Queen legend Brian May has spoken of his “regret” at “slipping out of touch with producer Roy Thomas Baker who worked on Bohemian Rhapsody with Queen as he paid tribute after his death at the age of 78. The news was confirmed by his publicist in a statement but no cause of death was given. He died on April 12 but the news was only made public. “I regret slipping out of touch latterly with Roy. I suppose life moves at such a pace these days that we imagine there will be plenty of time to rekindle a friendship, and then suddenly one day it’s too late,” the 77-year-old guitar icon wrote on Instagram as part of a bigger tribute.
He posted a series of stereoscopic images taken when he and then wife Chrissy Mullens visited Roy and his wife in 1973 and captioned it: “Very sad to hear of the passing of Roy Thomas Baker. Roy played a huge part in the production of so much Queen music in the early days. Photographs of Roy seem to be quite rare, but I was able to find these 3-D pictures of a trip that my then wife Chrissy and I made to visit Roy and his wife Barbara in their cottage in Norfolk. It must have been 1973.
“We went strawberry picking, and, as you can see, Roy was interested in the stereoscopic process, posing in a pile of wood for stereoscopic effect!
“I took the tennis picture at Ridge Farm, on a day when we were visited by some Japanese journalists from *Music Life* magazine.
“Roy was a part of our production team from the very beginning up to and including the album ‘A night at the Opera’. We then parted company for ‘A Day at the Races’, but reunited for the ‘Jazz’ album.
“Roy’s production contribution along with Mike Stone’s engineering for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ will never be forgotten,” he wrote.
“I regret slipping out of touch latterly with Roy. I suppose life moves at such a pace these days that we imagine there will be plenty of time to rekindle a friendship, and then suddenly one day it’s too late.
“Thank you, Roy for all the great work you did for us, and all the fun we had. Rest in Peace. Bri,” he signed off.
Outside of Queen Roy enjoyed a long career working with artists such as Ozzy Osbourne, David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, Free, Journey, The Cars, Yes and the Smashing Pumpkins.
However he was best known for his work helping to produce Queen’s nearly six-minute-long opus Bohemian Rhapsody. In a 2005 interview with The New York Times Roy had opened up about Bohemian Rhapsody saying the song was “ageless” because “it didn’t confine to any given genre of music.”
“I thought it was going to be a hit. We didn’t know it was going to be quite that big. I didn’t realise it was still going to be talked about 30 years later,” he said.