by Hector Cook
Maurice was even more forthcoming about the problem with the lyrics. “When we did ‘Jive Talkin’’ …we were talking about rock and roll jive, the dance,” he revealed. “[Arif] said, ‘No, I’ve got to tell you it’s a black expression for bullshitting somebody.’ We had ‘Jive talkin’ you dance with your eyes’ and we changed it to ‘Jive talkin’, you’re telling me lies.’ So we just changed the lyrics around and he even gave us the groove, he said, ‘ This is what the tempo should be.’ ”
“On ‘Jive Talkin’ ’ I remember we used … it was very interesting, we did it to a click, but it was a metronome with a light flashing,” Mardin explained. “The drummer would look at the light flashing to play it, not an audible click but a visual click. So we weren’t really getting into cutting edge sounds on Main Course.”
The intense creativity in the air spurred the group on. “But the actual track that started it all off was ‘Jive Talkin’’,” said Robin. “That snowballed one night and the energy went on for a couple of weeks.”
Blue Weaver explained the distinctive bass sound on the track. “I thought, ’Oh, we can’t go back home tonight and listen to the demo without bass, so I’ll copy a sort of bass guitar thing and do it with the synthesizer because Maurice wasn’t there at the time. So I got the ARP in, there was one in the studio, and I started playing the bass part. We took it home that night and we thought, ‘That’s it, that’s an angle — that’s great!’ Then instead of going for a guitar sound, to make it sound like a bass guitar, we went for something totally different. We all got into the studio the following day, and Arif as well, we were all saying, ‘Well, we’ve hit on something here — how do we approach it?’
“Well, I thought, ’We’ll do it first and then we’ll see how we overcome the point of Maurice not playing bass on it. It was actually in C so we got Maurice to tune his low E string down to a C so he plays the down beat, the C to add the extra weight to the synthesizer, so he’s still involved. But I think he would have gone along with it even if he hadn’t been involved because everybody could see that it was right.”
“On Main Course we were still exploring.” Arif explained. “However, I had some ARPs and such, which were state of the art at that time. We used bass lines, and we had that instrument play, the keyboard player play bass lines. Some of them, I wrote down. Definitely, on ‘Nights On Broadway’ or ‘Jive Talkin’ ’, Maurice was playing bass too, but the synth bass was playing some active stuff. So obviously that influenced him. We had two basses going at the same time.”
If Maurice is to be believed, the choice of ‘Jive Talkin’ ’ as a single was far from unanimous, but that the group decided “to live dangerously” and release it anyway. “A lot of people were against it being the first single but Robert got his way as well as ourselves. Robert knew it was going to be the first single. He knew it was going to be a smash.”
Because of the apparent prejudice against The Bee Gees, RSO is said to have famously shipped out blank white label copies of ‘Jive Talkin’ ’ to allow the song to sell itself without DJs knowing who it was. However, no blank label copies of the single are known to exist; in fact, when VH-1 was putting together its Bee Gees Legends television documentary in 1998, they had to create one to perpetuate the myth.
“There might not have been white label copies,” Tom Kennedy admitted, “but I think there were some tapes sent out to radio stations … I think it was to do with Al Coury, one of his bright ideas, because we were suffering.”
Maurice offered another variation. “We were over the moon about ‘Jive Talkin’ ’, but when we played it to people at the record company, they didn’t want it … Stigwood was fighting with them, telling them they were mad and it was a guaranteed number one single, and we were getting secret phone calls from the record company asking us if we could talk him out of it. Robert came up with a way round it, which was that he sent out some unmarked cassettes to DJs and critics. That way they wouldn’t know who it was, so they’d only come back to us if they liked the music. Then, having said they liked it before they discovered it was The Bee Gees, it was very hard for them not to play it.”
Blue Weaver did a little promotion of his own. “When I got back to England, I took one down to the Speakeasy and Roger Chapman of Family was there,” he recalled. “I got the DJ to put it on without telling Roger who it was, and he loved it. Then he said, ‘So who was it?’ I had to actually tell him it was The Bee Gees, it was that different.”
The single was definitely accompanied by a plea from Polydor’s press officer David Hughes: “If you’ve never liked The Bee Gees before, and there seems to be some who now have a mental block when it comes to their records, please give this single a chance. It is totally unlike anything they have recorded in their entire career. That’s a bold statement but it’s not wrong. Produced by Arif Mardin, this is actually almost unrecognisable as the Gibb brothers and is an extremely funky piece of music. If you don’t like The Bee Gees (or rather if you haven’t in the past liked The Bee Gees), please pretend it’s not them.”
Whatever the reason, the public listened. “Because it was a departure from the ballad style that most people associated us with,” Barry said, “when it became a hit people started saying that we had stepped down to be a disco group which was a sort of put-down to disco music as well. We don’t think disco is bad music. We think it’s happy and has wide appeal. We decided we would try something light-hearted. We didn’t cunningly go into the disco market to gain greater strength in the record market as some people implied at the time.”
According to Rolling Stone magazine, an unlabeled test pressing released in Britain found that only 20 per cent of the DJs who heard it were able to identify ‘Jive Talkin’ ’ as The Bee Gees.
More importantly to The Bee Gees themselves was that as ‘Jive Talkin’ ’ entered the American pop singles chart at number nine, it was simultaneously entering the rhythm & blues charts at number 90. While not the highest rating, to them it was significant, symbolising the recognition they had been seeking that they were, according to Robin, “an R&B group with a lot of soul music in our hearts. Our dream is not to be the best group of the Sixties, but the best group of tomorrow,” he added. The success of ‘Jive Talkin’ ’ was not just limited to the United States, where it eventually hit the number one spot on June 18. It also made number five in the UK as well as the Top 20 in Germany, Australia and many other places around the globe.
On May 21, 1975, just weeks after ‘Jive Talkin’’ had been released, Robert Stigwood threw an outdoor party on the skating rink at the Rockefeller Center to celebrate The Bee Gees’ twentieth anniversary in show business, complete with a huge piano shaped cake. Although the claim that Barry, Robin and Maurice had actually begun performing in public in 1955 had never been fully substantiated, why let that spoil a good party?
Rumour had it that while there were 250 invited guests, more than 450 attended the bash, and the searchlight pointing straight up into the Manhattan sky drew even more sightseers. Guests included Atlantic Records boss Ahmet Ertegun, The Average White Band, Broadway star Ben Vereen, and, of course, the guests of honour, The Bee Gees and band members with their wives and girlfriends. Even Molly Gibb had flown in from England for the event.
Despite the fact that Stigwood arrived in his usual understated fashion in a stretch limousine, the joke of the evening was that many of his guests went through the entire five hour party without seeing him, while many of those who did catch a glimpse of him didn’t recognise him. The Bee Gees arrived in a hired car driven by a former construction worker called Marvin, who told the swarming reporters, “The boys don’t mind what they drive in. They’re just as happy in a little Cadillac.”
The ubiquitous Marvin also divulged that “the boys” didn’t care for Stigwood’s choice of the evening’s entertainment, the 20-piece Lester Lanin Orchestra, who had previously played for four Presidents at 11 White House parties. “They want something you can move to,” he added.
/> As the group mingled with the guests, a proud Hugh Gibb told reporters, “I knew they’d do it if they got the breaks. It was frustrating. One thing about being with them around the world, I’ve had the opportunity of meeting so many people, big people, I never thought I would in a fit. Who’d ever thought of three kids from Brisbane in a place like this?”
With that, it was time to turn the evening’s festivities over to the man who made it all possible, as band leader Lanin announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, your host, Robert Stigman!”
* * *
The Main Course album was released three days later in the US and the following month in the UK and Europe. “It’s the quickest reaction we ever had to something different,” Robin said. “Our fans know us as writers; they’ll accept anything we do. Writers can’t limit themselves; they must explore all areas of creativity. The hard-core fans will appreciate our music just as much; they’re still getting their type of music. The whole thing is, we’re picking up new fans, not just keeping the old. We want to keep the old, but we want to get new ones as well.”
For the second album in a row, The Bee Gees do not appear on the cover, which uses the same artwork background on both sides, on the front a drawing of a young woman in a large hat and nothing else bathing in a large spoon. Al Coury, the head of RSO Records, recalls the cover as someone’s deliberate strategy to help the R&B flavoured songs gain an edge on the R&B charts. “Atlantic didn’t want black people to know the group wasn’t black. If they saw three white guys on the cover, that might be a major problem.” If so, it would all depend on young record buyers’ memories being too short to recall the Midnight Special shows only one and two years earlier. At any rate, the inner sleeve included a small monochrome photo of the group. Barry holds a cup of tea.
Maurice insisted that the public hadn’t been ready for the new Bee Gees’ sound in the past. “When we were going with softer material such as ‘How Can You Mend A Broken Heart’ and ‘Run To Me’, I think that’s all people wanted to hear from us,” he said. “I don’t believe that our audience would have accepted our new songs then.”
It wasn’t just their old fans who were surprised by their new sound. David English, Barry’s close friend, revealed, “Jack Bruce sent a telegram to the boys saying he’d just heard the record, and he had thought it was the best new black band he’d heard. This was before he knew it was The Bee Gees.”
English singer/actor Paul Nicholas added, “I remember being on holiday and there were a load of people including Robert Stigwood, myself and lots of other people down in Brazil … I remember Robert saying to me that he was trying to get them to … listen to other people’s music. Because I think that he felt they had lost touch with what was currently going on. I remember him playing this kind of new sound from them, which was this kind of disco thing and the high pitched falsetto stuff and thinking, ‘God, this is fantastic!’ ”
Maurice had yet another story. “There was a party the other night and the Stones were in Robert Stigwood’s apartment. He just put the album on and didn’t tell them who it was,” he claimed, “and Mick Jagger says, ‘That’s fucking dynamite, who’s that? Some new group you’ve signed up?’ ”
On May 30, The Bee Gees were due to begin a 40-date tour of the United States in Dayton, Ohio, the first time in nearly eight years that they would perform without an orchestra. Initial rehearsals with the new band took place in the Isle of Man. “The whole situation was new … not having to think about an orchestra,” Blue Weaver said. “We were trying to play together as a unit as well. Before the Main Course tour we rehearsed in the Isle of Man for a week or two, a couple of hours a day, and then a couple of days actually in America with the whole set-up.”
Geoff Bruce, the manager of the Douglas Bay Hotel at that time, remembered exactly how long the group rehearsed on the island. “Barry and Maurice approached me one day and asked, ‘Could we use the hotel restaurant to rehearse in winter?’ because we were closed in winter,” he explained. “I said we were having it redecorated so it would be quite empty. I asked if they would have a lot of gear to bring, and they said, ‘No, no, there won’t be a lot of gear,’ so eventually, I said fine, they could use it.”
Apparently the Gibb brothers’ idea of what constituted “a lot” of equipment differed radically from Geoff’s. “A furniture van arrived and it had a piano, keyboards and stacks of equipment. I remember Alan Kendall was with them then, and Blue Weaver was on keyboards. They rehearsed ‘Jive Talkin’ ’ and ‘Fanny (Be Tender)’.
“It was really strange that they were rehearsing in the room that their father had played in some 30 years before. Their mum and dad would of ten come and listen to them rehearse, and time the sets for them. Hughie used to tell the boys how it used to be when he was there. Barbara used to come to most of the rehearsals.
“They would start about midday — it was quite strange — I became the world’s authority on ‘Jive Talkin’ ’ because my flat was above the restaurant, and I listened to ‘Jive Talkin’ ’ for about two weeks until midnight every night. In fact, the opening riff still sends a cold shiver down my back!” he added.
“For years people said that because we always travelled with an orchestra, they never knew if we were any good as a band,” Robin admitted. “It was time to let everybody hear us as a band and judge for themselves.”
Dick Ashby agreed that the new band was very important to The Bee Gees’ new sound. “Without a doubt, [Blue Weaver] has given everyone else in the band and the three brothers themselves a big lift this time. He’s a fresh person in there injecting ideas.
“There’s Dennis Bryon on drums … and we’re moving into synthesizers and just having a small brass section. Geoff Westley’s responsible for scoring the songs brass-wise, and we’re also using ten keyboards this time so he and Blue are playing keyboards. There’s about six synthesizers, electric piano, a regular piano and Hammond organ, so it needs ten pairs of hands in there. Obviously in London, Geoff is very busy so we’re hoping to bring in yet another keyboard player [who isn’t available until the end of the year].”
With Dennis, Blue and Geoff added to the core Bee Gees musicians of Barry on rhythm guitar, Alan Kendall on lead guitar, and Maurice now mainly on bass, The Bee Gees were, at last, a band to be reckoned with.
At the time, there were plans for Dennis, Alan, Blue and another keyboard player to form their own group and open the shows for The Bee Gees. “It will be a permanent thing inasmuch as they’ll be doing their own thing, as well as working for The Bee Gees,” Ashby said. “It will give them goals to aim for.” A recording contract for the group apart from their Bee Gees’ work was in the talking stages, but it never progressed any further than that.
The tour was the first time that anyone had seen the group performing their new falsetto sound, but 1975’s Main Course might have proved confusing for the fans seeing ‘Nights On Broadway’ performed live for the first time and seeing the falsetto ad-libs done — by Maurice.
Robin’s wife Molly had returned to England after the anniversary party at the Rockefeller Center, as usual shunning the touring life in favour of spending her time at home with the couple’s children, three-year-old Spencer and one-year-old Melissa. The years hadn’t changed her opinion that touring was a complete bore, and she claimed she would rather not have children at all than to turn their care over to someone else. Reasoning that when he was working, he didn’t have time to spend with her anyway, she preferred to stay behind and keep in touch long distance. “Robin and I are in constant contact,” she said. “He phones me every night, and we always chat for a quarter of an hour or so.”
While Molly and Robin kept the telephone lines busy, Lynda Gibb and Yvonne Spenceley once again chose to accompany their men on the tour. For Yvonne, the novelty was still there. “I’m only just getting used to the life of a pop star — but I don’t mind it at all. We first met in a restaurant when the group were having a night out. I was disappointed in The Bee Gees at first,
but they got better as their week in Batley went on. I wasn’t a Bee Gees fan then,” she admitted, “but I definitely am now. Maurice has a very amiable disposition and we get on very well.”
The American tour got off to a poor start when, in Cleveland, Ohio, on the second night, the group played to an audience of only 500 people. Main Course had barely been released, and the group was still suffering from the slump of the past few years. As the group made their way across the United States, everything was about to change dramatically.
There was a special concert in Chicago taped for the Public Broadcasting System’s Soundstage programme. In addition to the usual concert material, the group answered questions from the studio audience and reprised some of their childhood favourites, ‘Bye Bye Love’, ‘Lollipop’ and ‘Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen’. They also performed ‘To Love Somebody’ with their special guest and RSO stablemate, Yvonne Elliman.
On the West Coast, they made yet another appearance on The Midnight Special where they received a Gold Record award for ‘Jive Talkin’ ’, presented by Wolfman Jack. This time they performed ‘To Love Somebody’ with hostess, and fellow Aussie ex-pat, Helen Reddy. The Bee Gees’ offbeat senses of humour mixed with their music once again proved popular with television audiences, and once again the idea of a film was discussed.
“It is possible that we’ll be staying after this tour for a TV film that will lead to other things,” Barry said. “I don’t know whether we’re going to like it or not — Robin, Maurice and I — since we’ve never acted before. From what I’ve heard — this is nothing definite — it’s about three immigrants who come to America at the turn of the century. Something like Little House On The Prairie — but I hope different enough — because I certainly won’t say those things in front of a camera to anybody! From what I hear, it starts after we’ve arrived. But I guess we would have had to come over by boat. There weren’t a lot of planes around at the turn of the century!”