by Hector Cook
Between June 12 and July 12, it was back to work again for all the boys, completing recording on the Idea album. However the first two days in the studio were more of a warm-up in preparation for the four weeks ahead. The eight-track tape of their first day’s efforts was titled “jam session” and consisted of ‘Let There Be Love’, ‘Kitty Can’, ‘I O I O’, ‘Stepping Out’ and one untitled song. The first two became the opening two tracks on the album, ‘I O I O’ would appear two albums down the line, and ‘Stepping Out’ remains unreleased. The following day’s session was bizarre to say the least. The studio tape box refers to the tracks as “Robin demos,” so where the other members of the group were is anyone’s guess. ‘Indian Gin And Whisky Dry’, credited as written by all three brothers on the album, is listed alongside six other titles: ‘Band Will Meet Mr. Justice’, ‘The People’s Public Poke’, ‘The Girl To Share Each Day’, ‘My Love Life’, ‘Heaven In My Hands’ and ‘Come Some Christmas Eve Or Halloween’. This latter title would resurface later as ‘Halloween Or Christmas Day’, but is undoubtedly the same song.
The group also filmed a television special with veteran comedy actor Frankie Howerd, another of Robert Stigwood’s clients. Frankie Howerd Meets The Bee Gees, written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, gave the group the opportunity to show off their own comedy skills in sketches with Howerd, as well as showcasing their music.
The Bee Gees were due to begin a seven week tour of the United States on August 2, 1968, but on July 27, Robin got up from the settee to change the television channel, collapsed and fell unconscious. He was admitted to a London nursing home suffering from nervous exhaustion, and the entire American tour was postponed due to his illness. Or was it?
Years later, Molly Gibb was adamant. “There was no ‘nervous exhaustion,’ ” she insisted. “It was just a thing Robin did for the group, a way out of the tour. Whatever anyone said to them, they did it. They didn’t know any different then, didn’t know anything about the business world. If it’s good for the group, then you do it.”
Robin himself now admits that he and his brothers’ intense desire for recognition for the group drove him to take amphetamines, a not uncommon habit in the pop world. “I did things like stay up all night and I wish I knew at 18 that living like that wasn’t necessary,” he said. “I was taking pills in those days, uppers – nothing that anybody else wasn’t taking then, and probably a good deal milder. But there were times when I never seemed to go to bed. It was lunacy. We used to go to America for a tour and I would stay up all night, collapse and then wake up in hospital suffering from exhaustion. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I suppose teenagers tend to do that sort of thing, especially if they’re a bit in the limelight. But I could have killed myself. I look back on that period now and realise I might easily have not come out of it alive. I’d collapse from staying up from one show to the next and there was absolutely no reason for it. I just hated going to bed. I wish I had known at 18 that, in the end, success comes from hard work and sacrifices. We knew we didn’t want to be just a group that came along in the Sixties and then faded away. We wanted to achieve longevity.”
Robin was moved from the nursing home to a health farm in Sussex on July 31 to continue his “recuperation,” while his twin brother Maurice told the press, “I could see this coming. Robin is such a highly strung person, he was bound to snap eventually. We have just come back from holiday but he never moved out of his hotel room. He also went with Barry to Rome and Nairobi. But in both places, while Barry went sightseeing, Robin just stayed in his room writing songs. Robin seems totally unable to relax. He always has to be writing. Yet, instead of sitting back after his songs have been recorded, he immediately turns to new writing. So he gets tense and tired, with the result that he collapsed last week. We may be twins, but I’m not a bit like him.”
Harley Madison of Hullabaloo had his suspicions about Robin’s delicate health, writing, “A basic economic fact of touring is that you have to sell tickets to make money. One wonders why Robin Gibb collapsed from nervous exhaustion only hours before the group was to begin the tour. They missed four dates, then Robin had another illness, a relapse, and had to fly back to Britain for a few days rest. Just more concerts missed or more tickets that didn’t get sold?”
The group’s latest single, ‘I’ve Gotta Get A Message To You’ was released at the beginning of August. Another unlikely topic for a pop song, the subject matter sounds like a Robin concept, although Barry has used the theme of doomed individuals many times since. Barry explained, “It is not about death although a lot of people think that it is. It’s about a person who is about to die. He’s going to his death because he’s committed a murder.”
“It’s quite sick,” Maurice added.
“It’s not sick at all,” Robin protested in an early example of how the brothers would occasionally disagree in public and in the press. “It doesn’t mention death and doesn’t mention how he’s going to sit there and the guy who pulls down the thing. It doesn’t mention the circumstances of his death or how he’s going to die. It just tells that he is talking to a preacher, and he wants to get a message to his girlfriend or wife that he is sorta sorry and wants to apologise. He’s killed a man who’s been carrying on with his wife, and he wants to get a message to her before he dies.”
“We recorded it the same night as we finished the song,” Barry explained. “Robert came in late that night, and what we hadn’t done was … we sang the whole song without three-part harmonies in the chorus. Robert made us come back and sing the choruses again. We said, ‘Well, why?’ and he said, ‘Because you’ve got to sing in three-part harmonies. You cannot sing it in unison and have no harmonies in the chorus.’ So back we all drove to the studio and sang the choruses in three-part harmonies, and that’s the record as it stands today.” It is also worth noting that ‘Message’ was the group’s first ever eight-track recording, IBC having only just upgraded their equipment to what would soon become the new industry standard.
Released just weeks before the Idea LP, ‘I’ve Gotta Get A Message To You’ was for some reason not actually on the album, except in the United States, but at least its B-side, ‘Kitty Can’, was. ‘Message’ was the Bee Gees’ biggest hit yet in the United States, reaching number eight, making it their first Top 10 hit there. It topped the British chart for one week before being nudged out of the peak position by The Beatles’ ‘Hey Jude’. In Germany, it was their fifth consecutive Top 10 hit, reaching number three.
By August 10, Robin was fully recovered. “There was nothing mentally wrong with me,” he said. “I just wanted some sleep. We’d just finished the Idea album and we’d gone many nights without sleep, often writing songs right through the night.” Following his release from the Sussex health farm, the rescheduled American tour began at Forest Hills Stadium in New York.
Robert Stigwood was delighted. “[The Bee Gees’] original breakthrough in the States was the most exciting thing,” he said. “The concert I most enjoyed them doing was when they played at Forest Hills in New York. This was when they were using their full orchestra. It was an outdoor concert and it rained and they did about an hour and a half in the rain, but I don’t think one person in the audience moved. I’ve never seen a reaction at a concert like that. The audience just wouldn’t let them off the stage and gave them a 30-minute ovation at the end. That was their first big New York appearance and it was really tremendous to see.”
The group received 13 curtain calls, and Maurice remembers looking out and seeing a proud Hugh Gibb watching them with tears (or was it rain?) streaming down his face.
One fan in the audience that evening was Fredric Gershon, who years later would work with The Bee Gees when he became president of the Stigwood Group. He vividly recalled the Forest Hills concert. “It was stunning,” he said. “There was a full orchestra supporting them, and I had never seen anything like it. I don’t believe there was anything like it. That powerful orchestral sound was awesome and t
he three brothers used their voices in an almost classical way; making sounds instead of words. That was before I had any business relationship with the brothers. I was a fan.”
While in the United States, The Bee Gees appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show alongside actor Cary Grant, who described them as his favourite group. The twins also made a very different sort of television appearance as contestants on The Dating Game, the American television series which was the inspiration for Cilla Black’s long-running Blind Date. Despite (or perhaps because of) Maurice’s response that he would “smash his face in” if the girl’s father announced that he would be taking his daughter’s place on a date, he was the winner that evening, and the chosen date was a trip to the diamond mines of South Africa.
Ostensibly because of its delayed beginning, the American tour was severely curtailed, but years later Barry would admit that: “The first tour of America was a washout. Forest Hills was a nice moment, LA as well. I think both shows were papered to an extent. It wasn’t a good show musically; we didn’t do a good show then. The band was still not a band; we really didn’t have the years of playing as a band that makes it work. And all the gigs in between New York and LA had to be cancelled. Nobody bought tickets. They tried to make it look good. We spent the time hiding out in LA while Robert was juggling the publicity to make it look like we were invading the country. They got Robin to go into hospital for a couple of weeks and play the game.” “The game,” as he explained it, involved Robin feigning a relapse to give the group an excuse to cancel more concerts.
“The bookings were so disastrous that the group hid out,” Dick Ashby revealed. “They weren’t worried about the American press so much, but they didn’t want the British press to find out they hadn’t cracked it.”
The group arrived back in Britain after the American tour and Barry immediately dropped a bombshell, announcing he was leaving the group to pursue an acting career. “It is now or never for me,” he declared. “If I do not try it on my own now, I shall never try. It is worth giving up all the success we have, just to try for one dramatic part in a film. It is something I have been considering for some time. The American tour finally made up my mind for me. I received several film offers in Los Angeles.”
Robert Stigwood attempted to pour oil on troubled waters. “Barry has talked about going out on his own, although he doesn’t want to leave us altogether,” he said. “I think he will feel differently when he’s had a rest. I can’t let him go this year. It’s the group’s best year yet. All the boys were very exhausted after the thirteen-hour flight from Los Angeles. Barry said more than he really meant. Although he hasn’t seen the script yet, he has the starring romantic role in Lord Kitchener’s Five Little Drummer Boys. That will please him.”
“I have said I shall be leaving The Bee Gees, and I stand by that,” Barry countered. “I shall fulfil all existing commitments with the group which will take up about the next two years. The group scene is not an everlasting thing, and in the pop business you can only go so far.
“In films, I shall have as much contact with the fans as in the group. More even … I don’t know whether I’ll make a good actor. I’ve never tried it. But in Hollywood, I passed the screen test.
“I want to be a star and that’s why I want to do films. I’ll sacrifice anything to do it. I’m not a big star at the moment, and that’s not being modest. Merely realistic. I think a star is someone who can go to anywhere in the world and people will jump. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, for example, and it has taken them a long time. Makes my 11 years in show business just mere chicken feed …”
At the same time, he seemed torn between his desire for film stardom and his loyalty to the group. “It’s frightening,” he added. “The group are succeeding. Should I leave them? And I don’t just mean, ‘Would I make it as a film actor?’ because, all right, I haven’t had acting lessons, but James Stewart and Clark Gable and Errol Flynn never did either. No, what worries me most is my personal obligation to The Bee Gees. This will be the only thing that will stop me. I owe too much to my brothers, especially as it would only be an attempt at movies.”
Maurice also indicated that all was not well with the group when he said, “We had a couple of arguments while we were away. I forget what they were about. When I saw Barry at Mr Stigwood’s, he didn’t seem to be on speaking terms. He didn’t say hello – let’s put it that way. I definitely don’t want to split. I hope the five of us keep together and remain good friends.”
The Idea album was released in September amidst the “will he or won’t he leave?” fiasco in the music press. The personnel were all the same as for Horizontal, but the sound was quite different. Idea is much lighter, more pop than the bluesy rock sound of the previous LP, with less electric guitar, lighter lyrics, more flowery orchestration, and more of the breathy vocal style that Barry had displayed on ‘Words’. This did not sit well with the critics, some of whom began to question the group’s “rock” credentials. There was a backlash against the flower-power style of 1967, and while The Bee Gees were moving away from it, unlike many groups they were not so much a rock band temporarily experimenting with pop eclecticism as harmony singers finding their element and continuing to experiment with different pop forms. Critics following the mainstream back-to-rock movement left them here.
This is the only Bee Gees’ album of the LP era with different contents in the US and abroad. Even the album covers were different, with the American album featuring Klaus Voormann’s design of a collage of a face compiled from features cut from photos of each of the five Bee Gees, while the rest of the world saw a photo of the group in the base of a light bulb against a purple background. The American version dropped the song ‘Such A Shame’ in favour of ‘Gotta Get A Message’.
This was the first and only Bee Gees’ album to go on sale (outside the USA) with no lead-off singles on it. Idea is also the only Bee Gees album to note who sings on each song, but the CD version lost this useful guide. A couple of their other albums give the lead singer, but no others give all the singers.
A memorable moment is the inclusion of Vince Melouney’s ‘Such A Shame’. Asked in February, 2000, whether getting one of his own songs on the album had been problematic, Vince replied, “No, Barry really liked it and wanted to sing it. Whether Robert behind the scenes wasn’t happy, I don’t know,” he added, implying that Stigwood might have been concerned about the fact that the inclusion of ‘Such A Shame’ was the first time that an entirely non-Gibb writing credit would appear on any of their internationally released albums. Vince was probably right to assume that Stigwood wasn’t happy, as it was also the last time a writing credit that excluded the Gibbs ever appeared on a Bees Gees’ album.
Another song worthy of comment is ‘I Started A Joke’, one of Robin’s classic moments. It comes on quietly, so simple, so deep, one of their most requested songs. It wasn’t even a single in many countries, and only followed the album, as if no one had noticed it ahead of time. On its December release in the States and parts of Europe (but once again, not in Britain), the song reached number six in the US, and it fared a little better in Holland and Austria, making the Top Three in both countries.
Although Robin has claimed that the melody was inspired by the sounds he heard in a jet engine, he has always steadfastly refused to explain the evocative lyrics. ‘I Started A Joke’ has to be the prime example of the pure abstract Gibb lyric that everyone can read something into and, it would seem, nearly everyone did. “There was a lot of that in those days,” Barry laughed. “There was a lot of psychedelia and the idea that if you wrote something, even if it sounded ridiculous, somebody would find the meaning for it, and that was the truth.
“People used to ask us if we took LSD. And we suddenly realised that that’s what it really was about. People hang on what you say because they think you’ve taken drugs when in fact you haven’t taken anything. They get carried away with it more than you do. It’s like The Beatles and songs like ‘Strawberry Fields�
�, where people assume that it was drugs that concocted those songs – and we all know for a fact that some of it was – but I think there’s a very rare gift that existed inside John Lennon and also inside Paul [McCartney] when they were together. I think it came from more than drugs or drink.”
A special album for Polydor’s anniversary was released in Germany which featured an instrumental called ‘Gena’s Theme’ recorded around this time and credited to The Bee Gees, but it would be more accurate to credit it to Bill Shepherd. Bill also recorded two whole albums of covers of Bee Gees songs in “easy listening” style, one with voices called Aurora by The Bill Shepherd Singers and the other, an instrumental album, Bee Gees Hits by The Robert Stigwood Orchestra. Although neither album was marketed as “by The Bee Gees,” each carried an official seal of approval.
When Bill Shepherd asked Robert Stigwood if he could make an LP of Bee Gees’ songs with a large lush choir, the impresario waved an expansive hand and said, “Go away and make it.” Bill then inquired about the budget allowance and song selection, but Stigwood countered, “Just go and do what you like and give me the bill with the finished tape.” This was not a lack of interest on Robert’s part but rather an expression of complete confidence in Shepherd’s ability to do the project justice.
Bill was delighted to be given carte blanche and he described the Aurora album as, “My own personal choice of some of The Bee Gees’ songs, using one of my favourite musical means of expressions – a choir – and what better way to show off the songs of the Fabulous Singing Gibb Brothers. I first worked with the boys in Australia and have been with them ever since. It’s not easy for any musical arranger to see into the original, sharp, quick thinking minds of Maurice, Barry and Robin; always changing direction, seeking new things and forever cheerful and confident. But I detect in their work a simplicity which makes it possible to do virtually anything with their music. At the rate they are turning out such good material today, I would say they will become the Rodgers & Hart, Rodgers & Hammerstein and Irving Berlins of tomorrow.”