Bee Gees
FORMED: 1958, Brisbane, Australia
No popular music act of the '60s, '70s,'80s, or '90s has experienced more
ups and downs in its popularity, or attracted a more varied audience across
the decades than the Bee Gees. Beginning in the mid- to late '60s as a Beatlesque
ensemble, they quickly developed as songwriters in their own right and style,
perfecting in the process a progressive pop sound all their own. Then, after
hitting a trough in their popularity in the early '70s, they reinvented themselves
as perhaps the most successful white soul act of all time during the disco
era. Their popularity faded with the passing of disco's appeal, but the Bee
Gees have since made a successful comeback in virtually every corner of the
globe. What has remained a constant through their history is their extraordinary
singing, rooted in three voices that are appealing individually and comprise
so perfectly and naturally by melding together that they make such acts as
the Beatles, the Everly Brothers, and Simon & Garfunkel -- all noted
for their harmonies -- almost seem arch and artificial.
The group was also rock's most successful brother act. Barry Gibb, born on
September 1, 1946, in Manchester, England, and his fraternal twin brothers
Robin Gibb and Maurice Gibb, born on December 22, 1949, on the Isle of Man,
were three of five children of Hugh Gibb, a bandleader, and Barbara Gibb,
a former singer. The three of them gravitated toward music very early on,
encouraged by their father, who reportedly saw his sons at first as a diminutive
version of the Mills Brothers, a '30s and '40s black American harmony group.
The three Gibb brothers made their earliest performances between shows at
local movie theaters in Manchester in 1955. Though they had been singing
together at home, their intention had been merely to mime to records as a
novelty entertainment act, but when the records got broken, they went on,
really sang, and got a rousing response from the delighted audience. They
performed under a variety of names, including the Blue Cats and (reportedly)
the Rattlesnakes, and for a time, fell under the influence of England's skiffle
king, Lonnie Donegan, and proto-rock & roller Tommy Steele.
Their early lives were interrupted when the family moved to Australia in
1958, resettling in Brisbane. The trio, known as the Brothers Gibb -- with
Barry writing songs by then -- continued performing at talent shows and attracted
the attention of a local DJ, Bill Gates, which led to an extended engagement
at the Beachcomber Nightclub. They eventually got their own local television
show in Brisbane and it was around this time that they took on the name the
Bee Gees (for Brothers Gibb). In 1962, they landed their first recording
contract with the Festival Records label in Australia, debuting with the
single "Three Kisses of Love." The trio was astoundingly popular among the
press and on television, and performed to very enthusiastic audience response.
They eventually released an LP, The Bee Gees Sing and Play 14 Barry Gibb
Songs, but actual hit records eluded them in Australia. They were witness
during 1963 and 1964 to the explosion of British beat music half a world
away with the success of the Beatles, whose harmony-based approach to rock
& roll and reliance on original songs only encouraged the three Gibb
brothers to keep pushing in those directions.
By late 1966, however, they'd decided to stop trying to conquer the Australian
music world, or to reach the rest of the world from Australia, and return
to England, which, thanks to the Beatles was now the center of rock and popular
music for the whole world. It was while on the boat, in mid-ocean, that the
Gibb family learned that the Bee Gees had finally topped the charts back
in Australia with their final release, "Spicks and Specks." Just as the Seekers
before them had done on leaving Australia, the group had sent demo recordings
to England ahead of them and "Spicks and Specks" had attracted the interest
of Robert Stigwood, an associate of Brian Epstein. The trio was signed by
Stigwood to a five-year contract upon their arrival, and they began shaping
their sound anew in the environment of Swinging London in 1967. Barry Gibb
and Robin Gibb alternated the lead vocal spot, harmonizing together and with
Maurice Gibb. Barry played rhythm guitar as well while Maurice, in addition
to his backing vocal spot, was the triple-threat musician in the core lineup,
playing bass, piano, organ, and Mellotron, among other instruments. The brothers
soon expanded the group with the addition of guitarist Vince Melouney and
drummer Colin Petersen, whose presence turned them into a fully functional
performing group. Their first English recording, "New York Mining Disaster
1941," released in mid-1967, made the Top 20 in England and America and established
a pattern for the group's work for the next two years. As an original by
the group, it had a haunting melody and a strange lyric; it wasn't so much
psychedelic (though it could pass for psychedelia in a pop vein) as it was
surreal. They had successful follow-ups with "Holiday" and "To Love Somebody."
Robert Stigwood arranged for Polydor to release the Bee Gees' records in
England and Europe, and for Atlantic Records to issue their work in America.
Atlantic had missed out on the entire British Invasion and now they had a
group whose music resembled that of the Beatles at their most accessible.
The Bee Gees' records had gorgeous melodies and arrangements and were steeped
in romantic yet complex lyrics, many of them containing a strangely downbeat
mood that no one seemed to mind. One curious offshoot of their appeal was
that Stigwood was able to convince Atlantic Records, as part of the deal
for the Bee Gees, to accept and release the recordings of a relatively unknown
trio called Cream. At the time, Eric Clapton was not much more than a cult
figure in the United States, more "rumor" than star (his recordings with
the Yardbirds had never even appeared in America with his name mentioned
on them), but Atlantic -- which recorded Disraeli Gears -- helped change
that, selling millions of records in the bargain.
The Bee Gees single "Massachusetts" was a chart-topper in England and launched
the group on their first wave of stardom. Their music was made even more
attractive by the fact that their albums were unusually well put together.
Reflecting the influence of the Beatles, a lot of attention was lavished
on the group's LP tracks rather than relying on the presence of a hit or
two to justify their existence. Bee Gees 1st, cut in early 1967, had its
weaker spots, but not a throwaway track on it, while Horizontal and Idea
were strong LPs filled with beautiful and unusual songs and lush arrangements
(courtesy of conductor Bill Shepherd), all carefully recorded, mixing electric
instruments and orchestra. What made their work even more impressive was
that after Bee Gees 1st, which was produced by their Australian friend Ossie
Byrne, the three Gibb brothers took over producing their own records; even
more surprising, as is now known from various bootleg releases of live performances
of the period, the group -- with Melouney and Petersen in the lineup -- was
also able to do their music note-perfect, with spot-on vocals while on-stage,
something that the Beatles had never even attempted seriously with their
post-1965 efforts.
The group enjoyed two major hits in 1968, "I Started a Joke" and "I Gotta
Get a Message to You," both from Idea. During this period, it was easy, in
listening to (and luxuriating in) the group's singles, with their lush singing
and production. Whatever they out seemed to work, including the delightful
psychedelic pop ode "Barker of the UFO," a B-side that is a spot-on perfect
example of late '60s English "freak-beat," hardly a genre on which the Bee
Gees are commonly thought to have contributed. It was easy, amid the sheer
beauty of their records, to overlook the range of their influences that went
into their sound -- the Bee Gees may have been making pop/rock, but their
underlying sounds came from a multitude of sources, including American country
music and soul music. Indeed, one of the group's biggest hits, "To Love Somebody,"
had been written for Otis Redding to record, but the Stax/Volt singing legend
didn't live long enough to record it himself. At this point in their history,
they were most comfortable deconstructing elements in the singing and harmonies
of black American music and rebuilding them in their style, as the Beatles
had done with the music of the Shirelles and various Motown acts.
It was in 1969 when the trio lost all the momentum they'd built up, ironically
over a dispute involving their most ambitious recording to date. They'd just
finished a double-LP set, called Odessa, a lushly orchestrated, heavily overdubbed,
and thoroughly haunting body of music. The seven-minute-long title track
was filled with eerie images and ideas and gorgeous choruses around a haunting
lead performance and it was only the jumping-off point for the album. The
brothers, however, were unable to agree on which song was to be the single
and in the resulting dispute, Robin decided to part company with Barry and
Maurice. They held on to the Bee Gees name for one LP, Cucumber Castle, while
Robin released the album Robin's Reign, on which he was producer, arranger,
and songwriter, and sang all of the parts himself.
Eventually, even Barry and Maurice Gibb parted company. Melouney had left
at the outset of the Odessa sessions and Petersen left the two-man group
behind a few days into Cucumber Castle, though not without a good deal of
legal squabbling. The drummer, in a bizarre twist, at one point filed a lawsuit
claiming that he owned the Bee Gees name. Without a group to tour behind
or even make television appearances promoting it, the Odessa album never
sold the way it might have, even with a hit coming off of it in the form
of "First of May." Cucumber Castle was at least peripherally connected to
a British television special of the same name -- sort of the Bee Gees' better
(and funnier) answer to the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour movie -- and generated
several singles that were successful in England and/or Germany, including
the reggae-influenced "I.O.I.O." and "Don't Forget to Remember." Ironically,
even during a period with their music partnership in tatters, the Gibb brothers
were writing and recording profoundly beautiful songs -- Robin Gibb's "Saved
By the Bell," with its lush, ornate multi-layered vocals, justifiably topped
the British charts; and the two-man Bee Gees B-side "Sun in My Morning" was
one of the prettiest songs ever issued by the group.
In 1970, they finally decided to try and re-form. Almost two years older
and a good deal wiser, they related to each other better and had also evolved
musically out of pop-psychedelia and into a kind of pop-progressive rock
sound, similar to the Moody Blues of the same era but with better singing
and more attractive songs. They came back on a high note with two dazzling
songs: "Lonely Days," the group's first number one hit in America and their
first gold record in the United States. The other was "Morning of My Life,"
a song originally known as "In the Morning," originally authored by Barry
Gibb; included on the soundtrack to the movie Melody, it proved so popular
with fans that the group was still doing it in concert several years later.
They enjoyed another huge international success with "How Can You Mend a
Broken Heart" in 1971, but the accompanying album, Trafalgar, was lacking
some of the variety of sounds that had made their earlier LPs so interesting.
Moreover, it and the 2 Years On LP that preceded it never reached higher
than the mid-30s on the American charts (and never charted in England at
all), a considerable fall off from their '60s albums' sales. In 1972, the
group had another Top 20 hit with "Run to Me," but their album that year,
To Whom It May Concern, was forgotten almost instantly after a brief run
to number 35.
There was a sense that they were losing ground, particularly as the music
world was increasingly defined by albums and driven by album sales. Pop/rock
was developing around them in new and harder directions and the trio's Beatlesque
harmonies and Paul McCartney-like melodies were starting to run a little
thin at the source. Their 1973 album Life in a Tin Can and the accompanying
single, "Saw a New Morning," which were used to launch the new RSO Records
label, marked a change in the group's base of operations from England to
America. Despite a heavy promotional tour, however, the single never made
the Top 40 and the album stalled after climbing to the mid-60s.
When their proposed next album, tentatively titled A Kick in the Head (Is
Worth Eight in the Pants), was rejected by Stigwood, the trio knew they were
in a deep creative and commercial hole. Rescue came in the form of a suggestion
by their RSO labelmate, Eric Clapton, that they try recording at the studio
where he'd just cut 461 Ocean Boulevard, at Criteria Studios in Miami, FL.
Stigwood agreed and the Bee Gees came back in 1974 with Mr. Natural, produced
by Arif Mardin. This record was a departure for them with its heavily Americanized,
R&B-flavored sound. The album didn't even sell as well as Life in a Tin
Can and it yielded no hits, but it got better reviews and it pointed in a
direction that seemed promising. It also seemed to free up the brothers'
thinking about the kinds of songs they could do.
The next year, with Mardin again producing, they plunged head-first into
the new sound with Main Course. This was the beginning of the Bee Gees' second
(or third, if you count their Australian period) era. The emphasis was now
on dance rhythms, high harmonies, and a funk beat. They had a new band in
place, with Alan Kendall on lead guitar, Dennis Byron at the drums, and Blue
Weaver on keyboards, but spearheading the new sound was Barry Gibb who, for
the first time, sang falsetto and discovered that he could delight audiences
in that register. "Jive Talkin'," the first single off the album, became
their second American number one single, but it was a long way from Lonely
Days" in style. It was followed up with the hit "Nights on Broadway" and
then the album Children of the World, which yielded the hits "You Should
Be Dancing" and "Love So Right." In the midst of this string of new hits,
the group released their first concert LP, Bee Gees Live, which gingerly
walked a line between their old and new hits.
Then in 1977, coming off of their recent success, the group was approached
about contributing to the soundtrack of a forthcoming movie, called Saturday
Night Fever. Their featured numbers -- "Stayin' Alive," "How Deep Is Your
Love," and "Night Fever" -- each made number one on the charts and the album
stayed in the top spot for 24 weeks, even as the film broke existing box
office records. In the process, the disco era was born -- or more properly,
re-born -- it had already taken root in Europe, where it had become passé,
and in the black and gay subcultures in America as well, but there it had
stalled out. Saturday Night Fever, as an album and a film, supercharged the
phenomenon and broadened its audience to tens of millions of middle-class
and working-class white listeners, with the Bee Gees at the forefront of
the music.
Suddenly, they were outstripping the sales that the Beatles had enjoyed with
their records in the 1960s, and were even eclipsing Paul McCartney's multi-platinum
'70s-era popularity. It was a profound moment, joining the ranks of their
one-time idols in the highest reaches of music success, if not musical or
social significance. They could (and did) fill arenas across the country
with their new fans, although some of their older admirers -- who were admittedly
a minority in the context of the tens of millions of record sales they were
enjoying in the mid-'70s -- resented the group's new sound and the disco
era that it embodied.
Ironically, there wasn't that much difference in the group between the two
eras. Apart from Barry Gibb's falsetto, the voices were the same and as good
as ever, and they had a superb band and all of the production resources that
a recording act could want. And amid the dance numbers, the group still did
a healthy portion of romantic ballads that each offered a high "haunt" count
and memorable hooks. They'd simply decided, at Arif Mardin's urging, to forget
the fact that they were white Englishmen -- or the reticence that went with
it -- and plunged head-first into soul music, emulating, in their own terms,
the funkier Philadelphia soul sounds that all three brothers knew and loved.
Luckily for them, they had the voices, the band, and the songwriting skills
to do it convincingly, so much so that by 1977, the Bee Gees were getting
played on black radio stations that were normally unwilling to run any white
acts. What's more, "Nights on Broadway" or "Love So Right" were no less beautiful
songs or records than, say, "Melody Fair" or "First of May," and if one accepted
Dennis Byron's and Maurice Gibb's driving beat on "You Should Be Dancing,"
it was impossible not to be impressed with the vocal acrobatics and the sheer
panache of the song. In one fell swoop, the group had managed to meld every
influence they'd ever embraced, from the Mills Brothers and the Beatles and
early-'70s soul, into something of their own that was virtually irresistible.
The worldwide sales of the 1979 Spirits Having Flown album topped 30 million
and was accompanied by three more number one singles in "Tragedy," "Too Much
Heaven," and "Love You Inside Out." As a side-light to the group's success,
a fourth Gibb brother, Andy Gibb, was enjoying massive chart success during
this same period as a singer, working in a slightly lighter-textured dance
vein.
By the end of the '70s, however, the disco era was on the wane, from a combination
of the bad economy, political chaos domestically and around the world (leading
to the election of Ronald Reagan), and a general burn-out of the participants
from too many drugs and profligate sex (which would precipitate an epidemic
of sexually transmitted diseases and herald the outbreak of AIDS in the United
States). There had already been an ad-hoc reaction against the group's dominance
of the airwaves with mass burnings of Bee Gees posters and albums at public
forums spurred on by DJs and ordinary listeners weary of the dance hits by
the group that seemed to soar effortlessly to the top of the charts; meanwhile,
some radio stations began looking askance at new releases by the group after
1979. The group itself helped contribute to the end of the party with their
own excesses, in particular their participation (at Stigwood's insistence)
in the film Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, "inspired" (if that's
the word) by the Beatles' album and songs. The movie was a box office and
critical disaster and an embarrassment to all concerned; the accompanying
soundtrack LP was a $1.99 cut-out only six months after its 1978 release,
lingering in bargain bins and warehouses for years afterward.
In 1981, the group's new LP, Living Eyes, was recorded after an extended
lay-off in the wake of four years of hard work, but didn't even make the
Top 40. Suddenly, with the disco era over and out of favor, the Bee Gees
couldn't even get arrested and were being shunned for the excesses that it
represented. The most tragic of all was the fate of Andy Gibb. The older
Gibb brothers had, at various times, struggled with personal demons such
as alcohol and drug use, but the youngest sibling fell very hard when the
'70s ended, eventually losing his life in 1988, five days after his 30th
birthday at the end of a horrendous downward personal spiral. In America,
the Bee Gees were virtually invisible as recording artists for most of the
'80s. Instead, Barry Gibb pursued work as a producer for other artists, creating
hits for Barbra Streisand and Diana Ross, among others; the Bee Gees had
songs on the soundtrack to Stayin' Alive, the tepid sequel to Saturday Night
Fever, but they were no longer taken seriously by the music press.
They made their first attempt at a comeback in 1987 with E.S.P., an album
that got favorable reviews and sold well in every corner of the globe except
the United States, yielding a number one single (outside of the U.S.) in
"You Win Again." A new album in 1989, One, got a good reception around the
world and even generated a Top Ten U.S. single in the form of its title track.
Polygram Records, which had bought out the RSO Records catalog, struggled
long and hard over the release of Tales From the Brothers Gibb, a boxed set
anthology that was really aimed more at the international market rather than
the United States, although it has sold well enough to remain in print in
America. High Civilization (1991) and Size Isn't Everything (1993) attracted
somewhat less attention, but their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame in 1997 led to the release of Still Waters. In 1998, they issued
the second live album in their history, One Night Only, cut at their first
concert appearance in America in almost a decade, at the MGM Grand Hotel.
In 2000, they participated in the making of the biographical video, This
Is Where I Came In, which covered their whole history, and an accompanying
album of the same name. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide