by Hector Cook
“Robin has been under a great strain recently,” said Robert Stigwood, “but as soon as he is recovered, we hope to have business discussions which will resolve the problem.”
“Robin has an incredible persecution complex,” he later told reporters. “He tends to think the whole world is against him. He has no confidence at all and can be hurt by the pettiest of remarks, which is silly since every artist must expect to receive a few knocks. Robin, though, gets unbelievably upset. For example, if a journalist with whom he is friendly turns round and says something bad about his performance, Robin takes it as a personal grudge against him.
“I don’t think Robin is at all well at the moment,” Stigwood added, “and he is not capable of making decisions.”
The ruse was kept up for The Bee Gees’ scheduled appearance in concert at The Talk Of The Town in London when, just five weeks after giving birth to twin daughters Tiffany and Debra, their elder sister stood in for the supposedly indisposed Robin. “I suppose the idea was to keep it in the family while Robin is ill,” Lesley said.
“I couldn’t believe it when Mr Stigwood asked me to stand in for Robin at the TV spectacular from Talk Of The Town on Sunday. I’m not worried about coming in with all the controversy raging. I’m just going to get on with the job and do the best I can. Although I know I shan’t be with the group for long, I’m very excited.
“I’m hoping to carry on singing after The Bee Gees have found a permanent replacement by going solo. While the family was in Australia, I was singing professionally and once played where my brothers were topping the bill. I am married to Keith Evans, an advertising executive, and have four young children so obviously I am not going to be able to devote my whole life to staging any sort of return to show business. As far as live appearances and recordings with The Bee Gees go, I really am not sure what is going to happen.”
“We were rehearsing ‘Gotta Get A Message To You’ and we just could not tell the difference with Lesley’s voice,” Maurice said. “If it turns out that she does record with us, I’m sure the sound will hardly change. But Barry and I will be doing most of the singing. The songwriting won’t change either, as Barry and I have been doing most of the numbers for some time now.”
The concert was recorded and broadcast in colour on BBC 2 on May 17 with a set list devoid of any of the songs strongly associated with Robin: ‘New York Mining Disaster 1941’, ‘Kitty Can’, ‘With The Sun In My Eyes’, ‘Suddenly’, ‘To Love Somebody’, ‘Seven Seas Symphony’, ‘First Of May’, ‘Morning Of My Life’, ‘I’ve Gotta Get A Message To You’, ‘Spicks And Specks’, ‘Sun In My Morning’ and ‘World’. ‘Morning Of My Life’, although originally recorded in Australia in 1966, remained unreleased at that point, but the audience obviously liked what they were hearing for the first time and it received the most applause of any song that evening.
It was a nerve-racking time for Lesley, who confessed to praying that Robin would just walk out on stage at the last minute to spare her, but she said afterwards, “It seemed to go well, although I nearly burst into tears when it all began.
“I haven’t spoken to Robin,” she added, “but he’s being a bit stubborn. I think it will all get settled amicably in the end.”
Their road manager, Tom Kennedy, recalled that, “It was strange, there was no doubt about it, because Robin was such an integral part of it. They weren’t really The Bee Gees just with Barry and Maurice, with Robin missing. It was just something that was tried … [Lesley] hasn’t got the same sort of power of voice that they have. Although it was nice and a family thing, it wasn’t something that could go on, they couldn’t build a career on it.”
Another who watched the concert with interest was their former fan club secretary Julie Barrett, who had resigned from the job and was preparing to fly off for a new life in Greece later that month. “I saw Lesley at The Talk Of The Town, and I think I was surprised that she could actually sing. I’m certain she kept in tune, and was genuinely surprised because I thought it was strange that they would bring her in to replace Robin anyway. She was definitely a performer, and she knew exactly what she was doing, so the show didn’t stop just because Lesley was in it. Maybe she was nervous underneath, but she looked as if she was enjoying it and gave the impression that she was a born performer.”
A party for the group’s friends and various members of the press was held at Barry’s flat following the recording of the show. Lulu took the opportunity to perform her latest song, written by Maurice and Barry, for the gathering. Although expected to be her next single, ‘Please Don’t Take My Man Away’, described as “a slow, soulful number away from the usual up-tempo mood of her hits,” was never actually released.
Robert Stigwood, who announced that he would launch Lesley’s solo career with a single to be released soon, didn’t hold out much hope for an expeditious solution to the break-up. “It may be another six months before we know one way or another with Robin,” he commented.
The break-up was taking its toll on the whole Gibb family. “When the boys broke up, they all had a rough time of it,” Barbara Gibb said. “There was Stigwood in Barry’s ear, and Molly in Robin’s ear, and poor old Maurice was on his own – he had nobody’s ear!
“It’s terrible when brothers don’t get on, and we didn’t either – not from one day to the next. The result was that we didn’t even see Robin for two years.”
“The people round Robin have cut him off from everybody – including his own mother and father,” Hugh Gibb said. “We first read about the split in the papers. Then when we tried to find Robin, he had vanished. By then I was in a bloody fury.”
Hugh said that he tried to telephone Robin at his home, only to be told that he was “unavailable”. Next, he related, Barbara and Lulu went round to Robin’s house and had the door slammed in their faces. The next time Hugh saw Robin, “We hardly had a chance to say hello, but I could tell from the way he spoke that he wasn’t happy.
“Of course there were rows. They are three brothers; there are bound to be some problems. It would be unnatural if there weren’t. But they never came to blows … I am his father … I had hoped that he felt he could talk to me about anything that was bothering him. I’ve always tried to bring the boys up to confide in me. Perhaps I am partly to blame … I honestly don’t know. The door is wide open. We all hope and pray that Robin will come back. You have no idea how worried we are about what is happening to him. But I believe he will come back …
“Robin had some feeling against Robert Stigwood for some reason. I don’t know what it was. I don’t understand it at all. Robert doesn’t understand it either. We both want to talk to Robin to find out what was going on in his mind. But he has been completely cut off from us,” he added sadly.
A spokesman for the Robert Stigwood Organisation concurred. “We can’t even get him ourselves. When we phone his home, we get Molly and she won’t let us speak to him.”
Robin had no intention of returning to the fold. On April 16, he announced his plans to launch an organisation called Bow & Arrow to handle his solo career. Nor did he intend to continue on as merely a singer/songwriter. With characteristic intensity, possibly fuelled by amphetamines, he revealed just a few of the projects on the burner. “I’ve written several books and I hope to get them published. One’s about early England and one’s about how England would have been if Hitler and Germany had won the war.
“I’m planning an overland trip from Tangiers to Timbuktu which is something I’ve always wanted to do. It’s something I’m to write a book about, too.
“I’ve got an uncle called Brian Pass who was 21 when he went missing in Burma in 1952. No one’s found out what happened to him since but I’m sure he’s still alive. I think he’s probably in East Germany or Russia. He was the sort of person who’d answer back. I’m going to the War Office and the Russian Embassy about him to see if I can find him through his regiment or something. I’m thinking of getting a private detective to go out to East Ge
rmany and Russia to see if I can find Brian that way. I’m damn sure he’s still alive.”
A spokesman made a statement to the press on Robin’s behalf that he planned to bring out a solo single, adding, “Robin tried to leave The Bee Gees in a peaceful way and bring about an amicable solution, but negotiations finally broke down last weekend.”
Robert Stigwood hotly denied that negotiations had taken place. “We have not heard from Robin Gibb since we read of his announcement in the newspapers that he intended to leave the group, so it is impossible to see how he can say there have been negotiations. Both myself, his brothers and his parents tried to contact him well before litigation started, but his wife would not let us speak to him. There is still no real reason why he cannot speak to myself, his brothers or his parents since litigants can always speak to each other.
“Immediate proceedings will be instituted in the UK and USA against anybody who purports to issue a recording by Robin Gibb, in breach of the Stigwood Group of Companies’ exclusive rights. It is believed that the proposed recording may contain material by Maurice Gibb and, if so, he will join in any proceedings to restrain the record’s issue since he and Robert Stigwood have given no consent. Meanwhile, that action against Robin Gibb is proceeding.”
“I was getting too hurt where I was,” Robin insisted. “I liked working with The Bee Gees, but they started to sit in judgement on my songs and I couldn’t stand that. Something else occurred which hurt my wife, and there is only one thing which hurts me more deeply than being hurt myself – having those I love hurt.
“I wanted to leave because I wanted to leave and I left. There wasn’t any feud. There was a time when there was talk of Barry leaving to pursue a film career, and in those days I didn’t know what was going on. This was never mentioned in private, and I had to buy the trade papers to find out what The Bee Gees were doing. Well, now I’ve left and I’m sure they’ll make out fine without me.”
When it eventually became clear that Robin was determined to go it alone, Robert Stigwood said, “We agreed to allow him to release solo records and for his solo activities to be handled by Chris Hutchins on behalf of the Robert Stigwood Organisation.”
Former pop journalist Hutchins, with the London firm Enterpress, announced, “The ten lost weeks of Robin Gibb are over. With his Bee Gees days behind him, he is set on a solo career launched on Friday (June 27) with the Polydor release of his first solo single, ‘Saved By The Bell’. And so ends the two and a half months during which he has been ‘in hiding’ as lawyers wrangled over his future.”
The new recording and songwriting deals were said to guarantee him almost £200,000 over the next five years. The recording and publishing deals were arranged by his new manager Chris Hutchins with Robert Stigwood.
Nineteen-year-old Robin said, “I’m happy. I have the freedom I wanted and now I can work alone. The ten weeks have not been wasted. I have written more than a hundred songs during that time. I have also burnt the midnight oil answering as many as possible of the thousands of letters that have come in since the split.”
It was announced that although he’d left The Bee Gees, Robin would still work with the group on mutually acceptable projects. The key word was mutual.
“Don’t forget Barry has said he will never work with Robin again,” reminded Hutchins.
The battle continued, as always, in the press. Week after week, headlines appeared that would have been ludicrous were they not detailing the destruction of a family. “Barry Says Robin ‘Extremely Rude’, ” “Happy Robin Not Gloating Over The Bee Gees’ Miss,” “I Don’t Want Robin Back,” “I’m Not Guilty” – the music press couldn’t get enough of the feuding brothers.
“I have left The Bee Gees,” Robin told one reporter emphatically. “There won’t on any account be any get-together with them again. I don’t regret leaving and I don’t think they will miss me. The only thing I do regret is that we couldn’t have come to a compatible settlement at the beginning when I first left.”
Barry confirmed that Maurice had played on ‘Saved By The Bell’, adding, “I don’t see how Robin can go ahead with this single in view of this fact. As for its being a very commercial hit record, I’ve heard it and frankly I just can’t agree.” If Barry appeared miffed by the fact that two “Bee Gees” had appeared on the single, it’s probably just as well that he wasn’t aware of Colin Petersen’s involvement in several tracks on the forthcoming album.
The single was much anticipated both in Britain and Europe. It is an instructive example of how a great record can be made from such a simple song: a simple verse-chorus number with a rather predictable melody and minimal lyrics is arranged with a sweeping orchestra and vocal dubs for a very successful result. The single has a fairly obvious edit to get in an extra repeat of the chorus; which would not be included on the album version.
The B-side for Robin’s first solo effort was intended to be the stately ‘Alexandria Good Time’, but this was withdrawn at the last minute and the B-side changed to the calypso style ‘Mother And Jack’, an unusual song unlike anything by The Bee Gees. The lyrics suggest a story line but include many evocative stream of consciousness elements.
“Robin had always wanted to go solo, so when it happened I wasn’t really angry at all,” Maurice said philosophically. “I simply understood the situation. But Barry is so full of pride and just couldn’t understand why Robin had done it. I suppose being his twin made me understand Robin that much more easily, anyway. So the silence between us went on and Barry went on blasting away – he blasts away much better than me, in any case …
“I hope [Robin’s] single is a hit. I wouldn’t stop it. I read somewhere that I was supposed to be against it but I wouldn’t do that; he’s my brother.”
Maurice still held out hopes that the brothers could reconcile their differences. “For myself, I’d love Robin to come back to The Bee Gees,” he added. “Whether it will happen, we’ll have to wait and see. It’s rather premature to pose that question.”
But a furious Barry blustered, “If he walks back into the group, I walk out! With me, it’s a matter of pride. Saying the things he’s said about me, he has made himself a stranger as far as I’m concerned. Letting him back into the group would be letting him walk all over us. I wouldn’t stand for that whatever settlement may have been reached.”
Almost lost in the fracas surrounding the group was the latest single release, ‘Tomorrow, Tomorrow’, by the three remaining Bee Gees. A bit of a departure from the accepted Bee Gees formula, Maurice said, “I don’t think it’s us but I quite like it.” Maurice was right in saying that the song wasn’t “us” because ‘Tomorrow, Tomorrow’ had originally been written for Joe Cocker, who was desperate for a new song. Barry rushed the track through, but it never reached Joe, who was given ‘Delta Lady’ by his management instead.
Robert Stigwood attempted to rescue this particular ‘phoenix’ from its ashes by demanding that ‘Tomorrow Tomorrow’ be recorded for release as The Bee Gees’ new single. This insistence came in spite of Barry’s protests that, having been written for Joe Cocker’s style of singing, it didn’t suit their style. Barry would later agree that, “This was a mistake that Robert very rarely made.”
This single, released a month before ‘Saved By The Bell’, gave Barry and Maurice a jump on Robin’s first solo single. It was not a big success but together with the B-side, ‘Sun In My Morning’, a guitar ballad, it showed where the group were going musically. Neither side of this single appeared on the next album, which was released almost a year later.
Seeming to anticipate the 45’s failure, Maurice revealed, “We’ve got another one that we’ll put straight out if it doesn’t make it.”
As Robin’s ‘Saved By The Bell’ rose in the charts, ‘Tomorrow, Tomorrow’ made its descent after reaching a disappointing number 23 in Britain and number 54 on the American charts, although a bright spot was in Germany where it made number six.
“It is a bit of an irony but
I don’t think it has anything to do with the clammy hand of fate or anything. It is just a coincidence,” Robin said.
“I always expected ‘Saved By The Bell’ to go in [to the Top 20] though I thought it would either do it very quickly or I would be in for a long wait. But I always had the confidence in it.”
“I thought ‘Tomorrow, Tomorrow’ was a lovely single, and I’m sorry it didn’t get as high as it should have,” Robin said. “If I was still in the group, I’d have recorded the number. I don’t really think my single has any bearing on theirs.
“When I left, it was a complete split and they all understood. I have my own life, my wife and family to think of as well as my own ideas. When I left we split up professionally but not as brothers. I’m not even going out of my way to alter my style. I write all my own material, but if it sounds to someone like The Bee Gees, that’s just me. I’m trying to get rid of the Robin Gibb, Bee Gee title. I was a member for 13 years but I’m not trying to push the title either. Of course I get nostalgic about the group, but I don’t think I’ve put a black cloud over them. I honestly don’t know what they’re doing, other than working a lot. I just want to be me now.”
Of his own single, he said, “I made that record back at the end of March – immediately following my split from The Bee Gees. I’m not bored by it at all – I obviously have confidence in the song … It’s been a long wait for my freedom, but now I feel fully independent and self-assured. I have a sense of wellbeing, without the feeling that there’s someone obstructing me. As a solo singer I command much more attention than merely being a member of a group.
“I haven’t had a single word of congratulations from my brothers for ‘Saved By The Bell’. I don’t feel alone and cut off though. I have good friends around me, and I can go over to Maurice and have a jam like in the old days.”