The Ultimate Biography of The Bee Gees

by Hector Cook

  “We did a track with Stephen as well — The Bee Gees, myself, Dennis playing drums, and Alan,” Blue said. “ ‘Walk Before You Run’ … was a collaboration, we wrote it in the studio.”

  “Then Robin — all three of ’em — fell in,” Stills continued, “and we sang the chorus one evening in four part harmony and everybody went, ‘Oh oh, we better not, this would be too much to deal with!’ Gorgeous sound though.”

  Albhy’s memories of the tune are a little less enthusiastic than Stephen’s; as he put it, “I don’t think it was a particularly auspicious song.”

  “I’ve played on so many Bee Gees songs I don’t know which ones I played on and which ones I didn’t,” Stephen Stills said in 1979. “Because Barry Gibb is an old friend of mine, and I just sat in and played chickum-chit, chickum-chit, a little wacka wacka guitar, then said, ‘Use ’em or don’t use ’em, I had a great time. You don’t even have to use my name.’ ”

  His percussion work on ‘You Should Be Dancing’ was spot-on, although it took some work to convince the record company. They felt that the percussion breakdown in the song wasn’t commercial enough. It was up to Karl Richardson to create a processed version of the track to simulate how it would sound when played on the radio to persuade them not to cut it out of the song.

  Richardson’s engineering expertise would also come to the forefront for Alan Kendall’s brief guitar solo in ‘You Should Be Dancing’. According to Albhy, the apparently seamless performance was actually superbly edited by Karl from approximately 12 guitar tracks.

  “When I listen to a Bee Gees tune for the first time, I listen for its overall picture of excitement,” Richardson explained. “I’m not that technical on the first listening. I listen mainly for the overall ‘get-off’ point; where does it take me, how do I feel after I’ve heard it.”

  Albhy Galuten operated in much the same way, his job as a producer involving listening to a song written by the brothers, played simply to him on acoustic guitars, to “get a vibe on the emotion, like take an emotional photograph of how it moved with the dynamics, and what the important places were … Then my job was to make sure, when we had a finished record recorded and mixed and everything, that it created the same emotion.

  “ ‘You Should Be Dancing’ is not a song that can stand in a vacuum, but it’s based on the way it’s recorded and sung. So in those kinds of songs, if you change the vision from what it’s supposed to be, even how it’s supposed to feel, the songs of ten don’t survive. Particularly up-tempo soul songs. A ballad is a ballad.”

  Barry agreed with Albhy’s theory that the execution of a song could make or break it. “If we had written [the songs for Main Course] two years before, we might not have got such a hit LP because we were not giving them the right framework,” he added. “Even though the songs themselves might have been good, they would not have been in the ‘what is happening now’ framework.”

  As the recording of the album progressed, Maurice was drinking heavily, and it was becoming evident to the others that they could not always rely on him to play his part. With this in mind, Albhy brought in George “Chocolate” Perry to play bass on the song ‘Subway’.

  “A producer of records is very similar to a producer of films,” Galuten explained. “The producer is responsible for hiring the right musicians. You have to arrange the music, the strings, the horns, sometimes choose the songs, get performances out of vocalists and get the sound down on tape. You also have to share in the engineering duties, recording techniques and sound mixing.

  “Chocolate was someone who was hanging around at the time … and playing, I think, with Crosby, Stills and Nash and other musicians we knew. He was a great bass player, and I thought this would be cool to have him. He seemed like the right bass player for the job. I don’t think there was anything particularly nefarious about it.”

  Even though it was done out of a desire to get the best sound for the individual song, it did cause some hurt feelings. “Albhy was always a little blunt,” Tom Kennedy recalled. “He wasn’t a person who thought about his words, he just said them.”

  Galuten maintained that, while production credit was given to the entire Bee Gees band with Karl Richardson and himself, “Karl, Barry and I were the main ones. We had a vibe,” he said, “very powerful and very creative.” The three worked so well together that when Barry went on to do outside productions, he once again enlisted Karl and Albhy’s help.

  Galuten said that in those days, “Maurice was usually out in the lobby holding court, drinking Perrier, which much of the time had vodka in it… being social and hanging out.”

  Although Robin didn’t play any instruments on the records, “He was pretty active in the writing,” he added, “and then he and Maurice were usually not in the studio. Robin was of ten not around at all, except when he came in to sing, but Robin of ten had good incisive comments. He’d come in, maybe at the end of the day every day, like we’d work during the day, and they’d come in for dinner … Then Robin would make some comments and listen to whatever we’d done that day.”

  “Robin is the objective production ear,” Karl Richardson agreed. “The rest of us — me, Barry, Maurice and Albhy Galuten — get so close to the music, we do so many different experiments, that we can’t always tell what sounds good. Robin comes in and calls it in a second; it doesn’t work or it’s great.”

  “His comments were of ten quite useful and sort of objective in certain ways. Maurice’s comments in that time period frequently were not,” Albhy added bluntly. “He was really not paying attention, and having difficulty with his alcohol problem.”

  Albhy likened Robin’s input on the album to “the way A&R people and executives work. The person who’s not in the trenches can come in and say, ‘Hey, did you notice… ’ Somebody being objective and outside is of ten valuable, and there was a voice in there with Robin, and even at a higher level was Stigwood. He’d also come in and listen every month or two to mixes we had put together, and say, ‘Great, more hits!’ ”

  For the second time in as many albums, Blue got a composing credit. “ ‘The Way It Was’ was something I’d had for awhile as well,” he explained. “That stretched most probably back as far as the ‘Songbird’ riff did as well. I thought, ‘This is a good one — I’ll throw this one at him as well and see what happens.’ That was just myself and Barry there, and Chocolate playing bass — George Perry played bass.”

  Although Blue, like most musicians, finds it difficult to choose one album over another, he said, “Of the ones I worked on … I think Children Of The World most probably [is my favourite]. It was special; I don’t know why. I suppose it’s the amount of work that went into it. Every time I listen, it has a special attraction.”

  Blue recalled that an unwillingness to accept second-rate performances spurred them on in those days. “I wouldn’t let anything go without agreement, or I’d have to be persuaded. But then, I think that’s why things turned out so well,” he added. “I think we were all a bit like that really — nobody would let anything go. Nobody was lazy; if there was something we weren’t quite happy with, no matter how trivial, we’d do it again. And vocally, they’re all perfectionists as well, so they wouldn’t have anything they weren’t happy with.”

  That perfectionism sometimes caused some heated discussions in the recording studios, but he believes it’s all part of the creative process — and part of being a family. “Of course, all families argue, but they’d always come back together, no matter what,” he said. “We always argued but that’s just the way things are — if people just sat back and were complacent and never aired their views, things would just get left. If you think something’s important, you push for it.”

  “We’ve all grown more mature about things like who’s going to sing the lead on what song, and we don’t argue anymore,” said Maurice. “We have an occasional difference of opinion, but it’s usually two or three of us saying we’ll do this or that, and the majority rules. In the old da
ys when the publishing credit said ‘B., R. & M. Gibb’, and I had nothing to do with it, they would say, ‘What’s Maurice’s name doing on it? Why’s he getting paid?’

  “We went through all the little stupid arguments. ‘Who sings lead?’ Who cares, as long as it’s a hit? I don’t care if I don’t have a solo track on the entire album. It’s still a Bee Gees record. All that sort of thing is past — we can handle it now.”

  * * *

  The year 1976 saw the appearance of two films that featured the music of The Beatles. All This And World War is a documentary which uses Movie-tone newsreels and 20th Century-Fox feature film footage to trace the chronology of World War II, against a backdrop of Lennon & McCartney’s music as performed by various artists. Recorded at Olympic Studios in London, the soundtrack music was arranged by Will Malone, and directed by Lou Reizner who had assembled an impressive array of performers, including The Bee Gees.

  The double-album was released in Britain by Riva, and in the USA by 20th Century Records, where a limited edition boxed set was also available. Both releases contained a lavish booklet containing lyrics to all the songs as well as pictures depicting scenes from the movie. Less than a year after the film’s release, Lou Reizner was dead, aged 43.

  The Bee Gees shared top billing with Leo Sayer; each performing three songs, while Roy Wood got two of the 28 tracks. ‘Golden Slumbers’/ ‘Carry That Weight’, ‘She Came In Through The Bathroom Window’ and ‘Sun King’ were all delivered immaculately by the Gibbs, who had also recorded ‘She’s Leaving Home’ at the session too. Ultimately, it was Bryan Ferry’s rendition that prevailed, although a version with Gibb vocals was in the pipeline.

  * * *

  During a break in the recording of Children Of The World, Robin and Maurice returned to England to spend some time with their families, while Barry stayed behind in Miami to mix the new single. For Maurice, the timing was critical as it enabled him to be with Yvonne for the birth of their first child. “I wouldn’t have missed it for anything,” he said.

  “He was great,” Yvonne declared. “He’d been working during the back of my pregnancy. They were away two and a half months, and I’m getting bigger and bigger. I didn’t really mind because he used to phone me every night. He came home about three days before I was to go in hospital. When I went into labour, he came in with gloves on, and he cut the cord.”

  “I got him as he came out, and the doctor grabbed him with me as well,” Maurice added. “And he said, ‘You cut there,’ and I cut the cord. They gave him to a nurse, and we washed him down. Then I saw it was a boy.”

  “The doctor said to me, ‘Congratulations, you’ve got a son, ’ “ Yvonne recalled. “And Maurice came over to me and said, ‘It’s a boy!’ ”

  The six pound nine ounce boy, born at Penbury Hospital, Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent on February 23, 1976, was named Adam Andrew; had he been a girl, Samantha Louisa were the preferred names. “It makes a great year for me as our latest single [‘Fanny (Be Tender With My Love)’] is in the US top 10 and we’re touring there later this year,” Maurice added.

  With little Adam just one week old, Maurice and Yvonne, along with Yvonne’s parents, moved from their home, Kidborough House in Danehill, Sussex, to a townhouse at 10 Stanley Terrace in Douglas, Isle of Man. Thus they would now join Barry and his family as tax exiles. Maurice told reporters that he would not be back in England for some time.

  Although he admitted to a growing frustration with the tax situation at that time, Robin and Molly remained firmly committed to living in England. “I wish people in the pop world and similar scenes were given greater financial encouragement to stay in Britain at the moment,” Robin said. “But I’m prepared to sacrifice some income as the price for staying in the country I regard as home. Molly and I are British to the core, and we just refuse to become tax exiles, although it would be more profitable to do so. While I like the professional excitement of America where we do most of our work, I feel safer and physically more relaxed in England. We believe there is no better place to raise our children. Even though I have to work out of Britain for a large part of the year, it is now easier than ever to fly home to my family.”

  Molly added, “We both want our children to grow up in the surroundings they were born in.”

  In 1993, Maurice gave journalist Pamela Coleman a colourful account of those times. Despite the fact that when he moved to the Isle of Man in 1976, the group were more successful than they had been in years, he maintained, “The Bee Gees were in a rut, tax was terribly high, and we were in a valley of depression. I sold my big house in Sussex and moved to the Isle of Man. I ended up with £5,000 in the bank and a blue Rolls-Royce, living in a terrace house next to a fish and chip shop.”

  Although rich in assets, Maurice was cash poor at the time, though he did have his share of the group’s royalties to look forward to, as well as the sale of his shares in RSO. This would soon enable the family to move to a very nice detached house, then called The Old Vicarage, on Belmont Hill in Douglas, Isle of Man. Maurice and Yvonne changed the name of the house to Kidborough after their previous home. In a strange twist, Jim Caine, who had played with Hughie Gibb’s band in the Forties and Fifties, did the refurbishment of the house for the couple.

  Rather than sell the townhouse, Maurice saw the opportunity not only to retain his investment but also to use it as a source of regular income, renting it out during the remainder of his stay on the island.

  His financial position contrasted with a statement from Barry during this period. “The three of us have made a lot of money … Even during our quiet periods, our tours grossed a lot of money. No problem there,” said the elder brother.

  “[We all] are dollar millionaires. I don’t want to say I’m a pound sterling millionaire … but there is no doubt that The Bee Gees are financially secure. Myself, I’m the fourth largest shareholder in the Robert Stigwood Organisation, followed by Maurice and Eric [Clapton] and people like Frankie Howerd.

  “I think we’d rather build up our income over the years, rather than be hit the way Robin is at 83 per cent. We’re here [in the Isle of Man] because we’d like to live in England if the tax situation eases off.”

  With his typical flair for embellishment Maurice contradicted his brother, telling Melvyn Bragg on The South Bank Show. “Our careers have been like mountains and valleys, it’s been up and down like a yo-yo. We had a great period from ’67 to ’71; that was just unbelievable. We had lots of hits, everything went really well. We had our first two number ones in America, ‘Lonely Days’ and ‘How Can You Mend A Broken Heart’. Then ‘Run To Me’ came out, and I think that did fairly well, and after that boom, nobody wanted to know us, they weren’t interested.

  “Our management lost interest, everyone moved out. All of a sudden, we were left alone. Our manager got interested in musicals with Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. All of a sudden, we didn’t have a career.

  “We were living on the Isle of Man … I got really bad in the drink and stuff like that.”

  Maurice continued in his riches-to-rags vein, his latest account differing slightly in detail to his version of three years before. “Even though we lived on the island, Robin was still living in England because he managed to put more aside than we did. I ended up with a blue Rolls-Royce and about eight grand in the bank. That was it after all the years I’d been working, and then I had to sell the Rolls, of course, and live in a little townhouse next door to a fish and chip shop. That’s all I could afford, nothing in the bank. My marriage to Lulu had broken up by then and I’d remarried, and we had a little six-month-old boy called Adam and living in this townhouse. We couldn’t even afford a cot. Mind you, the fish and chip shop was good, but it was really rough living there, it was really cold.”

  While one can feel some sympathy for Maurice, cut off from the social life he used to revel in, his remark about not even being able to afford a cot is surely stretching things a bit too far. For all that he had to suffer a short
term cash flow problem, Main Course had been the group’s most successful album in years, spawning three hit singles in the United States, so even if there was the usual delay in royalties filtering through, the family would hardly have been living hand to mouth.

  * * *

  On March 22, Maurice and Yvonne flew back to Miami, leaving one-month-old Adam behind in Douglas with his maternal grandparents. In May, the group left behind Criteria and the Miami sunshine to complete the Children of the World album at Le Studio in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. As non-resident aliens, there were limits to the time they were allowed to work in the US, and with Barry and Maurice as tax exiles, working in Britain was not an option. Le Studio was Canada’s finest recording facility at the time and in high demand; The Bee Gees were working evenings and nights there because another artist was booked for the daytime hours. This in itself caused some minor inconvenience — Dick Ashby recalled standing on a step ladder to take photos of the console so they could duplicate all the settings the following day.

  Blue recalled that the early mixes of the album were disappointing. “Everything was there, it’s just that we weren’t happy with maybe the balances, the levels, the way things had been done … the mixes sounded very flat, there was no life to them. We just felt that if we want it to be the way that we wanted them, we better go in and do it ourselves.”

  The album was completed in late May, and the group returned to their homes. For Barry and Maurice, this meant a roundabout route via Paris, then Ireland and on to the Isle of Man, since they weren’t allowed to set foot on British soil. When Maurice and Yvonne left for their belated honeymoon in July, their route was equally circuitous. They travelled from the Isle of Man to Dublin, then on to Madrid. From Madrid, they caught a flight to Mexico City and finally on to their ultimate destination, Acapulco.

  Back in the Isle of Man, boredom set in for Maurice, and the drink took over. He became a familiar face in the Douglas pubs, just as his blue Rolls-Royce was a familiar sight parked outside. On one such evening out, he met up with a friend who was involved in the planning of the island’s famous TT Races. “He asked me if I would like to be a marshal and, as I have had fire rescue and first aid training while in Miami, I decided to give it a try,” Maurice recalled. He was given the position of fire marshal at Creg ny Baa, a famous corner section of the TT track, where there is a pub of the same name. Unfortunately, that portion of the track was the scene of a major disruption during the races, when it was suspected that someone had tipped nails all over the track.