The Ultimate Biography of The Bee Gees

by Hector Cook

  There’s confusion in the credits in different releases, but Robin wrote either ‘Sincere Relation’ or ‘Alone Again’ with Maurice. They are both reminiscent of Robin’s solo works and both are marred by distortion in the piano and vocal.

  Although no solo version of the song was ever recorded, Robin’s handwritten lyrics for an early version of ‘Alone Again’ were published in Germany’s Bravo magazine in 1969 and provide a rare glimpse of a work in progress.

  Baby, you’ve hurt me for the very last time,

  And you show it;

  Everyone around me just knows it, baby,

  Could be, you really had me tied up in string,

  And I believe it;

  And now I’m the one who must leave it,

  I could be wrong.

  Chorus

  People, the sun is going down on your heads

  So read your paper

  I said you’ve been complaining about your legless beds.

  Fortunately, by the time the song appeared on 2 Years On, Robin had reworked the lyrics to such an extent that the original bears little relation to the finished work.

  There also exists another fine example of how a song can change midstream, although this time it required outside intervention. One of the “Bee Gees sessions” tracks that Robin and Maurice had written and recorded before Barry’s decision to team up with them again was called ‘Distant Relationship’.

  The lyrics suggest that the song’s subject matter was the Prince Regent, later King Edward VII, who was notorious for a string of affairs both before and after his ascension to the throne. His conquests included Lilly Langtry, the famous actress, and Mrs. Alice Keppel, equally infamous in her day as a royal mistress as her descendant Camilla Parker Bowles is now. Indeed, some of these original lyrics, were it not such a serious matter, might well bring a wry smile to the present heir to Britain’s throne:

  Sheila, Sean, and I lived in Sennen Cove,

  Drawing pictures in our dining room,

  She could run like Alice In Wonderland,

  She would speak like Charles Dickens planned …

  Then came the Crimean War and I had to sail,

  Waving from the shore like Florence Nightingale,

  And the people’s prince,

  Cannot have what’s rightly his,

  And he’s convinced,

  It’s a distant relationship.

  Before Robin and Maurice could advance the composition beyond the demo stage, Molly’s father, George Hullis, died unexpectedly at the age of 60 a short time before the album was recorded. “He spent the last three days of his life in my house,” Robin said, “and he told me he was going to die.” And so, ‘Sincere Relation’ became Robin’s tribute in song to his late father-in-law, with this set of lyrics bearing little resemblance to the first version:

  George was born somewhere inside London town,

  Working, as he grew for that extra pound.

  Respected by all, he married and made a home

  To give his children more than he had known …

  Years before, a fire sent him in the street.

  It took him months of work to make ends meet.

  But then he died without an explanation.

  He never lied; a very sincere relation.

  (lyrics R. Gibb © Robin Gibb Publishing Ltd. 1970)

  Barry has four solo songs. Two are in the folk country style he used in much of his solo album, of which ‘Tell Me Why’ is the simplest and purest. “I wrote this with Ray Charles in mind,” Barry said. “It was written just before a session, with the lights down.”

  Maurice goes for a no-risk little country rocker, ‘Lay It On Me’, his voice growling and with as many instruments as he could dub. “This is a Maurice Gibb solo – backing and all,” Maurice said proudly. “It’s sort of swamp soul, and I recorded it at ten in the morning. I love the whole feel of it.”

  The thirteenth recording of 1970 alluded to earlier was the timeless ‘How Can You Mend A Broken Heart’, but fans of the group would have to wait until the following year before they would hear it.

  * * *

  The group’s former drummer, Colin Petersen, was also making a fresh start with a group he named Humpy Bong, a two-word variation of the name of one of the schools that he and the Gibb brothers attended in Australia. The group’s first single, ‘Don’t You Be Too Long’, featured Colin on drums, Tim Staffell on guitar and lead vocals and Jonathan Kelly on bass, but the group was unable to play any live gigs until they added two new members.

  The spectre of Colin’s Bee Gees’ past was making the task of recruitment even harder. “I’ve just auditioned my 200th applicant,” he groaned. “People are assuming the new group will be a carbon copy of The Bee Gees. I must have heard ‘Massachusetts’ 50 times.”

  “I am still looking for a good lead guitarist and a pianist to finish the line-up,” Colin said. “We can record with the three of us by double-tracking, but we can’t appear on stage. Live radio shows are also a problem …”

  For Jonathan Kelly, of course, it was simply an extension of his existing relationship with Colin, who had produced three singles and an album for the Irish born singer.

  Jonathan Kelly went on to release two more RCA albums while under Colin and Joanne’s management, Twice Around The Houses in 1972 and Wait Till They Change The Backdrop a year later, although neither release had any musical involvement from Colin. Looking back, Jonathan still retains strong views of his time with the Petersens, and is not afraid to express them, although much of it is tempered with regret.

  “[Colin’s] main interest was music, and I think he would have liked to produce, but I don’t know if that was gonna be his forte. He was a very active producer, he wanted certain sounds, he wanted lots of things, so he was good, but I think you’ve got to have a very deep musical knowledge to produce well. And you’ve probably got to know about electronics a bit, you’ve got to know about sound and how it translates. I don’t think Colin had ever really got involved in sound to that degree.

  “I think Colin liked the good times, he liked living it up. I don’t know whether he was going to be a serious student of music or production, because that’s all about hard work.”

  Taking into account his own persona and political beliefs, Jonathan reflected, “Colin and Joanne were different to me; different, different, different! They loved fame and glory and being in the midst of the pop industry. I hated the pop industry actually. I saw it as totally ruthless and callous. Not to say that there aren’t good people [in it], because music is the most wonderful thing, and I’ve met so many good people. They were quite happy to go along with the system, but I wouldn’t.

  “They used to always take me to lovely restaurants, so kind, I couldn’t believe these places I was going to. We went to a Greek restaurant, and the Greek owner started coming over to Joanne and saying, ‘We Greeks and you Jews, we will get together and we will kill the Palestinians!’ She never made a big thing out of that, she didn’t think in those ways. In fact they weren’t political at all, I don’t think they thought politically. I did! I couldn’t help it, and this guy was talking all this racism at my table. I know he owned the restaurant but it was my table while I was in his restaurant, so I told him! I said, ‘Can you please go away from this table.’ I will not sit, joined to somebody who is talking racial hatred.

  “That’s why we were so different; they would just have gone along with those things. I can’t go along with those things, so we were never ever going to mesh, never going to come together really. And that was the trouble; and that was the trouble for Colin and Joanne. They needed some guy who wanted to be famous, who would just toe the pop line. But I was awkward and a troublemaker and I understand from their point of view that was a real problem.”

  After breaking away from Colin and Joanne in 1974, Jonathan went on to do two more solo albums, Waiting On You and 1975’s Two Days In Winter which he produced himself. He had his problems with drink and drugs, then
found religion, but seems to have reconciled himself to the manner in which his errant, restless personality was incapable of embracing pop success.

  Colin Petersen returned to Australia with his family in 1974. Their son Jaime, christened Gideon, would soon have a younger brother, Ben, born the year after the family’s move. Colin and Joanne would go on to have one of showbiz’s longest running marriages before their unexpected break-up, 25 years after their departure from England.

  Colin’s bad luck extended to financial matters. He lost his right to royalties in a deal made after his unsuccessful High Court case against the brothers. He remained close to Vince Melouney, who sympathises with his friend’s predicament. “He’s a painter now. Colin Petersen a painter, can you believe it? [He’s] pretty bitter about it all and when they met in 1989, he mentioned [the royalties aspect] to Barry. Barry was going to check up on it, but Colin never heard back.”

  * * *

  As Jonathan Kelly and the Petersens went their separate ways, another threesome were coming to terms with being back together again.

  Although the brothers all agreed that they were happier as a group, getting back together was not without its complications. All three agree that they spent most of the next five years getting to know one another again – and trying to explain to the press, suddenly bereft of their squabbles to sell magazines, the reasons for their break-up and re-formation.

  “It’s funny that in the first week of recording, we sat around and looked at each other and smiled,” Maurice remembered. “But we were all afraid to suggest something – it was a case of, ‘Who’s going to try and take control?’ We had to get back together because the formula was between the three of us, but the image of The Bee Gee brothers had been smashed.”

  “We were all willing to give ground though,” Barry added. “It was a case of, ‘Whoever pushes the first idea, we’ll accept it.’ And we started to ask each other’s opinions and generally think about the other person a bit more. In the past, we were just three kids. We couldn’t respect each other as men and for each other’s talent.

  “I think we reformed because we were tired of being on our own,” he added. “We didn’t split in the first place because we wanted to be solo acts, we just wanted to be alone for a while because at that time we’d been together for 10 years. We were young men and it only struck us because of our ages. Now we’re the average age of a pop group.”

  “The break-up was an adolescent action,” Robin agreed. “We were going through the puberty stage. Each wanted his own recognition. Breaking up did us a lot of good. If it didn’t happen, we wouldn’t be as good a group as we are now.”

  “It made us grow up. We needed it,” Barry added. “We needed to see if we could go out and make it on our own. Most groups can’t go back because they’re not brothers. Their heads are in a different space.”

  Molly Gibb agreed that the time apart had been essential for the three brothers. “If the break-up hadn’t have happened then, they wouldn’t be together now. I’m convinced of that,” she said. “The time away gave them all breathing space, time to grow up. And to realise that as a team, they worked better. Everything had been so intense. They had almost been manipulated like puppets, and they were very much indulged in. I think this type of break made them realise what it was all about.”

  On Boxing Day, 1970, British fans got a double treat when the group appeared on a comedy special with Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore, and the long awaited Cucumber Castle was finally screened on the BBC. The delay in showing Cucumber Castle was explained by the fact that the group had reconciled, and there was some talk of re-shooting some scenes to include Robin. He suggested that he would like to play a court jester, but in the end, the film was shown in its original version.

  As the year drew to its close, tucked away in a small corner of the music papers was the news that Ashton, Gardner & Dyke were to release a new single. Entitled ‘The Resurrection Shuffle’, it would spend 14 weeks in the UK charts reaching a very respectable number three. It appeared that Vince’s faith in the group had been justified but, sadly, he had now departed. In the event, AG&D would join the list of acts with the unwanted nomenclature of “one hit wonders”.

  21

  TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

  WITH ‘LONELY DAYS’ topping the charts in America’s Cashbox magazine and placed number three on Billboard’s chart, The Bee Gees had their biggest hit in the States to date, and late in January 1971, they set off on an extensive promotional tour to prove to the American record-buying public that the Brothers Gibb were definitely back.

  “We don’t feel rusty because we’ve been playing all our lives,” Barry said. “But it is a little bit apprehensive to be getting back to live dates, and I have a feeling that in the next week or two we’ll probably be rehearsing harder than we’ve done before, and probably working a lot harder at it than actually being on tour.”

  They admitted that they really didn’t know what to expect of the American audiences. “I’m very confused about them because none of us knows if they’ll be the people who have bought our records in the past, or if they’ll be deeper, more progressive, or what,” Barry added.

  “We’ll just have to go there and see what happens,” Robin said philosophically. “We haven’t changed ourselves, at least not in a way we can notice. It’s very hard for any group to see itself. It’s easy to get too involved – and not see the faults anymore.”

  “We’re now all married and have a stable place in life,” Maurice added. “We have more understanding between each other, no hang-ups and no hassles. We don’t enjoy doing things on our own. If Barry got a number one and I didn’t, it would cause a bit of a hassle, then the next person would say, ‘I’m going to stay out until I make it.’ We’ve got to have a hit together rather than separately. When I made a solo album – it’s in the can and hasn’t been released – I was dying to come home and play it to the boys. I’d play it to Lulu and she’d say, ‘That bass is a bit too loud’ and walk out! And I couldn’t take it to the boys, although I wanted to, because at the time we weren’t talking!”

  The group, with Geoff Bridgeford in tow as a hired drummer, flitted from one to another of the top television shows of the time, performing ‘Lonely Days’ on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, The Ed Sullivan Show and The Johnny Cash Show. For The Andy Williams Show, they performed both sides of the latest single.

  In February the group travelled to New York for an appearance on The Dick Cavett Show and the start of a seven-concert tour. It was their first time on the road since the close of the German tour in December 1968, and the boys were understandably nervous. The opening concert was originally intended to be held at Carnegie Hall, but inexplicably the venue was changed to the Albany Palace Theatre.

  Hugh Gibb was present in his official capacity of lighting director, but at the soundcheck before the show, he was very much the father chiding his sons, with comments like, “Keep the guitar down, Maurice. You can’t hear the fiddles with the guitar that loud and it ruins the effect.”

  Following a set by another family group, The Staple Singers, Barry, Robin and Maurice took the stage. Standing in front of the curtain backdrop, they opened the show with ‘New York Mining Disaster 1941’ and followed it with ‘To Love Somebody’. The third song was ‘Really And Sincerely’, and as the crescendo was building, the curtain was raised to reveal what Hugh Gibb had so cavalierly dubbed “the fiddles”: a 20-piece orchestra in full evening dress. The Bee Gees played all their previous hits with this orchestral backing, finishing off with a triumphant ‘Lonely Days’.

  “When we did Albany, it was incredible,” Maurice recalled. “It was the first time we’d actually been on stage in two and a half years. And once you make one mistake, that’s it, you just wait for the next one. Nothing is spontaneous on stage. Everything is made to look spontaneous, but it’s all carefully calculated. Robin forgot the lyrics in ‘Really And Sincerely’. He used some from ‘I Started A Joke’. So when we
got to ‘I Started A Joke’, he just used the lyrics to ‘Really And Sincerely’ that he’d forgotten, and no one knew the difference. They think you’ve rewritten it for the stage.”

  The tour progressed with the press dedicating almost as much space to Lynda as her famous husband and brothers-in-law. The latest fashion craze was for hot pants, and Barry’s young wife was a most dedicated follower of fashion in those days. Rolling Stone’s Robin Green mentioned that Lynda “stayed on the sidelines filing her nails but attracted lots of attention in red patent leather boots, pink shirt and red leather hot pants, cheeks hanging out the back,” and various photos duly appeared in most of the pop magazines. Barry and Maurice were described as looking like everything a rock star should be in “painful-looking too tight pants,” while Robin “gave the group class by wearing a grey wool three-piece suit” as he “stood stiff and skinny, moved spastically like a puppet on strings and sang in this touching trembling sweet voice.”

  The mini tour came to its conclusion on February 21 in Portland, Oregon, and the group returned to Britain, where ‘Lonely Days’ had failed to make much of an impact on the charts. Barry admitted his disappointment with sales but added, “That’s not to say that I think ‘Lonely Days’ has had its day here. I’m still waiting for it to do better, and I’m not convinced it’s going to drop away without trace. Maybe the American success will revive some of the interest.”

  Following their return to Britain in March, Geoff Bridgeford was asked officially to join the group. “Naturally I am very, very pleased,” he said. “I sort of drifted into it … I was gigging around with Tin Tin and, at the same time, I was doing a lot of session work for [The Bee Gees]. I played on all of their solo albums while the break-up was in force. When they got back together again, I played on 2 Years On and the single ‘Lonely Days’. It just seemed natural that we should stick together for a tour but I was very surprised when they asked me to become a member. I’d expected to be on sessions with them but not as a fully fledged Bee Gee.