The Bee Gees – Brothers in Pop
(An article from “The Story of Pop” – 1973)
The Bee Gees beginnings
In 1956 a Manchester cinema stage saw the appearance of a group called the ‘Blue Cats’. They comprised nine-year-old Barry Gibb and his seven-year-old twin brothers Robin and Maurice. Even in those days of skiffle they were singing harmonies. Their precocious talent survived the family emigration to Australia in 1958, and by 1960 the brothers had their own TV series in Brisbane. Rules about minors cut down the TV though, and the trio performed in gambling clubs and on speedway tracks. As the Bee Gees, they made a number of records, and by the time they left Australia they had scored several no. 1 smashes.
An album of these hits had been sent to Brian Epstein, Beatle manager and head of NEMS, by their father before they set sail. While Brian was pondering their saleability, the family arrived in London in February 1967. About a week later, after a day of being told how impossible it was for a new group to break into the scene, they arrived home to find that the new NEMS whizzkid, Robert Stigwood, had been phoning up all day. They met him and the breakthrough was made. ‘Spicks And Specks’, a song recorded in Australia, was rushed out, making little impact but enough for Stigwood.
In April they released ‘New York Mining Disaster 1941′, accompanied by advertising that claimed them as `the most significant talent to emerge in 1967’. This incredible claim wasn’t taken too seriously at the time. They were accused of copying the Beatles and the record only reached the wrong end of the Top 20. It was a remarkable song though, displaying an originality that promised much for the future. A frantically slow rhythm perfectly complements the story of a miner trapped underground waiting for an escape he really knows won’t come. Doom-laden harmonies intone the key lines — ‘have you seen my wife Mr. Jones? Do you know what it’s like on the outside?’ The whole song is a masterpiece of imagination.
During these first few months they signed two Australians, Vince Melouney and Colin Peterson, to play guitar and drums, and they were receiving requests from all sorts of big names for their songs. Even the inexplicable failure of their second single, ‘To Love Somebody’ — a song since recorded by over 200 people — failed to stop the ball rolling. In May they were approached by the US Atlantic Records and offered an £80.000 record deal over five years, the largest amount ever offered to a new group. ‘New York Mining Disaster’ made the US Top 20, as did ‘To Love Somebody’. In July they went across on a promotional visit.
By mid-summer, a well-known TV producer was calling them ‘the best song-writing talent in Britain after the Beatles and the biggest influence on the pop scene at the moment’. And this with only one minor hit and a flop! As if to justify this high praise they proceeded to produce their most commercial song to date, ‘Massachusetts’. Another doom-laden piece of imagination, it shot to no.1 in both Britain and the US, selling over five million copies. It is one of those few songs that are instantly hummable until you reach the high note, which only Robin Gibb could scale with ease.
This hit, and the release earlier of their first album, seemed to confirm that the Bee Gees were capable of writing an endless series of good songs. They were obviously here to stay. The magazines interviewed them and found that they were all Christians, that none of them were interested in politics, and that they all liked steak best but with different drinks. Robin was afraid of loneliness, poverty and darkness; Maurice had apparently always dreamed of having a round bed. Then Robin was in a train crash which killed over fifty people; he was hurt but pulled several people to safety.
Romance With Lulu
The work permit problems with Colin and Vince were solved in November, and the same month saw Stigwood leaving NEMS and taking the Bee Gees with him; the beginning of Maurice’s much publicized romance with Lulu, and the making of a film called ‘Cucumber Castle’ with Spike Milligan. The group played at London theatres to scenes of BeeGeemania and secured a £130.000 contract to tour the States in early ‘68. The world was opening up for them, with older brother Barry barely out of his teens.
But the music scene was in some ways closing in on them. Stigwood’s other main group, sold to Atlantic as a makeshift in the Bee Gees deal, were the Cream, and their success was to mirror the growing distance between pop and rock. The Bee Gees’ next single, ‘World’, perhaps failed to appreciate the distance. It was by any standards a great record, superbly conceived, arranged and performed. Yet it was a little too elusive for the straight pop market, and the lads were not endearing themselves to the growing rock market. A fairly typical quote from Barry around this time was – “Thank goodness the hippy gear is going out of pop. I’ve talked to pop fans and they simply hate these hippy scruffy groups. They’d rather see Cliff Richard or Scott Walker looking smart in their suits. It’s so much more healthy.” Hardly the way to win the audience their music at this time deserved. ‘World’, selling in the wake of ‘Massachusetts’, reached only #9.
But at the time they still seemed on the crest of a wave. In April ’68 they became the first group to take a full orchestra out with them on tour, a breakthrough for which they deserve credit. The tour ended at London’s Albert Hall amid scenes of fanmania that completely drowned orchestra and group, leaving velvet-clad Robin and shot-silk, jump-suited Barry gesturing like silent movie Idols.
They went to the States in the summer and received tumultuous receptions everywhere – a little less mania but a lot more attention and applause. They seemed to have been taken more seriously there, and well they should — in the 18 months since their arrival in Britain they had sold a staggering 10 million singles and 3 million albums, and in the process lived up to Stigwood’s extravagant hype. This indeed proved the crest, for on their return Robin collapsed from nervous exhaustion and Barry, doubtless in a moment of weariness, announced that he intended to leave the group when their commitments had all been fulfilled. This would admittedly take two years, but the breach had been made. From then on the group seemed dogged by internal strain, appearing in the press, so it seemed, merely to insult each other.
The music of those first 18 months was basically an original synthesis of two existing themes. One was the ballad form, using guitar and piano as rhythm and strings as a filter and ‘romanticiser’. The other was the bizarre lyrics of the post-Pepper period, which the Bee Gees took further than anyone else. They seemed to write lyrics in a trance, fashioning songs from whatever occurred to them, songs that could not be understood in any logical way but which communicated a definite feeling of outer madness and a broken heart. Barry specialised in love songs littered with strange objects and twisted phrases, Robin in melodramatic paranoia — ‘Til I finally died which started the whole world living’ — brought back to earth by powerfully simple hook lines.
Soaring Harmony
Their other great asset was the possession of two voices that sounded devastating either solo or in harmony. As one sung one verse and then the other followed, as in ‘World’ or ‘Let There Be Love’, — the transition produced a remarkable effect, like changing gear upwards. Then they’d go a notch higher into a soaring harmony. All of this might have been in vain had they not had the supreme attribute — an ability to write melodies both instant and lasting.
But this ability has also proved double-edged. Already in 1969, the spotlight in rock was turning to a combination of imagination and an intensely personal self-expression. But the Bee Gees never wrote about themselves in that way. The ballad form of which they were masters was to be left in its pre-Beatle state of moons and Junes, and the Bee Gees marooned with it in the straight pop category
For the next 6 months there was no new single. Then, eventually, in February 1969 ‘First Of May’ was released, one of Barry’s songs, which he sang with no assistance from Robin. Robin apparently wanted the other side as the ‘A’-side . In March he announced his decision to go solo and his wife told the press that he had never been given enough credit for the group’s successes. Barry said that it would all blow over, and Dad said that Robin needed the others, but Robin apparently didn’t think so. A US tour was looming up and Barry said they’d do it ‘with or without Robin’. Gradually the split began to look permanent.
By the end of May, Barry was saying “I don’t think I could work with him again even if I wanted to. He has said such hurtful things about Maurice and I and our manager.” Stigwood was himself threatening Robin with legal action, but eventually managed to create a compromise whereby Robin would play with the group for a few months each year. But Barry wouldn’t have him back anyway.
A Bee Gees’ single was released without Robin. It didn’t do too well, and as Robin’s ‘Saved By The Bell’ (which Barry had thought uncommercial) shot past them to no. 2, the boys seemed far from brothers.
The rot had really set in for the group. A year earlier, Vince had left to play his beloved blues — electric guitar was rarely to be heard again on a Bee Gees’ single. Now in August ’69 Colin departed too, leaving just the two of them. They continued as a duo for a while but then Barry quit both Maurice and Stigwood. Two and a half years after their formation the group was no more.
Brothers Together
Robin failed with his follow-up and by mid ’70 the brothers were back together again. But it wasn’t the same. Somehow in the interval they had lost track of where rock was going, and chose or were forced to confine themselves to churning out superior ballads. Their most creative period was behind them. Still the hits came, still they produced albums of a remarkable quality, showing all their flair for arranging, performing, and imaginative subject matter. But their audience was now more restricted. The ‘Trafalgar’ album was at least the musical equal of their albums of four years before, but whereas the latter received lead reviews in all the papers, ‘Trafalgar’ received just a few lines at the bottom of the page. But their talent for melody has not deserted them; their rather simplistic words presumably a matter of choice rather than necessity. Stigwood once said that he thought Robin had one of the finest pop voices ever and cited ‘Odessa’ as one of the greatest songs ever written. Extravagant as these claims are, they are not totally ridiculous. The Bee Gees of 1967 – 69 were a great deal better than either they or the rock audience now gives them credit for. They might just turn round and show us in the future.