The 20th Century Files Wiki
Register
Advertisement
John Deacon

John Deacon (born August 19, 1951) is an English retired musician, best known for being the bass guitarist for the rock band Queen. He composed several singles for the group—including Top 10 hits "You're My Best Friend", "Another One Bites the Dust", "Back Chat", and "I Want to Break Free".

Deacon joined Queen in 1971 on the strength of his musical and electronic skills, particularly the home-made Deacy Amp which guitarist Brian May used to create guitar orchestras throughout Queen's career. From the third album, Sheer Heart Attack, onwards, he wrote at least one song per album, several of which became hits. As well as bass, Deacon played some guitar and keyboards on Queen's studio work, but was the only member never to sing on their records.

By the mid-1980s, Deacon had started to play with other bands as well. He performed on the single "Picking Up Sound" by Man Friday & Jive Junior, a supergroup also featuring Thin Lizzy's Scott Gorham, Bad Company's Simon Kirke and Mick Ralphs, and The Pretenders' Martin Chambers, and played with The Immortals, which released the track "No Turning Back" as part of the soundtrack to the film Biggles: Adventures in Time. Deacon played bass on Mercury's single with Montserrat Caballe "How Can I Go On" and also worked with Elton John and Hot Chocolate's Errol Brown.

Following frontman Freddie Mercury's death in 1991, and the following year's Tribute Concert, Deacon only performed a few times with the remaining members of Queen before retiring from the music industry in 1997 after recording "No-One but You (Only the Good Die Young)". He has not performed on any of the other projects that the other two surviving members, May and Roger Taylor, have put together.

Wikipedia

Advertisement