Barry Mitchell, the legendary bass guitarist who was Queen’s second bassist for six months from August 1970 to January 1971 before they hit stardom, has passed away.
The band’s official archivist, Greg Brooks, confirmed the sad news in a Facebook post.
Alongside a black and white photo of Barry from his time with the band in 1970, he wrote, “Terribly sad news just received that early Queen bass player, Barry Mitchell, has passed away. His anecdotes at the convention were fascinating and offered rare insight. He will be greatly missed.”
Before the iconic group finalised their line-up with John Deacon on bass, joining singer Freddie Mercury, drummer Roger Taylor and guitarist Brian May, they had three other bass players – Mike Grose, Barry and Doug Bogie. Barry had previously been part of a band called Conviction before being recommended to Roger Taylor for Queen.
In a 2018 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, he reminisced: “…We played quite a few concerts in England, notably in Liverpool. Since we didn’t have enough original songs to last a whole show and Freddie loved classic rock & roll, we played that too.”
As per The Express, he performed 13 gigs with the band before leaving and on his departure, he joked, “They fired me because they thought I was useless,” but then clarified, “In fact, it was me who wasn’t enthusiastic enough about their music. This didn’t necessarily go in the direction I wanted to go.”
After parting ways with Queen, he left the music industry entirely before making a comeback in the 1990s with the band Jayne Raydio, alongside members Steve Ray, Frank Carter, and Darren Claxton.
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