Bohemian Rhapsody / A Night at the Opera Timelines

The thing about Bo Rhap is that there are so many different and often contradicting stories. The 1995 SOS article, which seems to be regarded as *the* holy grail when it comes to info about it, claims (IIRC) that sessions began on the 24th of August 1975 at Rockfield.

I strongly suspect that's not the case: they had some rehearsals at the Ridge Farm (around June/July, most likely), which would mean they just had a month of literally doing 'nothing' from rehearsals to recordings.

Freddie's then-boyfriend said in his book that he witnessed a rough mix of Bo Rhap being played to him and a friend on a Friday before a bank holiday weekend in late August ... the only bank holiday around that time was summer bank holiday, which that year was on the 25th of August ... which means their encounter (which took place at Roundhouse Studios) was on Friday the 22nd and, by then, a lot of the song had already been done (to the point he was ready to play it to other people).

A recent Fred biography (Laura Jackson's IIRC) claims Jill Sinclair interrupted the mixing sessions for Bo Rhap (at SARM) by turning the power off to sing Happy Birthday to Freddie, which puts the date on or around the 5th of September. It makes sense if they were mixing it roughly a month and a half before the single was released, as it'd give EMI and Elektra time to master, press, pack and distribute the vinyl.

There's no way around it: either the SOS article's wrong/inaccurate about that, or Minn's recollection is wrong, or the birthday story's a lie, or a combination of some/all/none of the above.

As much as SOS's a respected source, the article's got several mistakes already: 'Scorpion Studios' anyone? It also claims the first three Queen albums were recorded on 16-track (SHA wasn't), it claims Kenny Everett played the song fourteen times on his programme (he did it four times, no teen), it claims NOTW was a Marx Brothers' title (it wasn't) and it claims part of Bo Rhap was done at Wessex (it wasn't - the studio was undergoing refurbishment), so one more inaccurate claim wouldn't be a big surprise.

My theory, and there's still a lot I need in order to make it a serious claim, is that sessions began either in late July or in early August, giving them more than enough time to deliver the mixed single to EMI in early September and secure a late October release.

BTW, about that Kenny Everett thing ... does anybody know the exact date of Kenny first broadcasting Bo Rhap? If it really was before the single was released and if it really was a rough mix, then there's a collectors' holy grail that some people *should* have, unless of course nobody bothered recording from the radio.