JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Top40 Charts/ Hollywood Records) - It has not been that closely a guarded secret that rock legends
Queen and Paul Rodgers have been in the recording studio for their first sessions together following their successful world tour of 2005/2006. Indeed, both singer/songwriter and founding member of Free/Bad Company Paul Rodgers and Brian May have been quoted on their websites as being "quietly excited" about the music that has been produced from this creative union.
Spurred on by their commitments as Ambassadors to Nelson Mandela's 46664 HIV AIDS global campaign, on which the spotlight will fall December 1 with a World AIDS Day awareness and fundraising concert in Johannesburg, South Africa, Brian May, Roger Taylor and Paul Rodgers have announced they are rushing to finish a track specially written for 46664 by Roger Taylor and have it available as a free download in time for this coming Saturday's AIDS HIV benefit concert.
The track, Taylor's "Say It's Not True", originally came to light for the launch of the 46664 campaign back in November 2003. Taylor wrote the song as a gift to Mandela and performed it live for him for the first time with Brian May and Dave Stewart at the inaugural 46664 concert in Cape Town that month. The song carries the message that HIV AIDS is something that can affect any one of us no matter our sexual or racial status.
Taylor performed an acoustic version of the song again nightly during the Queen + Paul Rodgers' 2005 tour, each time dedicating it to Mandela's work to bring people and politicians together to fight HIV AIDS.
Having played two previous 46664 concerts, but committed in the studio this year, Queen and Paul Rodgers decided to revisit the song, with all three of them sharing the vocals, and to make the song the band's message of support to Mandela this year.
"By making the song available for free", says Taylor, "we hope to help Nelson Mandela with his campaign to get across the message that no-one is safe from infection. We have to be aware, we have to protect ourselves and those we love. The song follows the line of Mr. Mandela's personal message: it's in our own hands to bring a stop to this."
Queen's last new studio recording was back in November 1997 when May, Taylor and band's bassist John Deacon reunited to record "No-One But You" a song written by Brian May which was shaped by the early loss of the late Freddie Mercury to AIDS. The song was the last new work to be released by the band, issued as a single in January 1998.
A video of "Say It's Not True" will be premiered during this Saturday's 46664 Johannesburg World AIDS Day concert and the track available to download exclusively on https://www.queenonline.com and through https://www.46664.com https://www.46664global.com and https://www.paulrodgers.com on World AIDS Day, December 1.
