THAT UNCERTAIN SMILE

The genesis of a rock group owes much to chance and Queen’ s passage was of greater convolution and implausibility than most. The core of a band is best forged in the school yard youth club or neighbourhood, where the protagonists find others to make music with, stay friends, develop at the same pace and share the same vision long enough to play a few concerts and ultimately make a record. The four who became Queen shared an inventory of unlikely concidentes and this after they were denied the luxury of coming Irom the same neighbourhood.

Individually, they were each exemplary players who had undergone thorough apprenticeships, though Freddies was somewhat condensed and all four had d certain personal confidence and ambition. They were drawn together magnetically, first to London, then to one another and it is impossible not to see their formation as uncanny at the very least. Rock music draws its very lifeblood from such splendid accidents. While it remains imprecise, impulsive, open to chance, it thrives; after that usually by the third album- it is often moribund waiting for the non- accident of death.

The four teenagers who later became Queen found themselves walking the sunlit streets of London or sweating in the stale heat of the Underground in the summers of 1967 and 1968 Ostensibly they were in (and around) the capital to study and where Brian May and John Deacon were concerned they studied very hard indeed. But they were also seeking lives which were faster brighter and more rexvarding than those they had left behind with the tidy driveways manicured lawns and family saloons of provincial England.

Roger Taylor began his degree in dentistry at the Rojal London Hospital Whitechapel, in October 1967. The first part of the course was devoted to pre- clinical work and was based solely within the hospital. He moved into a flat in Sinclair Road Shepherds Bush in the west of London behind Kensington Oljmpia this impressed his fellow students since they mainly found lodgings m the poorer areas near the hospital in east London. Roger moved in with a friend from Truro, Les Brown who had begun his course at Imperial College a year earlier and was already sharing his flat with two other male students.

During his first year Roger did not join a group in London but in the summer break of 1968 he returned to Cornwall for some unfinished business. The Reaction had not wound up after the road accident, indeed they had held a meeting and categorically decided to continue, though they obviously had to break up temporarllv while Roger and Michael Dudlev were away at university. Incidentally Michael Dudley had initially been offered a place in London University which would have meant he could continue playing music with, Roger but he was later accepted at Oxford and went then, instead. He was to become one ot a ood number uith ahd claims that late had frozen them out of consideration tor Queen.

Roger Taylor and a good friend of his from Cornwall, Rik Evans, hatched a plan to state itinerant concerts. Rik had started as a labourer with Penrose Marquees, a small Cornish business first established in 184O. The company owning just six marquees had come up for sale and Rik bought it during the mid Sixties. He and Roger shared the same love of music, indeed Roger was a regular visitor to Rik’s home where they would listen attentively to Jmi Hendrix albums. In the summer of 1968 they promoted a series of happenings under canvas on the beaches throughout Cornwall. The “Summer Coast Experience” featured a self made psychedelic (everything in 1968 was prefixed by this adjective) light show and an appearance by The Reaction, all for the princely sum of five shillings.

Roger Taylor, with Rik Evans assistance, was now a veritable cottage industry. Before each show he would drive around in a Mini van pasting fly posters on any available wall. Perranporth beach was popular with surfers and they tried to make shows coincide with the finals of surf competitions. “One of our best nights was a gig al Perranporth”, said Rik Evans. The local life saving club had a barbecue and the beach was packed out with about 5OO people. We used to sell cans of Coke at the entrance to the marquee, it went down really well that night. “The owner of the beach did not share their enthusiasm dnd was upset to see them making such healthy profits on his land; he petitioned the council to have them banned.

Other nights on the beich tour were not so successful, especially one at Trevellas Cove, just a few hundred yards down the coastline from St Agnes. The route to it was along a narrow path, through a derelict mine-working area. The chances of the area being granted permission to host such an event were less than nil, but Roger and Rik were undeterred and scornfully worked outside the confines of proper legality anyway. It began to rain heavily and the generator packed up.

Someone trekked to the nearest house and asked for permission to plug into their electricity supply. A long trail of wire was laid down to the beach, via various plugboards and puddles, to allow the band to switch on. Their efforts went cruelly unrewarded - only five paying customers turned up. «I have a vivid memory of this one rocker dancing on his own, splashing about in all these puddles; it was a desperate scene,» said Rik Evans.

Inevitably, when Roger left Cornwall to return to London in the autumn of 1968. The Reaction drifted apart for good. Michael Dudley played chamber music at university before falling in and out of blues bands down the years. He is now an executive with the Prudential Insurance Company in London. He often ponders on how life would have progressed if his destination alter leaving Truro had been London and not Oxford: «I would have been delighted to have kept up the music career. Mine and Roger’s whole life was playing in those bands. That was everything to us, apart from chasing women.» Rick Penrose was asked by Roger to join him in London and play music but he turned down the offer: he was married with a mortgage and needed a degree of security. Rick later joined a cabaret group called Memory Lane and has worked full-time as a musician ever since.

The summer frolics of 1968 had focused Roger, and he returned to the capital determined to form another band. Les Brown told him of a note pinned to a board at Imperial College seeking a Ginger Baker/Mitch Mitchell type drummer. Roger contacted the name on the card and within a few days received a letter from Brian May. The note was typical of Brian; precise, thoughtful and serious-minded. In unambiguous terms it outlined exactly the type of person the group required to fill their drum stool.

Tim Staffell and Brian May had adopted a radically different perspective since their days together in 1984. The distance between 1964 and 1968 was spectacular in its effect on Britain’s youth. Helen Shapiro had been superseded by Julie Driscoll. Billy J. Kramer by Jim Morrison, The Shadows by Cream. The coyness and ready conformity was gone forever, and Brian May and Tim Staffell’s ideology reflected these changes. Individuality was everything and in support of this free expression, their new group would write mainly their own material, or interpret others from a unique panorama. Tim Staffell had adopted the concept of a group called ‘Smile’ as part of a college project and built a graphics campaign around it.

Brian May was still obligated to his studies, however, and this meant his commitment to Smile was always vaguely compromised, though it was still tangibly a different undertaking from 1984. «It is fair to say there was serious intent with Smile,» said Tim Staffell. «Long-haired musos were not the flavour of the month when we were around our parents and we had to keep a low profile sometimes. Brian’s folk wanted him to keep on with his academic career. If we hadn’t have had to keep up that fagade, everyone would have seen we were really going for it.».

Roger Taylor’s first audition for Smile took place at his flat in Shepherd’s Bush. Brian and Tim turned up with acoustic guitars, which was fitting since Roger had left his drum kit behind in Truro and had only a pair of bongos to hand. They struck up a friendship immediately, spoke the same language; of ambition, of an earnest devotion to ‘good’ music, and of a quiet, but perceptible assurance. They played together at volume for the first time in the Jazz Club room at Imperial College. «Roger was bloody brilliant,» said Tim Staffell. «We were bowled over and were both thinking: This guy’s great’. He was punchy and flamboyant and really showed up my bass playing.».

Their personalities fused immediately and they quickly developed an innate confidence in their union. «I was always more of a vulgar kind of person than Brian,» said Staffell. «Brian was laid back, a gentleman. ‘Straight’ is not really the right word, he was just more gentle. I was more rough around the edges as a person. My relationship with Brian was kind of gentle but when Roger turned up he was more like me, or somewhere half-way between me and Brian. Roger turned a straight line into a triangle. It created a tight self-contained unit and with it the band’s own personality. Roger was lively and exciting and running on adrenaline. He was always ‘up’. He was physically a drummer and also of that nature as a person. Smile were really enhanced by Roger’s energy.».

Their first concert was quite a scoop, supporting Pink Floyd at Imperial College on October 26, 1968. Pink Floyd had broken out of their trippy London clique with ‘See Emily Play’, a Syd Barrett-flavoured Top Ten hit just a few weeks before their appearance at the college; it was an auspicious start for Smile. With only a handful of their own completed songs, they resolved to re-write other people’s music. Delighted to tag themselves ‘progressive’, it gave them a licence to drag out basic rock songs into twenty-minute jams, with numerous changes of pace and the introduction of their own bizarre chord changes, not unlike Pink Floyd in fact. They went down well, schizophrenic rock invariably did in the late Sixties.

Imperial College had a fine reputation for promoting exciting groups and Smile, as the ‘in-house’ band, were often given support slots. This allowed them to develop their material in front of a receptive audience and they soon became a tight, intriguing band, blending intricate vocals with rock dynamics. Since the advent of Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience, trios were very much in vogue. unlike a few years earlier when any group with fewer than four members was considered under powered.

Brian May had actually completed his formal degree studies at Imperial. He had received his Bachelor of Science (BSc) certificate from the Queen Mother just two days before Smile’s debut show in support of Pink Floyd. He continued to give tutorials at the college and worked on his PhD thesis. Staying in London also allowed him to be near his new girlfriend, Christine Mullen, a student from the Maria Assumpta Teacher Training College in Kensington whom he would eventually marry. They had met through one of Roger’s girlfriends, Jo, a flatmate of Christine’s, and the pair were inseparable.

Smile soon picked up two important allies. Pete Edmunds, an old school friend of Brian and Tim, became their roadie after selling his MG sports car to buy a van, and John Harris, a friend of a friend, became the sound engineer because he had a penchant for repairing amplifiers. John Harris became extremely close to the band, an invisible member in fact, as he shaped their sound from the mixing desk.

During the early part of 1969 Roger and Brian were finally introduced to Freddie Bulsara, Tim Staffell’s friend from art college. Despite having once lived less than a mile from each other in Feltham, Brian May had not met Freddie until they were brought together by Tim Staffell. Freddie was liked a great deal: he was effusive, full of ideas, and in his white satin trousers he was the model of King’s Rood vogue. He attended rehearsals and became a regular feature in the van as they traveled to shows. He had a keen eye for the theatrical and his counsel was respected, though he was sometimes dismissed as a ‘bloody nuisance’ when his advice became too didactic. No one thought to ask from where Freddie’s wisdom emanated, they just accepted that it was inborn. «1 don’t think I’ve ever met someone so outrageous since.» said Les Brown. «He was very enthusiastic about everything, I mean amazingly so. I remember he once physically dragged me into a room and made me listen to this soul record he really liked. No one admitted to still liking soul at that time, it was all rock, so I suppose he was showing his catholic taste.».

Roger Taylor contacted an otd friend from Cornwall, Peter Bawden, and Smile were soon back on the live circuit already well trodden by The Reaction. «Those weekends in Cornwall were highlights ol our time with Smile because everyone used to make such a great fuss ol us down there,» recalled Tim Staftell. «It always became a great social thing with lots of drinking sessions, it Wiis all so much more relaxed than in Loncio i, and everyone was so kind, inviting us to their homes and to parties and so on.».

Peter Bawden was a close friend of Roger Taylor and helped organise most of their escapades in Cornwall. He was eight years older than Roger with a wealth of experience in the music business. He had played guitar in The Staggerlees, a Cornish band signed to Oriole Records in the early Sixties. They had undertaken several national tours supporting early British rockers like Joe Brown, Shane Penton and Paul Raven, later to become Gary Glitter. They folded after a road accident involving their van, following which Peter returned to Cornwall to set up Eclipse, an agency booking nationally known bands into Cornish venues. He also started PJ’s Club in Truro, named after himself, Peter John Bawden. He was at the heart of the Cornish scene, and his experience of the music business was quite rare in the South West; to Roger Taylor he was irresistible. «Roger was the sort of guy, who, if he met someone as interested in music as he was, he was absolutely passionate,» he said. «We used to talk about what bands to book into the club ynd he was always full of enthusiasm. He was different from the rest, very dedicated to the music and he never varied.».

Together they organised Smile’s early shows in Cornwall. Brian May sometimes stayed at Peter Bawden’s house or the band would make their way back to Roger’s mother’s house in Truro. Peter Bawden had been an admirer of The Reaction but he felt Smile had more of an edge: “They were good a lot of their stuff they kept on with when they became Queen. Tim was a super guy a pretty straightforward rock singer. At the time I didn t think they were missing anything but when Freddie came along he was obviously in a different ball park”.

Roger Taylor’s mother Win who later remarried and took the surname Hitchens was happy to have the band stay at her house. “I always found Brian to be very sincere”, she said. He was the quiet, vegetarian type though I don’t think he actually was a vegetarian. Brian was always a bit forgetful. He turned up once without his guitar and Roger was not best pleased. Of them all Freddie was the quietestaind shyest one. He was not a conversationalist at all. His clothes were always spotlessly clean and he seemed to be able to lay his hands on a pair of white trousers at any time. He was always effeminate but we used to say, “Oh Freddie, just go on with it.” He had longish black hair and they were all wearing fur coats at the time. They stood out d bit in Cornwall. If I was out shopping with my daughter and we saw the band we’d sometimes hurry the other way’.

Friends of Roger Taylor’s from Cornwall, including Peter Bawden, would often visit him in Shepherd’s Bush. I stayed with him in his flat a few times. He hadn’t changed at all. He adapted to London life as if he was born to it”. Cornish parochialism was still alive and well though, as Rick Penrose discovered: I’d left my car parked outside Roger’s and when I got up in the morning there was a piece of paper under the wipers. I thought it was a parking ticket at first but it turned out to be a letter from someone. It said something like “I couldn’t help but notice your Cornish number plate if you’d like a cup of tea with a fellow Cornishman my door number is so and so I coutdn’ t believe it!”.

The Cornish contingent took to Roger’s new friend, Freddie Bulsara with sincere warmth. I found him to be one of the genuinely nicest people I have ever met in my life”, said Peter Bawden. «I remember I was walking through Kensington Market a few days after I’d first met him I heard someone shouting my name and when I turned round it was Freddie and he just wanted to say hello. He had no need to do that, but he had made the effort. He was a delightful man in every respect. “There, was however some puzzlement as to Freddie s sexuality. “I was obviously aware of his campness, but I never saw him as homosexual” said Bawden. To me it was all an act I suppose they were an unusual pair because Roger was very straight and Freddie was so effeminate. I always saw Freddie s manner as a typical London affectation. He spoke like someone in the film business.

Smile continued to support established groups in London Early in 1969 they played shows with Tyrannosaurus Rex, Family and Yes. Many thought that Smile bore a strong similarity to Jon Anderson s symphonic rock quintet. Les Brown used to often tag along to many shows. “It was a great way to get into dances for free” he said. I’d seen The Reaction back in Cornwall and Smile were better than them. Tim was my kind of man really into science fiction and sirrul ir things to me. He was very serious, very intense. It took me longer to get to know Brian. I’m not sure whether I properly felt relaxed with him. I think he took the group more seriously than Tim or Roger».

The Entertainments Committee at Imperial College was asked to assemble a bill for a charity show at the Royal Albert Hall. Smile were added to the roster for the concert in aid of the National Council For The Unmarried Mother And Her Child due to take place on February 27 1969. The trio had been rehearsing with an organ player, Chris Smith, but on the way to this prestigious show they told him they didn’t feel sufficiently rehearsed with him, so he was asked to sit out the performance; he never played with them again. The bill was impressive and included Free, Joe Cocker, Spooky Tooth and The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. Smile were pleased if surprised to be higher on the bill than Free, who had already signed with Island Records and were rehearsing tracks for inclusion on their debut album, “Tons Of Sobs”, released later that year.

The event was compered bv DJ ohn Peel though he has no recollection of introducing Smile or the music they made. Smile’s entrance to this grand arena was absurd .Tim Staffell’s guitar lead was too short and by the time he moved forwards to the microphone it had sprung out of the amplifier and trailed on the floor. It meant there was no thundering power chord beginning and his plight was compounded by his not wearing an shoes or socks on a stage littered with splinters. They opened with a version of ‘”If I Were A Carpenter” and continued with their own song, “Earth”, a cover of “Mony Mony”, and an obscure blues number by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee called ‘See What A Fool I’ve Been’, which was later the B-side to Queen’s single, ‘Seven Seas Of Rhye*. Smile were loud and brash and bluffed their way through such a lavish occasion. It was an exhilarating experience but one they knew was really well above their station.

The relative success of Smile quietly impressed Roger Taylor’s fellow students at the Royal London Hospital. In his general manner they thought him nothing out of the ordinary, but his burgundy velvet suit and wilful nonchalance had not gone unnoticed. He also sat at the back of lectures and soon began to make it clear that he was disillusioned with the idea of becoming a dentist. He told them he would prefer life as a rock’n’roll star and they noticed a Smile sticker on his dental anatomy folder. «He was a very ordinary bloke,» said fellow student Peter Rowan. «1 know others used to watch him play gigs around London, but it wasn’t a big deal or anything. It was something to fill the time. While some of the students were into bird watching, Roger had his rock’n roll thing.».

The pin-up of the course was a student a couple of years older than the others called Sue Morgan. There was mild surprise when she began dating Roger. «At first I think we saw him as this country boy coming to London.» said Rowan. «He was a nice bloke, too good looking for his own good though. Sue was a very attractive girl and we were surprised when he got off with her.».

Roger Taylor confided in Peter that he was thinking of changing courses, perhaps to study biology at London’s Queen Mary College. He was still set on a life in music, but realised he needed an alternative career plan. His apathy had not gone undetected and it was clear the tutors wanted to force the issue, and they began to single him out for special attention. Ron Fearnhead, a respected figure in dentistry and the author of a seminal paper on the structure of tooth enamel, was holding a class and began quizzing Roger. «He asked him, «What’s this?’ and pointed to a bone between the eye and ear,» recalls Rowan. «Roger said it ivas the zygoma which was correct. Ron then asked him what was the meaning of the word in Greek and Roger replied, ‘Is this a dentist exam or a fucking Greek exam?’ I think, after that, there was an obvious feeling that they were out to get him. He was throwing away his chance of becoming a dentist and chucking away his career 1 suppose. It quite impressed me in a way.».

Until this point Roger Taylor had made a reasonable contribution to the course. He was one of about 40 students learning their way around the human body, concentrating mainly on the head and neck. They were split into groups of four or five and each given their own corpse to work on throughout the year. ‘They were this horrible black, slaty grey colour and there was this all-pervading stench of formaldehyde,» said Peter Rowan. They were asked to respect the corpses, but rumours persisted of students who had carved pet names for the deceased, usually ‘oe’ or ‘Fred’ for a man, into their torsos. Some allegedly skipped with entrails, or amputated arms to hang later from tube trains; any of this malarkey and students were threatened with expulsion.

Roger Taylor largely kept thoughts of Smile and his future to himself, and did not involve the other students in his plans, though Les Brown for one guessed that he was ‘more ambitious than he let on’. Peter Rowan also saw the pop star potential in him: «It would be harder to imagine a plainer bloke, though 1 suppose he did look a bit like a pop star. He had a full head of hair and was skinny. Our heroes back then were bands like The Who and the Stones, I thought they were all getting on a bit and rock had had its day. I remember thinking Roger had missed the boat.».

After the Royal Albert Hall performance, Smile returned to the capital’s less salubrious clubs and bars, varying their live work with intermittent forays into Cornwall. Roger Taylor had earned a great deal of respect during his days with The Reaction, so the billing in the South West usually centred on his appearance -’Roger Taylor’s Smile’ or. on one celebrated occasion, ‘The Legendary Drummer of Cornwall. Roger Taylor And..’.

In April 1969 they performed at the trendy Revolution Club in London’s Mayfair and afterwards were approached by Lou Reizner, a talent scout for Mercury Records. They were flattered by Reizner’s interest and signed a recording contract almost immediately. The whole deal was completed within weeks of the meeting, such was Smile’s resolve to release a record. The contract, as the band recalled, was initially for one single only, but no doubt included options for Mercury to release more (on its own terms) if the single was a success: few major labels would launch a new group without holding exctust ity on an artist’s first few albums.

Smile were helped in securing the deal by Peter Abbey, a friend of Roger Taylor’s on the same dentistry course who held aspirations to manage rock groups. “Peter Abbey looked at the contract and said it was pretty good,” said Tim Staffell. It must have been reasonable because it didn’t turn out to be anything crippling. It was a toe in the water contract just Mercury putting in a small amount of dough to see what happened.

Although Reizner was later to make a name for himself as a producer, most notably of Rod Stewart s first two solo albums, he introduced the band to another producer, John Anthony, and booked time at Trident Studios in St Anne’s Court, off Wardour Street in Soho. The elegantly coiffeured John Anthony, like Trident itself, was to later play a large part in the destiny of Roger Taylor and Brian May. “John Anthonv was a bit of a lad,” says Tim Staffell. He was a nice guy but what I’d call a music business person. He was amusing and a bit dangerous with a small ‘d’, he liked to be thought of that way. He was a leather-trousered kind of guy. In the studio he was more like a film producer, dealing with the practical logistics. There was an engineer, Pete Kelsey, and he pretty much worked the desk. You’ve got to remember this was the very beginning. We were relatively naive and suddenly exposed to the big time blown away by it all in fact.

Smile mistakenly assumed their career would be uniformly organised now they were signed to a record deal. They were completely oblivious to the indeterminate nature of the business. After recording three songs at Trident – “Doing Alright”, “Earth” and “Step On Me” - they heard very little until suddenly it was announced that two of the songs uould be coupled together as a single, but only for the United States. In August 1969 the Tim Staffell song, ‘Earth” a fresh and tuneful slant on the pervading astronautical obsession (Tim Staffell was a self confessed spate nut from years earlier) was chosen as the A side with the brisk ‘Step On Me’, a song written bv Brian May and Tim and planned originally for 1984, on the reverse. The single release must have seemed a bizarre marketing move; any groundwork done by Smile had been in the UK, in London to be more specific and their name meant absolutely nothing in the United States. Nevertheless, similar tatties had recently paid off for Deep Purple, whose debut single “Hush” had become a US hit well before they’d crossed the Atlantic. No such good fortune attended Smile’s US debut which was released without acclaim and few noticed its existence.

In a sudden change of direction, Mercury decided Smile were an ‘albums band’ and they were asked to record more tracks, this time at Kingsway Studios in Holborn, London. Brian and Tim had spent the summer working on new material and with producer Fritz Freyer they put three songs on to tape - the beautifully twee ‘Polar Bear’, a jumbled sub-Deep Purple exercise called ‘Bla’ and a cover version of a banal, winsome song called ‘April Lady’ on which Brian May sang vocals. Smile’s canon of songs was reasonably strong and with a certain refined distinction, but they did not gel together well as d bod of work. Mercury Records passed on the option of releasing an album but kept the tapes in its vaults for more than Uo decades before releasing a Smile EP in Japan only, to satiate the demand for its curio value to Queen fans.

Smile with laudable fortitude resolved to find a niche as a live band. They were each notable players with an undoubted stage presence and their audiences were growing larger, albeit only by a handful at each London show. The were taken on by the Rondo booking agency in Kensington High Street which had successfully established Genesis on the live scene. Tim Staffell had done some graphics work on tickets and posters and Rondo was pleased to reciprocate with the occasional gig.

Mercury Records had still not completely jettisoned Smile, and at the end of 1969 they staged a showcase concert at the Marquee club in Wardour Street. They were the main support to Kippmgton Lodge, the forerunner of Brinsley Schwartz, and an early foray onto the music scene for Nick Lowe. Smile’s thirty minute performance was tight and accomplished, but the audience was impervious. The night was intended to galvanise Smile’s career, but although unspoken at the time it was an early catalyst in their pending dissolution.

Brian May vas enjoying markedly better fortune with his academic career. By the autumn of 1969 he was absorbed in his second year of post graduate studies concentrating solely on astro-physics. Before his second tear he had been invited to join a research laboratory based at Jodrell Bank, Cheshire, run by Professor Sir Bernard Lovell. It was quite an honour since onl ten students each year were asked to do either a one-year MSc or three-year PhD course at the centre. Brian rejected the offer because he wanted to study zodiacal light under Professor Jim Ring at Imperial College. The astronomical equipment which had previously been used by Brian and his colleagues in Switzerland was moved to Tenerife, on the slopes of Mount Teide, the extinct volcano which forms the Island. The students lazed in the sun, swam in the sea, and still found time to write two papers based on their research which were published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

By February 1970, with Brian May spending weeks out of the country studying in Tenerife, it was apparent that, for Tim Staffell at least. Smile had run its course. Although he was later to be portrayed as foolhardy, or at the very least unnecessarily impulsive, Tim Staffell’s decision to leave Brian May and Roger Taylor was made with a cool and considered heart and mind. He did, after all, leave Smile, not Queen. Smile were a solid rock group in a floundering, ill-conceived record deal, with few friends in the music business. The machinery and personnel which would later propel Queen to stardom had barely started to fall into place. Their only real resource was the natural but raw talent of its future players, namely Brian May. Roger Taylor and, on the sidelines, their mutual friend Freddie Bulsara. This talent, of course, was later nurtured and goaded, and then promoted and sold, but no one was selling Smile, not with any intent.

In elementary terms, Tim Staffell, like thousands of musicians before and since, started to believe, quite simply, that he was in the wrong group. Through friends at college he had been introduced to black American soul music and the standard rock and blues approach of Smile suddenly seemed bland and predictable. He had also become aware of the bass and drums as a rhythm section in its own right, and the creativity of rhythm in soul music appeared limitless. «I was beginning to get a rather jaundiced view of the music we were doing and my own approach to what I was playing on the bass,» he said «It caused this sense of tension within me and I was not enjoying the direction in which we were moving. I heard James Brown and thought, ‘God!’ and I was drifting away from the way English bands had always made music. I was trying to assimilate that music but I had no proper bass technique. Basically, I had changed musical tracks completely.».

He attended several auditions while he was still a member of Smile before announcing to the other two that he was leaving. “Roger and Brian might have thought, ‘This bastard has let us down’, but I don t recall it that way,” he insists. «I’m the type of person who usually feels guilty about things like that but I don t remember feeling that way when I left Smile. They must have accepted my reasons I had my own agenda by that poin.t I was heading towards something I really wanted to do I really had the feeling that I was going from strength to strength”.

Tim Staffell did not believe he had left a group on the cusp of stardom, or one with even a good chance of it. While he felt their music had certain qualities, he was sceptical about their chances of success. They each worked together well, but missed a pragmatic element. “We really liked playing and didn t really stop to think it through,” he said. “It needed something external. We were a little self- indulgent in a way.” The missing factor as he realised later, was, Freddie Bulsara. He brought with him an image («I am a blue jeans, hole in the knee, heads down musician,” - Tim Staffell); a master plan a hardness (with a soft centre); and a self- absorption: Brian May and Roger Taylor might otherwise have skirted around the edges of triumph for ever, components of a band a notch or two above mediocrity.

The legacy of music left behind by Smile, however should not be quickly dismissed. The handful of songs captured on tape have endured surprisingly well. In fact, many fans are incredulous as to why the Smile EP has never been given a proper global release. Mercury Records would be within its rights to do so, and would obviously garner extensive sales; some have speculated that clandestine manoeuvres have seen the material dismembered from the pre Queen catalogue. The tracks were under produced and digressive; but teemed with promise. Elements which were later brilliantly realised by Queen were already present- the unique sweeping vocal harmonies, the bold dynamics, and the polished impudence. It is difficult, for example, not to regard a track like ‘Step On Me’ as the natural precursor to ‘Killer Queen’ or ‘Blag’ to ‘Brighton Rock’; they are at least cousins.

Of most poignancy is the similarity in the vocal style of Tim Staffell and Freddie Mercury. Clearly any clique of friends with music as its touchstone will rouse some (subliminal or otherwise) stylistic mannerism, but anyone who considers Freddie’s operatically-tinged voice unique should listen closely to Tim Staffell’s vocal inflexion. The May/Staffell song ‘Doing Alright1 was included on Queen’s first album and Freddie used Slaffell’s vocal dynamics on the track as a direct template for his own.

For some time after the release of the first Queen album, several of Tim Staffell’s friends asked whether he had contributed some of the vocals. «We were all In the same peer group, so there might have been some copying, but my hackles rise at the suggestion that 1 might have borrowed from Freddie,» he says. «I was always very aware of what 1 was doing with my voice and how I sung.» Regardless of any dissent over similarity of technique, it is apparent that if Freddie was to provide the foreground to the outfit which became Queen, the background had already been colourfully painted by Smile. Tim Staffell, incidentally, has had remuneration for his part-contribution to ‘Doing All Right’; down the years he estimates he has received up to £20,000 in royalties. There has never been any question of Queen eschewing their financial obligations to him.

Tim Staffell joined Humpy Bong, a group formed by Colin Petersen, the drummer who had played on the first six albums by The Bee Gees. Petersen had been a television star in Australia during his childhood when he played the mischievous scamp, ‘Smilie’. Humpy Bong was basically a front for the management aspirations of Petersen and his wife. They hand-picked the group and attempted to shape it into a bubbly hit machine. Their atrocious name was taken from an Australian town, allegedly one of the first to be discovered on the Australasia sub-continent. Within a month or so of leaving Smile, Staffell appeared on Top Of The Pops to mime to the band’s one and only single. ‘Don’t You Be Too Long’. Though Tim Staffell must have been unaware at the time. Humpy Bong were even further away from the music he really wanted to make. Their lively but superficial honky-tonk pop was a good deal more indistinct than Smile’s and the band fell apart Within a few months.

Tim Staffell later played with the English folk singer Jonathan Kelly, whom he considered the largest single influence on his life. They had been initially brought together by Petersen in Humpy Bong. After another appearance on Top Of The Pops, his work with Kelly came to an abrupt end when Kelly left music to become a Jehovah’s Witness. Staffell moved on to Morgan, a quartet led by former Mott The Hoople organist Morgan Fisher, which recorded for RCA in the mid-Seventies, playing what he describes as: ‘keyboard based, strange, contrived music.’ He finally left music in the late Seventies to concentrate on a flourishing business as a freelance animator and model maker.

Tim Staffell has always slept easily on his decision to opt out of his collaboration with Brian May and Roger Taylor. «I have never regretted it.» he said. «I have regretted not being a musician, but not leaving Smile. It was good that I got out of the way because otherwise Queen would not have existed and the world would have lost a whole bunch ofquahty music. Smile wouldn’t have done it.».

Mercury Records was left with a band that had lost its singer and main songwriter and whose guitarist was living sporadically out of the country, so it was no surprise that Smile were released officially from their contract in the spring of 1970; this had already happened in practical terms a few months earlier.

Date: 2015-02-16; view: 918