The Bee Gees – From the begining

The Bee Gees 

Are known to most of the public as the three brothers:

Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb.

The oldest, Barry Gibb, was born on September 1, 1946, on the Isle of Mann, between Great Britain and Ireland. Fraternal twins Robin and Maurice followed on December 22, 1949.

The boys undoubtedly inherited some musical DNA from their parents: Dad Hugh was a drummer and a bandleader, then putting his talents to use at a series of hotels on the island, and mom Barbara was known to be a gifted singer.

However, the Bee Gees was origionaly formed in 1958 with the three brothers and extra members: Vince Melouney,Colin Petersen and Geoff Bridgford.

They were discovered singing at Australia’s Redcliffe Speedway

By 1959, Barry was earning pocket change by selling sodas during races at Redcliffe Speedway. Eventually, he reeled Robin and Maurice into the business, his guitar and their combined vocals drawing a crowd of would-be customers.

It also drew the attention of Redcliffe Speedway owner Bill Goode, who invited the boys to sing over the PA system, and a popular Brisbane DJ named Bill Gates. The two Bills coined the group name “The BGs,” after their own initials, while Gates took it from there by playing their recordings at his station and assuming the role of promoter.

The trio began performing at outdoor exhibitions and cast a wider net by appearing on TV shows like Anything Goes and Cottie’s Happy Hour. At one point, they even enjoyed their own Friday night showcase, The BGs Half Hour.

Their career clearly ascendant, Hugh finally devoted himself to managing The BGs on a full-time basis. Along with grooming their appearances and stage mannerisms, he often provided a professional element by joining the boys on stage to play drums.

Australian pop star Col Joye brought the Bee Gees into the big time

By September 1962, the BGs were enjoying a residency at the Beachcombers Hotel in the tourist area of Surfers Paradise when they learned that Australian pop star Col Joye was passing through town.

Depending on the account, either Barry or Hugh convinced the hitmaker to hear the group sing. Floored by their soaring harmonies, Joye promised to take the boys under his wing if they moved to Sydney, ground zero for the music industry Down Under.

The Gibbs held up their end of the bargain and Joye held up his, finagling a spot for The BGs as an opening act for a Chubby Checker tour. Joye also helped secure a recording contract through the Leedon subsidiary of Festival Records (owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited).

On March 22, 1963, Leedon released the first single by the group re-stylized as The Bee Gees, “The Battle of the Blue and the Grey.” Although it charted modestly, the song marked an important early step for a band that would go on to find international stardom through a range of genres and eras, en route to acclaim as one of the great survivors of popular music.

 

Before their departure from Australia to England, Hugh Gibb sent demos to Brian Epstein, who managed the Beatles and directed NEMS, a British music store. Epstein passed the demo tapes to Robert Stigwood, who had recently joined NEMS.

After an audition with Stigwood in February 1967, the Bee Gees signed a five-year contract whereby Polydor Records would release their records in the UK, and Atco Records would do so in the US. Work quickly began on the group’s first international album, and Stigwood launched a promotional campaign to coincide with its release.

Stigwood proclaimed that the Bee Gees were “The most significant new musical talent of 1967”, thus initiating the comparison of the Bee Gees to the Beatles.

The parent album, Bee Gees 1st (their first internationally), peaked at No. 7 in the US and No. 8 in the UK. Bill Shepherd was credited as the arranger. After recording that album, the group recorded their first BBC session at the Playhouse Theatre, Northumberland Avenue, in London, with Bill Bebb as the producer, and they performed three songs.

Following that , the released several more songs such as:

“words,  Mar 17, 1968 performing on the Ed Sullivan Show.

“I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You”, their second UK No. 1 /No. 8 US.

The first of many Bee Gees compilations, Best of Bee Gees, was released featuring the non-LP single “Words” plus the Australian hit “Spicks and Specks”. The single “Tomorrow Tomorrow” was also released and was a moderate hit in the UK, where it reached No. 23, but it was only No. 54 in the US. The compilation reached the top 10 in both the UK and the US.

While Robin pursued his solo career, Barry, Maurice and Petersen continued on as the Bee Gees recording their next album, Cucumber Castle. The band made their debut performance without Robin at Talk of the Town. They had recruited their sister, Lesley, into the group at this time. To accompany the album, they also filmed a TV special which aired on the BBC in 1971. Petersen played drums on the tracks recorded for the album but was fired from the group after filming began (he went on to form the Humpy Bong with Jonathan Kelly). His parts were edited out of the final cut of the film and Pentangle drummer Terry Cox was recruited to complete the recording of songs for the album.

After the album was released in early 1970, it seemed that the Bee Gees were finished. The leadoff single, “Don’t Forget to Remember”, was a big hit in the UK, reaching No. 2, but only reached No. 73 in the US. The next two singles, “I.O.I.O.” and “If I Only Had My Mind on Something Else”, barely scraped the charts. On 1 December 1969, Barry and Maurice parted ways professionally.

Maurice started to record his first solo album, The Loner, which was not released. Meanwhile, he released the single “Railroad” and starred in the West End musical Sing a Rude Song. In February 1970, Barry recorded a solo album which never saw official release either, although “I’ll Kiss Your Memory” was released as a single backed by “This Time” without much interest. Meanwhile, Robin saw success in Europe with his No. 2 hit “Saved by the Bell” and the album Robin’s Reign.

Saturday Night Fever

Fםllowing a successful live album, Here at Last… Bee Gees… Live, the Bee Gees agreed with Stigwood to participate in the creation of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. It would be the turning point of their career. The cultural impact of both the film and the soundtrack was seismic throughout the world, prolonging the disco scene’s mainstream appeal.

The band’s involvement in the film did not begin until post-production. As John Travolta asserted, “The Bee Gees weren’t even involved in the movie in the beginning … I was dancing to Stevie Wonder and Boz Scaggs.” Producer Robert Stigwood commissioned the Bee Gees to create the songs for the film. The brothers wrote the songs “virtually in a single weekend” at Château d’Hérouville studio in France. Barry Gibb remembered the reaction when Stigwood and music supervisor Bill Oakes arrived and listened to the demos:

They flipped out and said these will be great. We still had no concept of the movie, except some kind of rough script that they’d brought with them. … You’ve got to remember, we were fairly dead in the water at that point, 1975, somewhere in that zone—the Bee Gees’ sound was basically tired. We needed something new. We hadn’t had a hit record in about three years. So we felt, Oh Jeez, that’s it. That’s our life span, like most groups in the late ’60s. So, we had to find something. We didn’t know what was going to happen.

Bill Oakes, who supervised the soundtrack, asserts that Saturday Night Fever did not begin the disco craze but rather prolonged it: “Disco had run its course. These days, Fever is credited with kicking off the whole disco thing—it really didn’t. Truth is, it breathed new life into a genre that was actually dying.”

Three Bee Gees singles—”How Deep Is Your Love” (US No. 1, UK No. 3), “Stayin’ Alive” (US No. 1, UK No. 4) and “Night Fever” (US No. 1, UK No. 1)—charted high in many countries around the world, launching the most popular period of the disco era.They also penned the song “If I Can’t Have You”, which became a US No. 1 hit for Yvonne Elliman, while the Bee Gees’ own version was the B-side of “Stayin’ Alive”. Such was the popularity of Saturday Night Fever that two different versions of the song “More Than a Woman” received airplay, one by the Bee Gees, which was relegated to an album track, and another by Tavares, which was the hit.

During a nine-month period beginning in the Christmas season of 1977, seven songs written by the brothers held the No. 1 position on the US charts for 27 of 37 consecutive weeks: three of their own releases, two for brother Andy Gibb, the Yvonne Elliman single, and “Grease”, performed by Frankie Valli.

Fuelled by the film’s success, the soundtrack broke multiple industry records, becoming the highest-selling album in recording history to that point. With more than 40 million copies sold, Saturday Night Fever is among music’s top five best selling soundtrack albums. As of 2010, it is calculated as the fourth highest-selling album worldwide.

In March 1978, the Bee Gees held the top two positions on the US charts with “Night Fever” and “Stayin’ Alive”, the first time this had happened since the Beatles. On the US Billboard Hot 100 chart for 25 March 1978, five songs written by the Gibbs were in the US top 10 at the same time: “Night Fever”, “Stayin’ Alive”, “If I Can’t Have You”, “Emotion” and “Love Is Thicker Than Water”. Such chart dominance had not been seen since April 1964, when the Beatles had all five of the top five American singles. Barry Gibb became the only songwriter to have four consecutive number-one hits in the US, breaking the John Lennon and Paul McCartney 1964 record. These songs were “Stayin’ Alive”, “Love Is Thicker Than Water”, “Night Fever” and “If I Can’t Have You

During 1980-1990:

Robin co-produced Jimmy Ruffin’s Sunrise released in May 1980, but the songs were started in 1979; the album contains songs written by the Gibb brothers.

In March 1980, Barry Gibb worked with Barbra Streisand on her album Guilty. He co-produced, and wrote or co-wrote all nine of the album’s tracks (four of them written with Robin, and the title track with both Robin and Maurice). Barry also appeared on the album’s cover with Streisand and duetted with her on two tracks

The album reached No. 1 in both the US and the UK, as did the single “Woman in Love” (written by Barry and Robin), becoming Streisand’s most successful single and album to date. Both of the Streisand/Gibb duets, “Guilty” and “What Kind of Fool”, also reached the US Top 10.

Also, Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers recorded the Bee Gees-penned track “Islands in the Stream”, which became a US and Australian No. 1 hit and entered the Top 10 in the UK. Rogers’ 1983 album, Eyes That See in the Dark, was written entirely by the Bee Gees and co-produced by Barry. The album was a Top 10 hit in the US and was certified Double Platinum.

August 1983, Barry signed a solo deal with MCA Records and spent much of late 1983 and 1984 writing songs for this first solo effort, Now Voyager. Robin released three solo albums in the 1980s, How Old Are You?, Secret Agent and Walls Have Eyes. Maurice released his second single to date, “Hold Her in Your Hand”, the first one having been released in 1970.

In 1985, Diana Ross released the album Eaten Alive, written by the Bee Gees, with the title track co-written with Michael Jackson (who also performed on the track). The album was again co-produced by Barry Gibb, and the single “Chain Reaction” gave Ross a UK and Australian No. 1 hit.

On 10 March 1988, younger brother Andy Gibb died, aged 30, as a result of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle due to a recent viral infection. The Bee Gees later got together with Eric Clapton to create a group called ‘the Bunburys’ to raise money for English charities. The group recorded three songs for The Bunbury Tails: “We’re the Bunburys”, “Bunbury Afternoon”, and “Fight (No Matter How Long)”. The last song reached No. 8 on the rock music chart and appeared on The 1988 Summer Olympics Album. The Bee Gees’ next album, One (1989), featured a song dedicated to Andy, “Wish You Were Here”. The album also contained their first US Top 10 hit (No. 7) in a decade, “One” (an Adult Contemporary No. 1). After the album’s release, the band embarked on its first world tour in 10 years.

In the UK, Polydor issued a single-disc hits collection from Tales called The Very Best of the Bee Gees, which contained their biggest UK hits. The album became one of their best-selling albums in that country, and was eventually certified Triple Platinum.

Following their next album, High Civilization (1991), which contained the UK top five hit “Secret Love”, the Bee Gees went on a European tour. After the tour, Barry Gibb began to battle a serious back problem, which required surgery. In addition, he suffered from arthritis which, at one point, was so severe that it was doubtful that he would be able to play guitar for much longer. Also, in the early 1990s, Maurice Gibb finally sought treatment for his alcoholism, which he had battled for many years with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous.

In 1993, the group returned to the Polydor label and released the album Size Isn’t Everything, which contained the UK top five hit “For Whom the Bell Tolls”. Success still eluded them in the US, however, as the first single released, “Paying the Price of Love”, only managed to reach No. 74 on the Billboard Hot 100, while the parent album stalled at No. 153.

In 1997, they released the album Still Waters, which sold over four million copies and reached No. 2 in the UK (their highest album chart position there since 1979) and No. 11 in the US. The album’s first single, “Alone”, gave them another UK Top 5 hit and a top 30 hit in the US. Still Waters would be the band’s most successful US release of their post-RSO era.

At the 1997 BRIT Awards held in Earls Court, London on 24 February, the Bee Gees received the award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. On 14 November 1997, the Bee Gees performed a live concert in Las Vegas called One Night Only. The show included a performance of “Our Love (Don’t Throw It All Away)” synchronised with a vocal by their deceased brother Andy and a cameo appearance by Celine Dion singing “Immortality”. The CD of the performance sold over 5 million copies. The “One Night Only” name grew out of the band’s declaration that, due to Barry’s health issues, the Las Vegas show was to be the final live performance of their career. After the immensely positive audience response to the Vegas concert, Barry decided to continue despite the pain, and the concert expanded into their last full-blown world tour of “One Night Only” concerts.The tour included playing to 56,000 people at London’s Wembley Stadium on 5 September 1998 and concluded in the newly built Olympic Stadium in Sydney, Australia on 27 March 1999 to 72,000 people.

The Bee Gees closed the century with what turned out to be their last full-sized concert, known as BG2K, on 31 December 1999.

Albums and awards:

Studio albums

• The Bee Gees Sing and Play 14 Barry Gibb Songs (1965)
• Spicks and Specks (1966)
• Bee Gees’ 1st (1967)
• Horizontal (1968)
• Idea (1968)
• Odessa (1969)
• Cucumber Castle (1970)
• 2 Years On (1970)
• Trafalgar (1971)
• To Whom It May Concern (1972)
• Life in a Tin Can (1973)
• Mr. Natural (1974)
• Main Course (1975)
• Children of the World (1976)
• Spirits Having Flown (1979)
• Living Eyes (1981)
• E.S.P. (1987)
• One (1989)
• High Civilization (1991)
• Size Isn’t Everything (1993)
• Still Waters (1997)
• This Is Where I Came In (2001)