roger Taylor's Journey`s end and other music videos for his songs can be watched on Queen's YouTube channel. The musician has released a number of interesting solo works, each of which deserves the attention of music lovers.