by Hector Cook
In the latter part of 1986, the Gibb brothers began working on the first Bee Gees albumin five years. They had not really been apart, with all the work they’d contributed to each others’ solo albums and productions, but this was to be the first project they all worked on fully as a team in a long time. The idea of doing another Bee Gees record had been percolating for some time.
Doing solo albums and productions no longer looked as good as it once had. Although Barry said that he and Robin had wanted to do solo albums, neither was satisfied with the way they had turned out in the end. “Principally because we are not solo artists, that’s what it is,” Robin explained. “We’re not used to working alone. We work better as a team, we don’t work well on our own very well.”
“We definitely fire up off each other,” Barry agreed. “We want to be The Bee Gees, we enjoy being The Bee Gees.”
They had a valid point. The Diana Ross and Robin Gibb albums of 1985 had both been artistically compromised and commercially weak, and the next year was even worse, as the Barry and Carola projects were going nowhere. It was time to cast that aside and start fresh under the group banner. It was a reunion with Arif Mardin as well, because Warner Brothers was under the same corporate umbrella as Atlantic. It was in some ways an attempt to return to happier days, when they had last worked themselves out of a slump and into records they’d been proud of. Robin summed it up for the group when he said, “What we’re trying to do is reinstate the kind of level that The Bee Gees were at before Fever. ”
The session band were new to the group except Rhett Lawrence (five songs) who had been on Carola’s album, and Greg Phillinganes (four) who had been on Diana Ross’s album. Robbie Kondor appeared the most with eight tracks. Barry and Maurice are credited with programming drums and bass lines, in addition to their usual credits to both for rhythm guitar and to Maurice for keyboards.
Arif shared the production duties with Barry, Robin and Maurice and Brian Tench. The working title for the LP was Tokyo Nights, but by the time it was released in September, the title had changed to E.S.P. Promotional copies of the album were sent out to radio stations accompanied by a small black drawstring bag marked with E.S.P. and containing a crystal for good vibes.
The title track itself went through a name change — originally, the brother’s had planned to call it ‘XTC’ or ‘Ecstasy’ until they were made aware of the drug connection.
But it was the lead single with its distinctive stomping beat that brought The Bee Gees back to the public’s eye. “The success [of ‘You Win Again’] sustained us,” Barry said. “It proved our belief in what we were doing and that was encouraging. So we carried on.”
Barry recalled the origin of the song. “I woke up at about three in the morning with this melody and I thought ‘What is that? … If I wake up tomorrow morning, I won’t remember it.’ So I had to go and find a tape recorder and put that little bit of melody on tape. Sometimes I do that and the next day, it’s rubbish and I throw it away, but the next day it still meant something … So I played it to Maurice and Robin, and they said ’Yeah, let’s finish it and see what happens.
“Maurice concocted 20 different drum sounds to create one, and he’d keep adding something and Robin and me would go, ‘Yeah?’ and he’d add something else and we’d go, ‘Yeah? Yeah!’ and then it suddenly hit, this is it! That drum sound is it, don’t touch a thing.”
Not everyone shared their view of the distinctive sound.
“A lot of the songs, people say, ‘Well, that’s not what’s happening out there.’ We’ve been very fortunate to have the success like ‘You Win Again’,” Maurice added. “That record, everybody said, ‘Take the stomps off, take those banging stomps off! You’re going to kill the song, you know. Can we lower them in the mix, can we take them off the intro, can we take them off the record?’
“That was the whole signature of ‘You Win Again’. With the stomps, you hear those stomps on the radio and you know it’s us! And everyone was really against it, but we stuck to our guns and said, ‘No, we’re not changing the mix, that’s it.’ Now people are asking me for a sample of it!”
“It really draws the listener in,” Robin explained. “It starts with nothing, and again, it was something we wanted to do that was a little different to what other people were doing. Just something off the wall that started the song and went through the song.”
‘You Win Again’ was released in August and turned into a great comeback single, topping the charts in the UK, Germany and Norway and reaching number six in Holland and eight in Australia, even though the American market again proved resistant. The intro starts off with a great stomping drum track by Maurice and Rhett Lawrence, and then Robbie Kondor’s bright keyboards and synthesizer bass, with Barry’s subliminal rhythm guitars the only other ingredient aside from” additional keyboard” by Maurice. Barry sings lead in his best natural voice, avoiding falsetto throughout, with exclamations by Robin and harmonies that really sound like all three brothers. They seem to have agreed also on more carefully worked out lyrics that make the whole song count, here and on the rest of the album.
But with the new found success in Europe, it was a unified front the group presented to the public. “I don’t think that any other group could make it three times in row unless they were brothers,” Barry asserted. “It isn’t possible because you drift and your lives change. With us, our families support the same things we do, so it all comes to one point. There’s nobody in our families, wives or in-laws that says ‘You shouldn’t go with them — you’re better on your own, lad.’ That stuff doesn’t go on anymore.”
‘E.S.P’ leads off the album and was the second single in October in the States, November in the UK. It opens unexpectedly with a rich a capella harmony, then two lines of Barry’s falsetto, before jumping into the instrumental opening and the beat that propels the rest of the song.
The title track was less successful than its predecessor, achieving number 13 in Germany and 26 in Holland, while only reaching number 51 in the UK.
In Germany and Australia, ‘Angela’ — a song which Arif had originally wanted to omit from the album — was the single, but the song reached only number 52 on the German charts and didn’t chart at all in Australia.
The project was a good return to form for the band, and it received good reviews and healthy sales around the world with the exception of the US where they still struggled with the Fever backlash. The brothers worked hard at promoting the album too, offering themselves to the media for countless interviews, particularly in the US, to try to counter the preconceptions people may have of their music and image.
The cover photos were taken at Brimham Rocks near Hull at sunset. The album is dedicated to their old Australian friend and supporter of many years past, Ozzie [sic] Byrne, who had died recently.
In November, Barry held his fourth Love & Hope Tennis Festival, with Maurice bidding successfully for an Akita puppy at the festival’s charity auction. The puppy, named Alf by Adam and Samantha, was a beloved family pet for many years.
In December, The Bee Gees sang a brief a capella segment of ‘Holiday’ and provided a “Don’t drink and drive” message for a Warner Brothers promotional album called Yulesville. Pressed in red vinyl, it was released only in the US.
It was around this time that Tom Kennedy, their stalwart road manager and studio manager for so many years, decided to leave his work with the group behind and return to England. The man who came for six weeks and stayed for “20-odd years” had resolved to call it a day.
“I should have left years before, really … There were certain things I didn’t agree with. The whole thing did get out of control,” Tom admitted. “There were a lot of bad feelings within the group — within the camp, to be honest with you. I felt it myself, because I always had the group’s interests at heart. I was just unhappy with the whole thing … There was friction over little things that didn’t matter.”
In his comfortable English home where he lives
with his wife Stephanie and their children, Kathryn and Ben, there is little evidence that for nearly 20 years, Tom played a major part in The Bee Gees’ career. There is one black and white glossy reminder, but few people would realise its significance or its link to his earlier career. It’s not an 8 X10 promotional shot; it’s the family’s sleek black and white cat, Ada.
Back in Miami, Tom had begun feeding a stray cat at Middle Ear, and she duly gave birth to a litter of kittens in the studio. The Gibb children were Star Wars fans, so all the kittens were given names from their favourite film. Homes were found for the kittens, with Andy taking one, although when it came to the question of ownership, Tom says, “He belonged to her,” rather than the other way about. With the problems in his personal life, pet ownership was a difficult task for Andy, and the kitten was given to Tom and Stephanie’s care.
“She was originally Darth Vader, then when Andy took her, he called her Cessna because he loved flying, then it came back to Darth Vader again,” Tom said. “Then it was gradually changed to Daft Ada, because she is a bit daft, and now it’s just Ada.”
When the Kennedys landed at Heathrow Airport on March 1, Ada was with them. She came through her six months’ quarantine with no problems, although she tactfully declined to comment on what she thought of the change in climate from sunny Miami to an English winter. If she remembers that as a youngster, she once owned a famous singer, she keeps that to herself as well.
Tom looks back with great affection on his years with The Bee Gees, adding, “I like to think that everything I did for the boys, I did with their best interests at heart. Whether they believed it at the time or not, I think time will tell that I did.”
*Despite many subsequent releases, to date, it remains Diana’s last number one single in the UK.
37
A SPIRIT HAVING FLOWN
ANDY BEGAN 1987 performing the National Anthem at the annual Pig Bowl football game at Tamiami Park in Florida, before beginning a 12-night engagement at the Sahara Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas on January 27. Andy had come to love Las Vegas, particularly the bright lights and dazzle of the nightclubs.
“He just loved to perform for live audiences,” Barbara Gibb recalled. “He liked the response, especially in Vegas, where he used to get standing ovations after every show. He loved that.”
Barbara was there with her youngest son, cheering him at every performance. She was also gradually coming to realise that he was still using cocaine.
In the spring of 1987, Andy checked into another drug rehabilitation centre and became a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. He faced his problem honestly, and his friends and family all believed that he really had made a clean and sober restart.
Andy returned to Miami, with hopes of making a comeback with the original formula of his first success. “The fact that we’d done it together in the first place was what brought him back,” Barry explained. “You know, ‘Let’s do it again, let’s go into the studio again and this time, I’ll keep my grip, I’ll hold on and I won’t slip again.’ ”
The brothers began working on demos to re-launch Andy’s career. They even found time for writing and recording demos for Beri, the latest Gibb to seek a career in music.
To all outward appearances, Andy still seemed to be living the life of a superstar. His new home was a luxurious penthouse apartment in the exclusive Venetia apartment complex overlooking Biscayne Bay. But the apartment came to him rent-free in exchange for promoting the development in which it was located. His brothers were providing him with a $200 a week allowance for his living expenses.
Despite Andy’s career and personal setbacks, he remained a tireless worker for charities, always willing to give of his time and effort to help the causes that were important to him. In April, he played in the Jockey Club’s Pro-Celebrity Tennis Classic, benefiting Pet Rescue.
He also hosted his own tennis tournament at the Sea Oaks Beach Club in Vero Beach, Florida, to benefit the American Cancer Society. The tournament began with a cocktail party launch, at which Andy performed ‘Unchained Melody’, ‘Blue Bayou’, ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Twist And Shout’.
On September 9, 1987, Andy filed a personal bankruptcy petition which stated that he had less than $50,000 but more than $1.5 million in outstanding debts.
Filing for Chapter 7 relief under the US Bankruptcy Code, Andy would be allowed to keep only $1,000 in personal property in addition to one primary residence. A plan of repayment to his creditors would have to be established.
As far back as 1982, Andy had been selling off jewellery and other personal items for cash on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. It was a painful admission for the young man who had been at the peak of his career just 10 years earlier, dropping from an annual income of over two million dollars to less than $8,000 for 1986. He was humiliated by the sense of failure.
“I think that was a crippling blow to him,” Barry reflected sadly. “I don’t think he survived that. I think he was embarrassed by it.”
Barry insisted, “For two years, he was straight before he died … He was very energetic and healthy and playing tennis. I’m the only other brother who plays, so we’d play all the time, and we wrote songs together and recorded them. We were going to be together, to go out as a force. He wanted to do another solo album to prove he was good at what he did and then he was going to join us.”
During those brotherly tennis matches, they would play five or six sets. Barry noticed that Andy would become very flushed, but he never knew the cause. “What he wasn’t telling me was that he really shouldn’t be doing it,” he said.
Andy didn’t admit to his family or friends that he had been treated by physicians in California for heart inflammation on several occasions. Although he was now clean, the years of substance abuse had taken their toll.
He had fulfilled a long-time dream of taking flying lessons, and in January, he gained his pilot’s license and flew solo around Florida several times. With childlike enthusiasm, he claimed, “This is what has taken the place of drugs for me. The only time I get high these days is when I’m flying an aeroplane.”
With the benefit of hindsight, Robin thinks that flying should have been his career. “I feel that he really didn’t want to make another album,” he explained. “He didn’t want to be successful in the music business. What he really wanted to do was to join the Navy and be a pilot. But he had this feeling that he had to prove himself to us, which was a mistake. If he had pursued another course, I genuinely feel that he would be alive today.”
His former wife Kim agreed. “I just wish, sometimes, that he’d never had anything to do with the music industry,” she said. “He wanted to be a pilot, and he was bright. He could have done anything that he wanted to. But his career was decided for him. I believe it killed him.”
Flying was to remain a brief but pleasurable pastime for Andy. He signed a lucrative contract with Caribbean Connection to promote a new line of beach clothes, suntan oils and surfing products. After Christmas, Barry took Andy to meet with executives at Island Records in London. On the strength of the four demos he had recorded with his brothers in Miami, Island offered him a contract in February 1988. Yet another new beginning seemed imminent.
“This is an opportunity for me to make a fresh start,” Andy enthused. “Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you can lift your head up again and get back on the right track.
“Unfortunately, I’ve had some rocky times in the past few years, but I am over them and fully back to health, fully recovered, free from any drug or alcohol problems. I was very young when I was on top … I feel confident that I can make a significant contribution once again.”
Saying that he couldn’t wait to get to get back to Britain, he added, “I’ll do nothing but work on my music. I can promise you one thing — no matter what happened to me in recent years, I’ve had the most wonderful 18 clean months in Florida. The future has never been brighter. I know inside me that things will be fantastic in England.”
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br /> It was an outwardly confident Andy who claimed, “I’m going to devote myself 100 per cent to my singing career. I know I’m going to make it big again with my contract with Island Records.”
Maurice recalled, “He was enthusiastic, bounding with energy and told everyone he was determined to make a go of it now that he had been given a second chance.”
For Kim and Peta, it also felt like a new beginning. “He rang me in January to say he was coming over to see me,” Kim said. “I was so excited. He told me, ‘Kim, I’m clean. I’ve finally stopped doing any drugs. I’ve really got myself together, and I’m coming over to Australia to see you and Peta.’ ”
It was news she had been longing for. In spite of the nearly 10 years that had passed since their divorce, Kim had always clung to the hope that one day, they would be reunited. Even through his highly publicised romance with Victoria Principal, that hope remained strong. “He never remarried, did he?” Kim said. “Neither did I. We were never out of touch — not through all the years we were apart. He would ring me from whatever part of the world he was in and sometimes talk for hours. I’m sure he loved me as much as I loved him.
“If we hadn’t kept in touch over the years, I suppose it would have been easier to accept that the relationship was over. But he would call so of ten, and when Peta was old enough to talk, he’d ask to speak to her.”
“He was just like my friend,” Peta said. “He asked me what groups I liked, who were my favourite celebrities, and he promised to introduce me to them when I visited him in Los Angeles. He was really nice.”
The long telephone calls always came at Andy’s instigation by necessity. “I wasn’t ever able to contact him— his managers put a block on that — and I wasn’t in any way assisted by his family,” Kim explained. “So if I wanted to speak to Andy, I had absolutely no choice but to wait until he picked up the phone. But during this conversation, he sounded so positive. He wasn’t raving on about dashing off to the Seychelles, or some exotic place, as he had in the past. Because he sounded so rational and sensible, I honestly believe that he really meant it.