A Day At The Races - A Self Made Masterpiece

[Kes]

And IIRC, he was a producer for the British gangster movie 'Love, Honour and Obey'.

Back to the Hey Jude piano ... no, it was not used for Killer Queen. KQ was chiefly recorded at Wessex, which at the time had another Bechstein, a brown one (you can see Frederick miming on it for the 'Somebody to Love' promo), which was slightly smaller. Queen mainly used four Bechstein pianos, all different:

- The black one at Trident, the Hey Jude one: Everything on the début album, most (but not all) of the second album, Now I'm Here and the demo of the National Anthem.

- The brown one at Wessex (1974 - 1976): Killer Queen, Lily of the Valley, Dear Friends, Leroy Brown, Lap of the Gods (the non-revisited one), You and I and Teo Torriatte. It's also on the video for Somebody to Love.

- The white one they rented from Jacques Samuel's on Edgware Road: Some legendary concerts (Marquee Club, Hammersmith Odeon, Hyde Park), a couple of videos (Bo Rhap, Best Friend) and the Ridge Farm 1975 rehearsals (presumably the '76 ones as well). It's also assumed they did most (not necessarily all) of 'Opera' with it and a large part of 'Races' as well (Freddie's songs - which they tracked at The Manor which probably had no house piano back then).

- A black one at Super Bear in France... probably not used for any recording (they'd already done the backing tracks in Switzerland, on Fred's Steinway), just to play around and perhaps for Fred to give himself the key when overdubbing vocals or working out harmonies.

Studio-wise, these are their albums:

- 1971 Demos: Music Centre.
- Queen & Queen II: Trident.
- Sheer Heart Attack: Rockfield first, then Wessex, then AIR, then Wessex again, and mixing at Trident.
- Opera: Ridge Farm for rehearsals, then Rockfield, then loads of studios in London, final touches at Sarm. Anthem at Trident back in '74. KYA re-make at Sarm.
- Races: Ridge Farm for rehearsals, then The Manor, then a few studios in London, final touches at Sarm and Wessex.
- News: First sessions at Basing Street (so, possibly, most piano parts were there, on the Steinway) and most overdubs and mixing at Wessex.
- Jazz: First Mountain (using Fred's Steinway) then Super Bear.
- The Game: Musicland (piano was a Yamaha).
- Flash: Demos at Musicland, then a few studios in London and one in Denham for the orchestra.
- Hot Space: First Musicland, then Mountain, then a long break and then Musicland. Some overdubs in New York.
- The Works: First Record Plant and then Musicland. Pianos were Yamahas at both locations.
- A Kind of Magic: The OST stuff was chiefly at The Town House. Otherwise mostly Mountain for Maylor and Musicland for Jeddie. Also some overdubs at Maison Rouge (as Kes said) plus, potentially, Sarm West. Orchestra at EMI on Abbey Road.
- The Miracle: Mostly The Town House, but also Mountain and Olympic.
- Innuendo: Alternate sessions at Mountain and Metropolis. 'All God's People' presumably comes from The Town House.
- Made in Heaven: 1991 sessions at Mountain. Then, from 1993, in rough chronological order: Abbey Road, then Metropolis, Cosford Mill, Allerton Hill, then Metropolis again, then both home studios simultaneously and then The Town House for the tail end.

[Kes]

Never actually been in Trident at St Anne's Court, but seeing the layout from outside, I'd gather that the studio lives in the basement under the walkway you pass on the outside of the place, as it's full of those little opaque tiles for letting the light in, much like you often see in underground toilets. The upstairs of the place doesn't really look big enough to house offices and a recording space. Don't know for sure though.

Yeah, been there a number of times as well, but as far as I know the studio doesn't exist anymore.

[Kes]

Dunno about that. I last went there about a year ago, and I think it was still a "going concern" then. I also must have walked past the place a couple of weeks after Bowie died, but was amazed that there wasn't any flowers or anything marking the significance of the location to him.

http://www.tridentaudiopost.com

Back in the time of Queen recording there, they also had all the gear for cutting pressing masters of the records for mass printing, and acetates. So for a relatively small place, they must have used their space well.