The Ultimate Biography of The Bee Gees

by Hector Cook

  “But when Graham and I formed the group which we called Bonar Law after an unknown British Prime Minister, I never thought of ‘bludgeoning’ The Bee Gees to take an interest in us. It’s what you do yourself that is important and we were determined to make it on our own.”

  In any event, Trevor was delighted to meet up with the group again. He said, “The most amazing thing to me is that The Bee Gees have not changed at all over the years, despite their dizzy rise to fame. Barry’s still the organised one. He’s the business mind of the group and used to have most of his time taken with keeping the other two in order. I also knew Vince and Colin quite well before they ever joined the group.”

  Although Trevor was fulsome in his praise of the brothers’ talent, he was less impressed with the Australian music scene than the Gibbs themselves had been just 12 months earlier. “I don’t think their music has changed much either. They’re like The Beatles and Bob Dylan – you can always recognise their songs. I wasn’t surprised when they decided to come back to England. Australia is a terrible drag scene for pop! You have to play cabaret all the time, and the bands are awful.”

  Trevor and Graham quickly booked recording sessions and, at Barry’s suggestion, the name Bonar Law was ditched in favour of one which Barry himself had come up with … The Marbles. An early result of one of these first sessions, a demo recorded in March 1968, remains in Polydor’s vaults and is marked on the tape box as ‘Burning Candals’ (sic). This would later appear as the B-side to their first single under its full and correct title of ‘By The Light Of The Burning Candle’, written and produced by all three brothers.

  As the sessions continued, it quickly became clear to Barry that he was grooming an extraordinary vocal talent. “You know that guy Graham Bonnet has got the most powerful voice I have ever heard,” he enthused to music journalists. “He has to stand six feet from the microphone in the studio. There is a metal plate in the mike itself, which can be bent if the voice is powerful enough and his voice can bend it. The engineers tell me they have never known it to happen before.” While certainly a rare occurrence, the event itself had been observed elsewhere before, The Moody Blues’ Ray Thomas being just one example.

  If there was no doubting the quality of the performers, then they would require a very special song to bring that talent to the fore, and Barry, Robin and Maurice set about the challenge with enthusiasm. What they came up with was almost too good to give away, and fans have long mourned the lack of a Bee Gees version.

  The power-ballad, as it would nowadays be termed, ‘Only One Woman’ was released in September 1968 as the A-side of The Marbles’ début single. It rapidly climbed the charts in Britain, where it reached number five, Europe and Australia, but it made little impact in the USA, where it appeared on Atlantic’s Cotillion label.

  They now had an impressive platform on which to build, but the opportunity was wasted when momentum was lost amidst some petty squabbling and ego driven bickering which resulted in a temporary parting of the ways between The Marbles and their mentors. However, by February 1969, the rift had been healed and Trevor announced to reporters, “As things have turned out, we’re back with The Bee Gees again, and very happy about it too!”

  Barry confirmed that all was well again. “At the moment we’re recording their new single, ‘The Walls Fell Down’, which I wrote. We’ve patched up all our differences.” Then, referring back to his childhood days spent with Trevor in Australia, he continued, “If our association is helping The Marbles get a foothold in the business, then it is good because that is a difficult thing to do. But we went to school together in Australia, and we made a pact that if we made it first, we would help them and if they made it first, vice versa. If they had made it first they would now be helping us.”

  Further good news came in the form of the announcement in June of the formation of The Marbles Fan Club. It should have been a time for celebration as, properly promoted, their début album had sufficient quality on it that it could have earned them recognition as artists in their own right, and not just The Bee Gees clones they perhaps felt they were in danger of being regarded as. Old problems rose to the surface, release of the album was postponed, and by August, 1969, The Marbles were no more. Their self-titled album was eventually released in Germany and America in 1970 though.

  Tom Kennedy appeared to share the frustration felt by many when he said, “The Marbles were both very fine singers … Given proper management and everything else, they could have done a lot more than they did. Barry’s involvement was obviously well meant, but he didn’t have the time to actually invest in their career. I think they saw that, and just said, ‘Let’s go our separate ways’ and just called it a day.”

  Tom’s presumption was always believed to have been the case, but Graham Bonnet has recently confirmed that there was more to it than that, and that their manager must shoulder some of the responsibility too. “We broke up because Robert Stigwood wanted to make me into a solo artist,” he revealed, “but I didn’t want to be what they wanted me to be … another Tom Jones type.” With the benefit of hindsight though, he now hints that the break-up could perhaps have been avoided, citing “over-confidence in one’s future” as a contributing factor, but adding that he has “too many regrets to mention”. Graham retains a deep respect for what the Gibbs have achieved over the years, and claimed that their success is because “they always keep up with the trends, and also at the same time try to do something new, but it’s always them … individual!”

  Trevor went on to release a Polydor album, Alphabet, in the early Seventies but little was heard of him after that. He is now believed to be a music teacher in London. Graham’s career went from strength to strength, and he eventually found his niche alongside hard rockers like Ritchie Blackmore, Cozy Powell, and Michael Schenker. Graham never forgot his roots though, and recorded further Gibb material in each of the next three decades.

  * * *

  The two songs covered by The Marbles, but which The Bee Gees had previously released, were released in January, 1969 by Nina Simone. ‘To Love Somebody’, backed with ‘I Can’t See Nobody’, provided the American soul singer with a number five placing in the UK charts.

  The following month, Pye recording artist David Garrick released a single featuring a song that had been written specially for him. He was born Philip Darryl Core in Liverpool in 1945, but like so many others with artistic flair, he found London to be better suited to his flamboyance. His circle of friends included Peter Wyngarde and Barry Gibb, and many an evening was whiled away in the company of either or both.

  “I used to sit with Barry Gibb, in his flat in Eaton Square, drinking his scotch,” he mused. “One night he said, ‘I’m gonna write you a song,’ and he dashed off ‘Maypole Mews’ in around twenty minutes, while I was out buying more scotch, or mixers, or something. We did a great version and it was a big hit in Germany … but it didn’t do anything over here.” Quite what David meant by “big hit” is unclear as ‘Maypole Mews’ didn’t chart in Germany either!

  While David was correct when he later advised, “Another Bee Gees song I recorded was their first hit ‘Spicks & Specks’, but I don’t believe it was ever released,” that matter was rectified when the song finally appeared on his

  The Pye Anthology double CD in 1998.

  In May 1969 though, there was further chart success for the Gibb brothers as songwriters. Jose Feliciano released ‘Marley Purt Drive’ as a single, only two months after The Bee Gees own version had first become available on the Odessa album. Number 70 in the USA charts may not sound like much of a success, but bearing in mind that the best cover version placing prior to that was number 74, achieved by Sweet Inspirations with ‘To Love Somebody’ in July 1968, it was gratefully acknowledged in the Gibb camp nonetheless. Jose obviously liked the Gibbs’ style of writing. In October he released ‘And The Sun Will Shine’, and it eclipsed his previous single by climbing to number 25 in the British ratings.

  Another O
dessa track appeared as a single around that time too. Following the issue the previous year of ‘Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You’, Tangerine Peel released ‘Never Say Never Again’ as their first MGM product. A psychedelic five piece band, their most prominent member was Mike Chapman who went on to have phenomenal success with Nicky Chinn writing hits for the likes of Sweet and Mud during the Seventies.

  June 20, 1969, witnessed the birth of one of the great mysteries to have plagued collectors of all things Gibb for more than 30 years. On that day, Decca issued a single by Clare Torry, ‘Love For Living’/‘Love Tomorrow, Love Today’, clearly stating “Producers : Robin Gibb/Ronnie Scott”. However, Robin has always vehemently denied his involvement and, indeed, it transpires that Ronnie Scott is not the late jazz nightclub owner, but a record producer of the same name who lived in Frith Street in London. Whether there is another Robin Gibb lurking in the shadows remains to be seen, but there exists the possibility that the Gibb in this instance could be Mike Gibbs, a composer and arranger of the time.

  Another extremely collectable item appeared on the scene in July. Few in Britain had ever heard of The Tigers, but the Kenji Sawada fronted band were very popular in their native Japan, and had visited London in the hope of achieving similar levels of success in Britain. Polydor introduced them to Barry who delved into his bag of unreleased material and pulled out ‘Smile For Me’, originally an outtake from the Horizontal album. With a little bit of rewriting in which Maurice participated, it was soon ready. Strangely, after going to such bother, Polydor relegated it to the B-side of ‘Rain Falls On The Lonely’, but this failed to provide The Tigers with the hit they craved, and they headed back east. The Japanese issue reversed the status so that ‘Smile For Me’ became the A-side. It was accompanied by the usual deluxe photo-sleeve expected of that market, and shows the group in various poses from their London trip. Barry appears in four of them, perhaps the one in the go-kart being the least damaging to the debonair image he was trying to promote at the time.

  Another recording that was being touted for possible single release during 1969 was Elvis Presley’s rendition of ‘Words’, and the prospect had Maurice positively drooling. “He has done it just as you would imagine Elvis would, but I like it because it is more up-tempo and rock’n’rollish. It will be a smash because he’s done it, I hope.” Whether Maurice was referring to a studio or a live version remains unclear. At the time Elvis was finalising the line-up of tracks for a double album entitled From Memphis To Vegas – From Vegas To Memphis. The first album was recorded live at The International in Vegas, whilst its companion consisted of studio sessions recorded in Memphis. In any event, by the time of the set’s release in November – the British release was delayed until March 1970 – the only version of ‘Words’ was a live one.

  During their lengthy careers, there would be very few instances where the Gibbs would provide an artist with songs to record, and then revisit the material at a later date to produce a Bee Gees release of its own. American female vocalist Pat “P.P.” Arnold had four British chart entries on the Immediate label when she was taken under Barry’s wing. Studio sessions between June 12 and July 12 resulted in ‘Give A Hand Take A Hand’ and ‘Bury Me Down By The River’. ‘Let There Be Love’ had also been recorded on July 9, but this was rejected in favour of the other two songs which formed both sides of her September release for Polydor in Britain and Atco in the US. Barry and Maurice composed both, and Barry additionally took on the producer’s role. Bill Shepherd took responsibility for the arrangements. Release had originally been planned for August as the first record on a new label being launched by Barry and Maurice. Originally called Diamond, and then Gee Bee, something or someone must have intervened and plans were dropped.

  Although the single made little impact, none of the participants were discouraged and a further visit to the recording studio on November 3 saw demos of ‘Piccaninny’, ‘High And Windy Mountain’ and ‘Turning Tide’ deposited in Polydor’s vaults. The first two later appeared as poems in a booklet issued by the Barry Gibb Fan Club in 1970, while the last one was included on the Cucumber Castle album the same year. Pat recorded two more demos on April 4, 1970 but ‘Born’ and ‘Happiness’ would only ever be heard as outtakes from Barry’s unreleased solo album recorded at that time. Two Blood Sweat & Tears songs were also laid down at the same session.

  Exactly the same writing, production and arrangement credits on P.P. Arnold’s single were seen on both sides of the British début single of a young Australian singer called Cheryl Gray. She had made her first TV appearance at the age of 11 in her hometown of Melbourne, and had a Shirley Bassey style hit there in 1967 called ‘You Made Me What I Am’, which made the Top 10. Having been brought to London by her parents in search of stardom, the seventeen year old became the next visitor to IBC studios in July 1969.

  “I had not met The Bee Gees before. We had been in London and were about to return [home], we had our tickets booked. I had done some recording in London with David Mackay in London also. Barry rang my house about 1 a.m. out of the blue – remember I hadn’t met him before – and said he had just heard my record, ‘You Made Me What I Am’, and wanted to work with me. He said, ‘Don’t do a thing before Robert Stigwood signs you.’ What had happened was Barry had had an old friend of mine from Sydney around to his place for dinner, and he had taken over my record to Barry’s house and played it.

  “So I met with Robert Stigwood,” she continued. “He is a most brilliant man, very clever but amazingly shy. There was an absolute aura about him. I firstly auditioned for Robert with Barry playing acoustic guitar singing ‘To Love Somebody’ at Robert’s amazing big mansion, then they arranged for me to go and sing in a studio to see what my voice was like in a recording atmosphere.

  “Then Robert arranged for me to do a show at Caesar’s Palace in London because he wanted to see what I could do on stage. I remember they held the show up in front of hundreds of people until Robert arrived. He was a very important person in the entertainment scene.

  “Anyway, Robert signed me and was going to do big things for me. He said I could be as big as Streisand. It was quite a deal, as I was the only woman on his books at the time.”

  It’s tempting to think that Robert may have been looking for his own Cilla Black, and perhaps thought Cheryl could fill that role. Her name was a problem though, as it didn’t fit the image required. To provide for her future, she borrowed from her past, changing her name at the last possible moment to Samantha Sang – a surname of her ancestors. In fact, her great, great grandfather was a Manchurian surgeon and herbalist.

  It took about a week for her to record her vocals over the backing tracks that had already been laid down, but Bill Shepherd was there as usual to handle the arrangements.

  The release of her Parlophone single was accompanied by full-page ads in the music press announcing “Samantha Sang, and the world listened to ‘The Love Of A Woman’”. In contradiction to the composer credits on the disc’s centre, which included Maurice, the advert also noted that the A-side had been “written and produced by Barry Gibb”. ‘Don’t Let It Happen Again’, another song credited to both Barry and Maurice, was on the flip side.

  Given both the extent of the hype and the quality of the record itself, it was a major surprise that it failed to become a hit anywhere, even in her native Australia. She was taken back into the studios by Barry at the end of October, and recorded demos of ‘Please Don’t Take My Man Away’, which might have originally been written with Lulu in mind, and ‘The Day Your Eyes Meet Mine’, a song that would later be considered by Andy Williams. However, an all too familiar problem reared its ugly head at this point.

  Samantha’s visitor’s visa was about to expire and immigration officials were hot on her trail. Encouraged by his previous success with Colin Petersen and Vince Melouney, Robert Stigwood decided to take them on a second time. To buy himself some time, Robert arranged for her to go to Polydor in Germany. Anxio
us to protect his investment, he then sent her, her family, Bill Shepherd and a whole entourage to Atlantic Records in America to look after her whilst the visa problems were sorted.

  Ahmet appeared to be unsure of his role in the affair and, as Samantha described, asked her, “Vhat does Vobert vant me to do vith you?” To cut a long story short, on this occasion the authorities’ will prevailed over that of Robert’s, and he was forced to let her return to Australia.

  As Tom Kennedy recalled, even a last-ditch desperate attempt failed. “Robert was trying to get someone to marry her at the time so she could stay in the country. I think it was all family connections.”

  The sad outcome was that it was a great opportunity missed, and even after 30 years of reflection, both Samantha and her father remain affected by the treatment handed out by the British Government to a 17-year-old girl.

  * * *

  For Ohio born Steve Kipner – his family moved to Australia before he had graduated from cot to pram – Steve & The Board was not fulfilling his musical ambitions. Steve Groves, a member of the Melbourne band The Kinetics, was in a similar position. In conversation the pair discovered they also shared a love of composing, so they left their respective bands to form a new songwriting partnership, with one eye very much on the forthcoming

  1967 New Faces show.

  As luck would have it, they won the competition with their own ‘Melissa Green’, which they performed under the guise of Tin Tin. As many Australians had done before them, they too decided to seek their fame and fortune in London, finding a benefactor in Phil Solomon, then boss of the now defunct Radio Caroline. Phil also ran the Major Minor record label, and paid for their flights to England where they cut an album for him in 1968, now calling themselves Steve & Stevie.

  The duo toured Britain throughout the remainder of the year, earning themselves a reputation on the cabaret circuit, but were devastated when violence flared in a club in London’s Leicester Square and one of their audience was battered to death. Disillusioned, the pair quit, understandably letting music take a back seat for a while.