The Ultimate Biography of The Bee Gees

by Hector Cook

  It was reported that back in Australia, even sister Lesley was considering a return to the music industry, but although she recorded a song, family commitments severely curtailed her promotion of it, and it disappeared without a trace.

  The Bee Gees were said to be taping a television special in August but it never aired. They had also begun plans for their first tour of Russia, scheduled for November, 1978, but this too would fall by the wayside.

  On September 8, Barry and Lynda’s second son was born at the Mount Sinai Hospital in Miami. The baby, christened Ashley Robert Crompton Gibb, was born with a heart disorder and spent the first month of his life in a special care unit. He weighed only four pounds and 11 ounces and measured 18 inches long.

  Four days after Ashley’s birth, Robin and Maurice flew to Los Angeles to begin recording at Cherokee Studio, and Barry joined them two days later.

  * * *

  On December 11, with ‘Stayin’ Alive’ topping the American charts, The Bee Gees acted as co-hosts for the Billboard Rock Awards Show recorded live for television in the USA. They also received the Don Kirshner Rock Award for Public Service.

  In February they picked up the Grammy Award in the category of “Best Vocal Pop Performance by a Duo, Group or Chorus” for ‘How Deep Is Your Love’, the only single from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack released in time for the 20th Annual Grammy Award.

  The awards and recognition were all very welcome, but Barry insisted, “We don’t want to sit on our laurels. We knew we always had a lot more to offer people than they thought we had.

  “We feel the pressure to make the perfect album. Before, nobody much cared what we were working on. Now we feel like we’ve got to please the world and his uncle. People used to say that The Bee Gees would never be a lasting influence on music and we hated that. We always knew that we could make music that would last and influence other people, but we had to find the right time.”

  As the only one not a tax exile at the time, Robin was the sole Gibb brother present for the London premiere of the film on March 22, well over three months later than its American equivalent. For the party afterwards, Stigwood had arranged for the Sundown Club in London to be revamped at a cost of over £30,000 to resemble 2001 Odyssey, the disco of the film. Special lighting effects, smoke machines and film equipment added to the atmosphere, as nearly everyone took to the dance floor. The film’s star, John Travolta, whom Robert Stigwood described with his usual hyperbole as “the new Robert Redford, the new Rudolph Valentino,” was a notable exception — he remained sitting, chatting with Bianca Jagger. Robin and Molly Gibb were also sitting out the dancing, with Robin complaining to a journalist that he was losing his voice. “It’s dreadful trying to talk over this noise,” he said, as a Bee Gees song blared from the club’s speakers.

  28

  I JUST WANT TO BE YOUR EVERYTHING

  “‘I JUST WANT TO BE YOUR EVERYTHING’ was one of the most meaningful songs of all forme, you know,” Andy revealed. “It all came about that I had just got married in Australia at the time, and Robert Stigwood and my brother Barry asked me to fly out to Bermuda as kind of a honeymoon come-working set-up to meet with Barry and to sign up with Robert for RSO Records.”

  It appeared to be a logical progression for Andy to sign up with the manager who had masterminded The Bee Gees’ career. “Obviously, I wasn’t going to refuse an offer from RSO Records,” he said. “They don’t come along every day, you know.” Robert Stigwood had watched Andy grow up from the youngster who wanted more than anything to be just like his eldest brother. It now seemed likely that Stigwood could work the same magic on Andy’s career as he had on his elder brothers’ 10 years earlier.

  Andy’s follow-up to his Australian début single, ‘Words And Music’ was intended to be his version of the Ray Stevens’ song, ‘Can’t Stop Dancing’. He had performed the song on the Australian Bandstand television show, and the single, backed by Andy’s own composition, ‘In The End’, was actually pressed and scheduled for release in September. Andy had even recorded an album at Col Joye’s ATA studio consisting of all original compositions with the exception of Don McLean’s ‘Winter Has Me In Its Grip’. “I’m very much influenced by Don McLean,” Andy revealed, “which is funny because critics have said they haven’t heard a song of mine they could possibly relate to Don McLean. But if I’m ever musically dry, all I have to do is put on an album of his songs and suddenly I can write.”

  Both the single and the album Andy recorded in Australia were scrapped, although at least one copy of the unreleased single is known to exist. With his eyes firmly on the future, Andy wanted a fresh start with new songs.

  “So, once we discussed it all and got the deal together … me and Barry locked ourselves in a bedroom, and Barry just started writing,” Andy recalled. “When Barry writes, it is very hard to collaborate with him, because he is so quick. And before I knew it he was starting to do the chorus [of ’I Just Want To Be Your Everything], and I thought, ‘Wow, what a hook!’ It was right in there.

  “He’s an expert at his craft. Within about 20 minutes, he’d written a number one record; and then we went right into another one; and then we co-wrote the next one … in about 40, 50 minutes, it’s just unbelievable when you are working with him.”

  After cutting the demos of the tracks, Andy and Kim returned briefly to Australia before getting the call to return to Florida. One of the first things Andy did on his return was to phone Trevor Norton, his former Zenta band mate. “I still kept in contact with him after he went to America … As soon as he arrived at the airport and got back to the hotel, he’d ring me straight away and say, ‘Come over, man, come over!’“ Trevor recalled. “Andy actually wanted to take me to the States with him, because he’d gone overa couple of times just after we’d finished playing with him and that was his idea, to take me with him over there … but his brothers said, ‘We can get you the best drummers in the bloody world over here, you know?’ ”

  Andy and Kim travelled to the sunny beaches of Miami, where they stayed at the oceanfront Key Biscayne Hotel. Although she said she liked America, native Australian Kim remained unimpressed with her new surroundings. “The beaches are not a patch on ours,” she said. “I used to be really sarcastic and say, ‘Come on, surf’s up!’ when there was a little ripple on the water.”

  Andy went into the studio to begin work with Barry, Albhy Galuten and Karl Richardson to lay down the tracks for his first album. With his experience in the Miami music scene, Albhy Galuten put a band together for the sessions. Harold Cowart on bass and Ron “Tubby” Ziegler on drums were from Louisiana. “They had been session musicians for Atlantic Records earlier, back before I got down there,” Albhy recalled. “They were the session musicians in a band called Cold Grits that played on some of the Atlantic records like ‘Rainy Night in Georgia’ … so I knew those two and others from playing on other records doing session work. George Terry [guitar] was in a band called Game and had done some session work. Joey Murcia [guitar] was a session musician over at Tone, which is a studio where they did all that KC & The Sunshine Band stuff and all those records. They were a good band, good musicians. So Barry was very impressed.”

  Karl explained what they described as “The Andy Gibb Sound”. “We don’t put the vocals too loud. We want it to sound like a band. And I put a lot of rhythm into the songs. After we find the right mix, we feature people whose parts seem more integral to the record.”

  Andy’s career was off to a promising start, but things were beginning to change for the newlyweds. Andy told his new bride that now she must consider the Gibb brothers and their wives her family, but her own family ties remained strong. Kim said Maurice, Yvonne and Robin were kind to her, but she was beginning to feel that the “Gibb commune” was closing in on her, just as she noticed a change in Andy. “He tried hard not to let what happened to him happen,” she said. “But Andy adapts to the environment he’s in. When he’s in the [Gibb] family’s company, he’s a differ
ent person. They’re not entirely to blame. Andy didn’t have to do the things they said.”

  Still, despite some homesickness, Kim remained supportive of Andy’s goals. “We were very happy — he wanted to be famous and I helped him,” she said simply.

  The song selected to be Andy’s first single outside Australia was the first song written in one of the bedrooms of Stigwood’s Bermuda home. “The word ‘just’ was vital,” Barry explained. “It came about because I was looking for a way to sing it and place the emphasis on that particular word. When it first went into the charts and was listed only as ‘I Want To Be Your Everything’, I could have screamed. The whole idea of that title was the word ‘just’… ‘I Just Want To Be Your Everything’; ‘just’ meaning ‘That’s all I want!’ That was the sentiment. So I had to figure out a way to put that line into a chorus where it would lay on a nice melody line and emphasise ‘just’.”

  Andy burst onto the scene with a good collection of songs written mostly by himself. His youthful good looks made him a popular teen idol. Innate musical talent may have been no more than an added bonus to some people, but talent there was.

  Both singles from this album were written by Barry. While it is hard to argue with number one singles, the fact that Andy’s own songs were consistently not used calls into question what his goals were and whether they were being achieved. ‘I Just Want to Be Your Everything’ is a great example of Barry’s ability to knock out a catchy pop tune inspired by his idea of what a specific artist would sing. The light-disco style suits the fluffy lyrics — the song is not really about anything — and foreshadows The Bee Gees’ somewhat darker stuff to come for Saturday Night Fever.

  The second single ‘(Love is) Thicker Than Water’ has an unusual guitar break and long rhythmic ending. Andy says he didn’t contribute much to it, but if so then Barry had been listening to Andy because it sounds more like an Andy song.

  In a strange twist to the credits, apart from the two singles, all the songs on the album were listed as written by Andy only; however, ‘Dance To The Light Of The Morning’ and ‘Too Many Looks In Your Eyes’ were filed as copyright Andy Gibb-Albhy Galuten. The songs show a real gift that was sadly not developed much further. He sounds more like the older Bee Gees than the dance tracks on The Bee Gees’ last album, but this was not the direction he was to follow. ‘Words And Music’, a remake of his Australian single, has quiet verses and rolls into a melodic chorus that forces his voice as high as it can go.

  The Eagles just happened to be recording at one of Criteria’s other studios at the same time as Andy was working on his album and lent a little of their style — not to mention their lead guitarist — to the youngest Gibb. “Originally, I had no intention of doing a country-rock album,” said Andy, “but I was influenced by The Eagles’ sessions just from having them nearby and hearing their songs all the time. That got me wrapped up in country-rock. Joe Walsh came over and did lead guitar tracks on two of the songs. The whole structure of my session started to lean towards country-rock.” Many of the songs on the album did take on a distinct Eagles’ flavour, with ballads and pop songs adding variety.

  Both ‘Words And Music’ and ‘Flowing Rivers’, which dated back to his days with John Stringer and John Alderson, were given the Gibb & Karlbhy treatment to give them a totally new sound. ‘Flowing Rivers’ would lose an entire verse as part of this process.

  “Most of the songs on Flowing Rivers were written over a period of two years in Australia,” Andy revealed. “But Albhy Galuten has a very off-the-wall approach to producing and he took those songs and turned them around and came up with some incredible grooves.” ‘Flowing Rivers’ sounds as if it was inspired by The Eagles, but it is another old song that sounded just as country-rock as when Andy did it in Australia.

  With the recording finished, Andy and Kim moved to Los Angeles, renting a small apartment in West Hollywood in late 1976. Kim hoped that away from his family, Andy would revert to the devoted, protective young man she knew in Australia. Unfortunately, he would change even more. Although it would take more than 10 years, Barry believes that in many ways, moving to Los Angeles was the beginning of Andy’s undoing.

  “I’ve of ten said, although I know it’s not entirely true,” he asserted, “Hollywood is the reason that Andy died. It’s a very dangerous environment for someone who’s susceptible to drugs or who has an addictive kind of personality because you can get anything you want in Hollywood. It’s readily available. While he was in Miami, the whole time we were making records, it was good and he was good … He was healthy, and he was living a healthy lifestyle. At some point, he got in with the wrong people and decided he had to live in Hollywood and went to Hollywood and, from then on, everything started to go the wrong way.”

  On a trip to New York, Andy played some club dates, mixing his original songs with the occasional cover of songs by The Beatles and The Hollies. Kim was fascinated by the variety of New York’s shops and bought clothes and cosmetics — “marvellous things we’d never seen before” — and sent gifts to both the Gibb and the Reeder families. But soon Andy began to discourage her from wearing the new clothes that she bought. She bought two wigs; one for herself and one for her twin sister, Kerrie, but while she was allowed to send Kerrie’s to her, Andy attempted to flush Kim’s down the toilet. “He was very jealous,” she said.

  Eventually, he became reclusive. “We couldn’t do much in New York because Andy wouldn’t go to many places,” Kim explained. “He had this thing about how he’s a superstar and everybody would recognise him.”

  Back in Los Angeles, the “hangers-on,” as Kim called them, surrounding Andy began to invade the couple’s lives. “They had keys to our apartment and car — there was never any privacy,” she said. “They had access to my cheque account, which they would close off when it suited them. We couldn’t move without these people being there, and Andy, a really mixedup fellow, has been easily led by them.”

  Andy began to disappear for days at a time. “All of a sudden, Andy wanted to go to the mountains by himself,” Kim recalled. “He became depressed and paranoid.” A naïve girl from a working class family, Kim didn’t immediately suspect drugs, but soon she could no longer deceive herself. “He became ensconced in the drug scene. Cocaine became his first love,” she said. “When he was living in Australia, he never seemed to want or need drugs.”

  Trevor Norton and Glen Greenhalgh, his friends and former band mates from Zenta, agreed. “All the stories I hear about Andy is all the drugs and all that,” Glen said. “Well, gee whiz, you know, that sort of thing never happened down here … that just didn’t happen … The Andy Gibb that I read about in the papers years later, I just couldn’t believe that it was him …”

  Trevor recalled his parents pointing out articles in the papers about Andy, telling him that his former band mate had fallen in with a bad crowd, but Trevor staunchly defended his friend. “I told them it was just publicity and bullshit. It was Andy’s rule,” he insisted, “you smoke or drink before a show and you’re out! He was very anti-drugs and alcohol. All the little rumours I would read … I could not believe them because that was not the Andy Gibb I knew. Something happened to him in America … something bad… ”

  “The hangers-on in the rock industry are like piranhas,” Kim said. “They hang around stars and offer drugs as a way of making friendships. I suppose they think the stars will become dependent on them for drugs.”

  In Andy’s case, they were right. In Los Angeles in the Seventies, just as today, cocaine seemed to be omnipresent, and for a young man who was trying to convince the world — and himself — that he was confident and self-assured, it proved a powerful anodyne.

  When he was using the drug, Andy felt confident, witty, astute, energetic — but only for as long as the drug’s effects lasted. Soon, as his body became accustomed to it, he would need more and more to get that high.

  ‘I Just Want To Be Your Everything’ was released in May, 1977, backed wit
h ‘In The End’ — Andy’s own composition from his Australian days — and began its ascent up the American charts. With the record’s release, the RSO publicity machine went into overdrive, creating a perfect squeaky clean boy next door, an image that Andy was never comfortable with. “I never put myself in a teen idol bracket,” Andy protested. “I’ve always been scared of falling into that category because, you know, it’s not a very long-lived career.”

  Like it or not, the American teen magazines were only too ready to embrace the young pop star. Only 19 years old, Andy’s toothy grin graced them all, with such headlines as “Could You Be Andy’s Everything?,” “How To Be Andy’s Best Girl,” “The ABC’s Of Loving Andy” and “The Bee Gees’ Baby Brother Wants To Be Your Everything” calling out to young girls across the land. The combination of Andy’s good looks, talent and soft-spoken charm could only help sell the teen idol image.

  Andy made no secret of his marriage at the start, but as his début single climbed the charts, that marriage already seemed doomed. Success had come too easily, bringing with it more temptations and feelings of guilt that it was all too effortless.

  “I kept finding buckets of bleach around the flat,” Kim said. “I finally understood that’s how cocaine was tested for purity. If a substance floated to the top, then talcum powder had been added. If the drug sank, it was pure. So we argued. But he was trapped so quickly. Some people have addictive personalities, and he was one of them. He wasn’t a bad person; he was a wonderful person. I just don’t think he could handle the fame, the pace — everything — so quickly. It all happened so fast. He seemed to have it all, but really, he had nothing.”