When the language comes to “The Show Must Go On”, the grand final chord between Queen and Freddie Mercury, Curt Cress has to swallow.

"It runs down my spine as cold as ice - still," says the 69-year-old musician who once drummed for Mercury.

"I'll soon be turning around the corner now", I'll soon be out of sight.

“But my smile still stays on”, but my smile will stay on.

These are moving lines of text that the bustling Queen singer was able to sing months before his death.

The song was released as a single in October 1991. A month later, on November 24th, Mercury died of complications from his AIDS illness.

Martin Benninghoff

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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It was 30 years ago this November.

A small eternity that still didn't manage to let the music of Queen and Freddie Mercury fall into oblivion.

The rest of the band will take care of that, especially the most important estate administrators: Brian May, the guitarist, and drummer Roger Taylor.

They keep the legend Queen alive in a musical way, often to the displeasure of puristic fans.

And it is the unparalleled song catalog that has grown over decades and on which the Hessian drummer Curt Cress from the Main-Kinzig district was allowed to participate.

At least for a few days in a Munich recording studio.

Human drum machine

In the mid-1980s, Cress featured on Mercury's solo album “Mr. Bad Guy ”played the drums. The disc was a flop by Queen standards, but songs like “Made in Heaven”, “I Was Born To Love You” or “Living On My Own” survived. The German Reinhold Mack, who had produced Queen albums such as “The Game” or “Hot Space”, also took on this project.

The goal was clear: Mercury wanted to sound more poppy and electronic, more operatic and less like the singer of a rock band with heavyness, who has to assert himself against the broad guitar walls and the polyphonic solos of Brian May.

The producer hired Curt Cress from Hessen, who at the time was considered a human drum machine: precise and reliable.

“The connection with Mercury was instantly warm,” recalls Cress of his first encounter with the superstar.

But on the eponymous demo song “Mr.

Bad Guy ”, which the Zanzibar-born Brit had brought into the studio, could still be heard from Queen drummer Taylor.

Cress was intimidated: "You don't expect me to delete that and play on it," said Cress, reminiscent of that time.

"Yes, we can't do a Queen album," said Mercury, who had booked Mack's studio for several months.

"But we have to call Roger and ask," asked Cress.

He had no problem with it, but Cress is still not convinced: “He sounded better than me.

You cannot replace a Roger Taylor. "

The drummer Cress, who was born in Schlierbach in the municipality of Brachttal in Hesse, was one of the hip studio and live drummers at the time - later he became a multi-million dollar music producer and also arranger of television tunes such as “Wetten dass ..?”.

His drum tracks are immortalized on classics of German and international pop history such as Rio Reiser's solo album "Rio I." with "King of Germany" or "Junimond".

For Falco's second solo album "Junge Römer", producer Robert Ponger had already engaged Cress in 1984.

The Hessian went on tour with the eccentric Austrian, including to Japan.

With the Queen singer, however, it stayed with the studio work, probably also because the album flopped.

Cress sees parallels between Falco and Mercury: “They were both incredibly rhythmic singers.” And they were both exalted anyway, because they played in a league.

"When I was on the drums in the studio and Freddie behind the mixer, there were those typical Mercury gestures," recalls Cress.

Arms in the air, head up, fist clenched.

"He was always really happy about the music, was totally into it - and also showed it," he says.

"The guy had an incredible aura!"

Distance to the coke-contaminated party hell

His drummer can only confirm that the singer loved Munich: "When he strolled with us through the Viktualienmarkt with a Tengelmann bag under his arm and in his white sleeveless shirt, everyone left him alone," says Cress.

"He felt free there." The rest was done by the party environment and the illustrious court with whom Mercury surrounded himself, for example the exuberant actress Barbara Valentin, in whose apartment he temporarily lived.