Do you love the sound of a trombone? I do, and my wife does. However, for some folks, trombones are the most beautiful music in the world. For a guy named Christopher Bill and a bunch of his friends, trombones are a way of life. When Christopher and all of his trombone playing friends were at the International Trombone Festival in 2018, they decided to tackle something extraordinary: Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” In the resulting video, there were 27 people playing the song and it was a glorious performance. But first, how much do you know about the song “Bohemian Rhapsody,” really?
The song was released in 1975 on Queen’s “A Night at the Opera” album. A six-minute song, music industry professionals couldn’t believe Queen was bold enough to release such a long song, but we’re sure glad they did. It has become the band’s most popular song and has appeared in countless pools calling it one of the greatest songs in music history. In fact, Queen frontman Freddie Mercury’s vocal performance in the song was chosen as the best in rock history by Rolling Stone readers. As of December 2018, “Bohemian Rhapsody” became the 20th century’s most-streamed song. As far as digital downloads, it has been downloaded or streamed more than 1.6 billion times.
More fascinating is the back story of the song’s history. According to a friend of Freddie Mercury, Freddie started developing the song in the late 1960s, and played parts of songs he was writing for his friends. He had loosely named this song “The Cowboy Song,” if you can believe it. It’s because the lyrics contained the words “Mama, just killed a man.” Thankfully, they changed the name. When producer Roy Thomas Baker remembered when he first heard it, he said that Freddie once played for him the opening ballad section in Mercury’s apartment, on the piano.
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Below, enjoy these 27 trombone players giving it their all for one of the greatest songs ever written.
