The Bee Gees, part 1

Today's story is about three brothers who defined the disco era. Long before that, they gave us some of the most beautiful ballads of the late 60s-early 70s. Even after the disco fad had faded, they would continue to pen great songs that would become hits for themselves, as well as for others. We are, of course, talking about Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb.

The Gibb brothers were born on the Isle of Man. (By the way, I know that people from the Isle of Man will probably read this. My greetings to you!) Barry was born on 1 September 1946 and the twins Robin and Maurice were born on 22 December 1949. They had English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry, an older sister, Lesley, and a younger brother, Andy, born on 5 March 1958. Their father, Hugh, had little work. By night he was a drummer in a band and by day he did a variety of low-paid jobs, while their mother stayed at home looking after the children.

In the early 1950s, the Gibbs moved to Manchester, England. In 1955, Barry formed the skiffle group, The Rattlesnakes. Consisted of himself on vocals and guitar, Robin and Maurice on vocals and friends/neighbors Paul Frost and Kenny Horrocks also providing vocals. Otherwise, the boys were rather naughty, occasionally getting in trouble with the law.

At the beginning of August 1958, with Andy still an infant, the Gibb family set sail for Australia from Southampton on a ship called Fairsea. In 1959, the brothers began singing at the Redcliffe Speedway between races to earn money, their vocal talent brought them to the attention of Bill Gates, a radio deejay. Gates was also interested in Barry's original material including Let Me Love You and (Underneath the) Starlight of Love. After hearing those songs, Gates asked him for more original material for the tape. Barry quit school in September 1961 and the Gibbs moved to Surfers Paradise. The brothers spent the summer of 1961 and 1962 performing at hotels and clubs in the Gold Coast area. The Gibb family finally moved to Sydney at the start of 1963.

This is their earliest TV appearance, in 1960. Barry was not yet 14 and the twins were 10-years-old! Their teeth were natural then, before those shiny white caps...

Around the same time, the Bee Gees were signed to Festival Records but they were assigned to the Leedon label. Their first single, The Battle of the Blue and the Grey was written by Barry himself. Here are the incredibly young Bee Gees with The Battle of the Blue and the Grey. It scraped the bottom of the Australian top 100 (#98), in 1963.

This is their shot at the Beatles:

... And here, they give Dylan a try:

A few months later, their second single, Timber!, did slightly better (#75):

In 1964, their cover of the Vogues' Turn Around, Look at Me only made #94:

Their first sizeable hit came in 1965; Wine and Women peaked at #19 (we're still talking about the Australian chart):

Their next single, I Was A Lover, A Leader Of Men failed to duplicate the success of the previous single; it only managed to peak at #85 in Australia:

The first Australian album, The Bee Gees Sing and Play 14 Barry Gibb Songs, was released in November 1965 but failed to chart. Two more failed singles came and went - and then the Bee Gees had their first breakthrough hit: Spicks And Specks not only hit #5 in Australia, it also hit the top of the charts in New Zealand, #2 in the Netherlands, and #28 in Germany. Written by Barry Gibb, this scorcher from 1966 shows off the Bee Gees’ dynamic control, as the song gradually builds to a snare drum’s steady march, recalling the occasionally martial rhythms of Roy Orbison’s ballads. Modulating upward in tone, the song builds tension incrementally, giving Robin space to go full soul singer. When the song finally explodes into Technicolor at the final refrain we feel a healing catharsis peculiar to pop music. The bouncing, propulsive energy of this song is more rock n’ roll than much of the Bee Gees’ early catalog and it gives a hint of the historic hit-making potential the band had coming in the following decade. The Gibb brothers were children no more.

You don't normally think of Barry as a bluesman, but their next single, Born a Man, makes it seem like he spent a weekend studying his Stones records and decided to turn into Mick Jagger – his most rocking moment. There's also a touch of the Yardbirds here. The song is interesting, but the public didn't like this change of style - the single only charted in Australia and even there, not higher than #86:

Both singles were included on the band's second Australian album, Spicks and Specks, released in November 1966. Second Hand People is also on this album. A notably Liverpudlian accent, hard to avoid for many a band from this era, comes through on this brief little ditty. The song is a laid-back celebration of not giving a shit: “We’re not living, just existing, / We’re not moving, just resisting.” But the chorus’ oddly phrased image of “treacle in a pond” suggests that when you go with the flow you might actually be disappearing into the current.

Their next single, New York Mining Disaster 1941, was a true classic; the Bee Gees' breakthrough hit defined their early style of emotional ballads, with Barry and Robin locking their voices in two-part harmony. This song invented the template for David Bowie's early career – his classic Space Oddity was basically a Bee Gees tribute. Fun fact: there was no New York mining disaster in 1941. According to the liner notes for their box-set Tales from the Brothers Gibb (1990), this song was inspired by the 1966 Aberfan mining disaster in Wales. According to Robin, there actually had also been a mining disaster in New York in 1939, but not in 1941.

The song's narrative is from the perspective of a man searching for a loved one in the wake of a landslide. The speaker addresses one person in particular that he picks out from the chaos, repeatedly asking him: “Have you seen my wife, Mr. Jones?” The act of naming a fictional character to whom the lyrics are being communicated - a trope of 1960s pop - is effective because it eschews broad generalizations in favor of a specific, intimate interaction. A lyric like “I keep straining my ears to hear a sound. / Maybe someone is digging underground / Or have they given up and all gone home to bed / Thinking those who once existed must be dead,” is chilling because it isn’t just the singer who is saying such a desperate phrase out loud. It’s the character, too. When he shows Mr. Jones “a photograph of someone that I knew” we realize that we are seeing a mental snapshot thanks to the Gibbs’ expert storytelling.

The song introduced the Gibb brothers to the major markets. It peaked at #3 in the Netherlands and New Zealand, #10 in Germany, #11 in Australia, #12 in the UK, #14 in the US, #34 in Canada, and #36 in France:

Even the B-side, I Can't See Nobody, with lead vocals by Robin, was a great song:

Their next single consolidated their newfound fame: To Love Somebody is a slow-burning, heavy soul ballad originally conceived for Otis Redding, who died before he could record it. The song captures the band’s reverence for Stax and ease with rock n’ roll songwriting.

The stellar recording of To Love Somebody is notable, too, for some of the best arrangements of their early period: the French horns of the first verse give way to the dual flutes in the second and it all leads to a climactic brass hook. The single peaked at #6 in Australia, #8 in Belgium, #9 in Canada and the Netherlands, #17 in the US, #19 in Germany, #41 in the UK, and #65 in France:

To Love Somebody was recorded by hundreds of artists, from Dusty Springfield to Leonard Cohen. Gram Parsons of The Flying Burrito Brothers makes this a hippie country-soul heartbreaker.

Janis Joplin gives the song a hard rock edge:

Their first international album was released in the summer of 1967 and was simply titled Bee Gees' 1st. It was met with great critical praise and was quite a hit (#2 France, #4 Germany, #5 Norway, #7 US, #8 UK, #10 Australia). All songs were written by the three brothers, a practice that would apply to almost every album they recorded since then. New York Mining Disaster 1941, I Can't See Nobody, and To Love Somebody were all included on the album, as well as their next single, Holiday, a #3 hit in Canada and the Netherlands, as well as #16 in the US.

This is the 1960s Bee Gees at their absolute best. It's daring, tense and paradoxical music sung in a precise, highly controlled manner. We get the sense of a love poem being written under duress as the Gibbs brothers' amazing vocal performances cloak the chorus in a shadow of fear. On the other hand, the verses, set in a dense harmonic field, hint at the celebration usually associated with a "Holiday." The song suggests a lover who can give the speaker a break from his usual self. But to enjoy the holiday he must become the "puppet [who] makes you smile." The Bee Gees excel at transforming frustration and alienation into blissful, musical escapism.

Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You is also found on this album. A vocal refrain that echoes Gregorian chants alternates with a fuzzy rock number and the two strictly separate modes somehow complement one another perfectly, combining for a spooky psychedelic flourish. This superb song was released as the flip side to the similarly haunted and conflicted Holiday. Paired together with New York Mining Disaster 1941 the tracks epitomize the band's progressive bent during this visionary period.

Craise Finton Kirk Royal Academy of Arts closes the first side of the album. Featuring only piano and voice, the song stands in stark contrast to the rest of the album.

Close Another Door, the B-side of To Love Somebody is another standout track from this album. The song concerns aging and an old man in a nursing home, a subject theoretically far removed from the thoughts of the young and famous brothers:

In February 1968, Horizontal was released. Another big hit, it was #1 in Germany and Italy, #2 in France, #7 in Norway, #8 in Australia, #12 in the US, and #16 in the UK. The album's first single, Massachusetts, was their biggest hit to date. It hit the top of the charts in most major markets (UK, Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan, South Africa, Sweden, Norway, and New Zealand), it was #2 in Canada Australia, Ireland, Denmark, and Switzerland, #4 in France, and #5 in Italy. In the US, it only just missed the top 10 (#11). It eventually became one of the best-selling singles of all time, selling over five million copies worldwide. It's an elegant, acoustic strumming folk-rock anthem first intended for The Seekers. When the brothers wrote the song, they had never been to Massachusetts but loved the sound of the word.

The next single from this album was World; a #1 hit in Germany and the Netherlands - and a top 10 hit in most of Europe. Not a hit in the US and Canada, but prized by Gibb cultists, with one of Barry's spookiest vocals. World (not to be confused with their later hit My World) has crashing piano, psychedelic guitar, and Mellotron, plus a lunatic-asylum lyric worthy of Syd Barrett.

And the Sun Will Shine was released as a single in France and peaked at a lowly #66. It is a fabulous song nonetheless:

In the same year, former Manfred Mann frontman Paul Jones recorded the song and released his version as a single. With Paul McCartney on drums, Jeff Beck on guitar, Paul Samwell-Smith of The Yardbirds on bass and Nicky Hopkins on keyboards, it was produced by Peter Asher, formerly of Peter and Gordon. All this star-power and it wasn't a hit record!

Jose Feliciano covered this song and was released in August 1969. The Feliciano version ranked 25th in UK Hit Parade.

The B-side of the Bee Gees' single, also an album track, was Really and Sincerely. A mournful accordion sets a cinematic tone for a song that centers on an ecstatic, counterintuitive appeal: "Turn me down." The band was ahead of its time in pairing bummer sentiments with aural pleasure, a mark of their unique talent well ahead of the dancing-my-despair-away mentality of their coming disco wave.

Another lovely album track was Birdie Told Me. Barry recalls "Birdie Told Me is something I think I brought in, really about love on the rebound. Obviously, the person has lost the one he loves, and she's telling him it's going to be alright. A pretty song."

Words, a non-album single, was released in January 1968. The song reached #1 in Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. It peaked at #8 in the UK and #15 in the US - and was a top 20 hit all over the world, from Belgium to Japan and from Chile to Australia.

It was originally written by the Bee Gees for Cliff Richard, but the brothers decided to record it themselves. Barry sings the lead vocal. Robin Gibb remembers: "'Words' reflects a mood, It was written after an argument. Barry had been arguing with someone, I had been arguing with someone, and happened to be in the same mood. [The arguments were] about absolutely nothing. They were just words. That is what the song is all about; words can make you happy or words can make you sad."

Rita Coolidge's version peaked at #25 in the UK in 1978:

Boyzone's version peaked at #1 in the UK and Ireland in 1996:

Jumbo was also a non-album single and peaked at #2 in the Netherlands:

The B-side, The Singer Sang his Song was more memorable:

The boys' next single was I've Gotta Get a Message to You. Robin Gibb wrote the lyrics to this poignant song about a wife trying to get a message to her condemned husband awaiting execution. The song’s three-part harmony is excellent. In September of 1968, it became the band’s second #1 single in the UK and their first in Ireland. It reached #8 in the US and was a top 10 hit in most of Europe.

The song was also included in the North American and South African version of their new album, Idea, released in September 1968. I Started a Joke was also on this album, but wasn't released as a single in the UK, which was a pity since it was a big hit everywhere else (#1 in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, #3 in the Netherlands, #5 in Switzerland, and #6 in the US).

This classic tune is one of the best and most beloved of the band’s early years because it captures their melancholic, self-dramatizing beauty in a masterful display. The lyrics follow a formal scheme, but also manage to evoke a sense of tender vulnerability. Whatever the speaker tries to do, the opposite tends to happen: "I started a joke that started the whole world crying … I started to cry which started the whole world laughing." The pattern leads to a sweeping, grandiose final verse in which he discovers that when he "finally died [it] started the whole world living." The verses are punctuated by a chorus that triumphantly voices a sense of total failure and disappointment. Despite that contrast, Robin sings boldly without a touch of irony, giving the macabre message a confessional setting. The blissful posthumous voice of this tune manages to turn our attention from its words of death and despair to its feeling of life and beauty.

Scottish singer Lulu was going out with Maurice Gibb at the time and sang a few Bee Gees tunes herself. I Started a Joke was one of them:

Kilburn Towers was the B-side to I Started a Joke and also appeared on Idea:

Also on this album, Let There Be Love, a song written by Barry about his then-girlfriend and soon-to-be wife. It was a #16 hit single in the Netherlands:

Their next album, Odessa, was released in March 1969. It was a double LP and was the band's most critically acclaimed. The album's single was a great song called First of May. It was another #1 for them in the Netherlands and a big hit everywhere else. The title of the song came from the birthday of Barry's dog, Barnaby. Maurice recalled the session in which that song came about. "Barry and I were sitting at the piano", he said, "And I started playing the chords, and Barry started singing, 'When I was small and Christmas trees were tall' and started singing along with it. We put a demo down with a vocal and we kept the piano track. Went back to England, and went into IBC Studios in London, added onto that piano track and Barry's vocal stayed on as well. We had a choir and an orchestra all on this one piano".

Patty Pravo recorded the song in Italian as Un Giorno Come Un Altro:

Marley Purt Drive was a country-flavored song:

Puerto Rican Jose Feliciano had a good and successful cover version:

Melody Fair also appeared on the film Melody, starring Mark Lester and Jack Wild, the young stars of Oliver!:

The title of I Laugh In Your Face sounds like a Ramones song, and indeed there is a cutting note of defiance in this song’s message, but the arrangements couldn’t be further from punk. Strings and choir voices blend in a massive harmonic onslaught that is one of Odessa’s high points. “The circus is coming to see you” is one of the scariest opening lines of a song ever, at least the way these guys say it, but don’t worry: laughing out of fear is the early Bee Gees’ sweet spot.

In Black Diamond, Robin lets out one of his most stirring performances with a reverberant tremolo wail that lends weight to this relatively straight-ahead rocker from their offbeat epic Odessa. The nautical imagery that runs through the record is enhanced in this song by a scene that recalls Odysseus’ return from Troy. A weighty keyboard arrangement creates a timeless feeling and leads to an abbreviated valediction: “say goodbye to Auld Lang Syne.” The total effect makes for a standout moment from the band’s most ambitious early work.

Speaking of Robin, he had left the group for a while in 1969, following a disagreement with his brother Barry over who should sing lead vocals. He released an album called Robin's Reign, which was not a commercial success, though it did spawn Robin's solo hit, Saved by the Bell (UK #2). It's a favorite of mine:

This album also contained August October, a #3 hit in Denmark:

Tomorrow Tomorrow was originally intended to be recorded by Joe Cocker. It was the first Bee Gees single released after Robin had quit the group. It was a top 10 hit all over continental Europe, but it made less of an impact in the UK (#23), Australia (#28), and the US (#54).

Their first Robin-less album, Cucumber Castle, was released in April 1970. All in all, it was rather a commercial failure, especially in the US, where it peaked at #94. The lead single, however, Don't Forget To Remember, was a big hit: #1 in the Netherlands, Ireland, and New Zealand, #2 in the UK and Switzerland, and #3 in Belgium. Ironically, it was a flop in the US (#73), even though it was their most "American sounding" song to date; it was a bona fide 1970s country ballad.

If Only I Had My Mind on Something Else was a flop everywhere; it only charted in Canada (#52) and the US (#91):

I.O.I.O. did a bit better; it made #2 in Austria and #6 in Germany. Still, it was a flop in America and Britain.

Bury Me Down By the River was a good album track; P.P. Arnold appears on backing vocals:

After the failure of their career without Robin, the mood was forlorn; on 1 December 1969, Barry and Maurice parted ways professionally. They both attempted to record solo albums, which weren't even released. They each released a single, but it came and went without a trace.

In the summer of 1970, according to Barry, "Robin rang me in Spain where I was on holiday [saying] 'let's do it again'". By 21 August 1970, after they had reunited, Barry announced that the Bee Gees "are there and they will never, ever part again". Maurice said, "We just discussed it and re-formed. We want to apologize publicly to Robin for the things that have been said." Earlier in June 1970, Robin and Maurice recorded a dozen songs before Barry joined and included two songs that were on their reunion album. That album, 2 Years On, was released in November 1970 and did much better, commercially, than its predecessor: it sold 375,000 copies worldwide and the album's Beatlesque single, Lonely Days, was a Canadian chart-topper, as well as a #3 hit in the US and the Netherlands.

The single's B-side, Man For All Seasons, also an album track, is worth a listen as well:

Their next album, Trafalgar (1971), was a moderate hit in the United States and peaked at #34. The lead single, How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?, was the first Bee Gees' #1 single in the US, but failed to chart in Britain, as did the album.

Don't Wanna Live Inside Myself was a good song, but a minor hit:

Israel only charted in the Netherlands (#22):

To Whom It May Concern, released in October 1972, was the follow-up album, and continued the melancholic and personal sound of its predecessor. The album was recognized as "a farewell to the old Bee Gees" as the album marked the end of an era for the group in several ways: it was their last album to be recorded at IBC Studios, in London, their last with conductor and arranger Bill Shepherd who had guided them since 1967, and their last under their first contract with Robert Stigwood.

Run To Me was the lead single and produced some of the best harmonies from the brothers. It reached #3 in Australia and New Zealand, #6 in Canada, #7 in Ireland,  #9 in the UK and #16 in the US:

Alive's best chart position was in the Netherlands (#15):

Then came Life in a Tin Can, released in January 1973. The Bee Gees moved from England to Los Angeles to record it. However, it was unable to prevent a commercial decline, with the album criticised for a lack of innovation. its lead-off single, Saw a New Morning, sold poorly, with the single peaking at #94 in the US.

This was followed by an unreleased album (known as A Kick in the Head Is Worth Eight in the Pants). On the advice of Ahmet Ertegün, head of their US label Atlantic Records, Stigwood arranged for the group to record with soul music producer Arif Mardin. The resulting LP, Mr. Natural (1974), included fewer ballads and foreshadowed the R&B direction of the rest of their career. The title track made #11 in Australia:

Throw a Penny was also a single but failed to chart:

Finally, Dogs is a good album track:

When it, too, failed to attract much interest, Mardin encouraged them to work within the soul music style. The brothers attempted to assemble a live stage band that could replicate their studio sound. Then, at Eric Clapton's suggestion, the brothers moved to Miami, Florida, early in 1975 to record. After starting off with ballads, they eventually heeded the urging of Mardin and Stigwood, and crafted more dance-oriented disco songs, including their second US #1. And that, my friends, is where part 2 of our story will start off, to tell the tale of the brothers' most glamorous period, which in turn helped establish disco music as a mainstream force to be reckoned with.