"Love of My Life" - Marc Martel and Queen (The Max Mix)

When Queen's “Killer Queen” came out in 1974 (before anyone had heard of Queen), I paid little attention. It had interesting vocals, but I wrote it off as just another pop hit.

When “A Night at the Opera” was released a year later, it caught everyone's attention, including mine. “Bohemian Rhapsody” was the chart topper from that album, and suddenly everyone knew who Queen was.

The follow-up album, “A Day at the Races,” was good, but pretty much more of the same. What was starting to stand out in Queen's music were the layers and layers of guitar and vocal dubbing, and over-the-top production gimmicks. I began to lose interest.

When I saw Queen perform live, it was obvious that this rock band consisting of guitar, bass, drums, and a singer could not possibly perform live what they had recorded in the studio. That, to me, was total failure. That Queen concert was the most disappointing concert I'd ever seen, even to this day. Half of “Bohemian Rhapsody” was a recorded track – the band didn't even appear on stage until four minutes into the song! What a huge letdown.

Still, I can't deny the above-average talents of Queen, particularly guitarist Brian May and front man Freddie Mercury.

One memorable song from “Night at the Opera” was the ballad “Love of My Life” written by Mercury. The song featured Mercury on lead vocals, as usual, and on piano. Other instruments included guitars and a harp (May), and a few unobtrusive bass lines (John Deacon). Drums (Roger Taylor) are virtually non-existent, appropriate for the ballad.

Not long ago, I stumbled across a nice recording of “Love of My Life” by a “Canadian Christian rock musician” named Marc Martel. Martel sings and plays piano in the recording, and his talent is extraordinary. But having grown up with the original recording, it's just not complete without May's guitar work, and the backing vocals, as contrived as they may be. And that harp – you can't do this song without the harp!

So I took the instruments from Queen's original recording and added them to Martel's recording. This, for me, was a challenge because neither Queen nor Martel used a click track, and Martel plays with more of a free-form style. Synchronizing the various parts was not easy; I actually had to speed up or slow down each Queen clip in order to match Martel's varying tempo. Also, some Queen segments were hideously out of tune, so I had to make corrections for those parts.

I then added my (almost) finished audio track back onto the Martel video, and this video is what I ended up with. Not 100% happy with it, but enough so that I could move on to something else.

I'm not sure how Martel would feel about this mix. His recording was a near-perfect performance. But I think Queen would be pleased with Martel's exceptional voice and, of course, their own work.

For me, it was a way to kill time.

Onward.