The Ultimate Biography of The Bee Gees

by Hector Cook

  Barry declared, “If you listen to the album before this or the one before that, you will get a better perspective. But a lot of those albums weren’t being listened to simply because we weren’t in vogue, so we were dealing with that, too. Radio, a couple of years ago, wouldn’t have touched a Bee Gees record. Being in fashion simply means that you’ll eventually go out of fashion.

  “We’ve seen a lot of adversity, and that’s why the songs on Still Waters are so personal. You can learn from the bad things. Musically, there’s more R&B in what we’re doing now, but our subject matter still runs deep. This album reflects 35 years of the things that have influenced us.

  “Music is a life trip for me. I love it — whether it’s being in a group, producing other people or writing songs. There’s still a lot I want to do — I don’t feel like an old man just yet!”

  He summarised the album by saying, “All of these songs are not just songs as such. I think this is a really important statement. The world of illusion, the idea that none of us are really what we seem to be. There’s a lot of examination of yourself in these songs. The album itself is about a romanticism, mysticism, looking inward, self-examination, relationships, so it’s a lot more than a bunch of songs. Somebody who is looking for a hit single won’t notice that, but a true listener will.”

  * * *

  The Bee Gees made the rounds of British television, beginning with an appearance on Noel’s House Party on February 8, when they performed the newly released single ‘Alone’ and were the hapless victims of one of Noel Edmond’s “gotcha” pranks. Just four days later, they appeared on Des O’Connor Tonight.

  On February 24, they were the proud recipients of the British Phonographic Industry’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the Brit Awards, televised live from Earl’s Court in London.

  Although Barry said that the award “really means a lot to us,” he turned a thumbs down on their choice of Jarvis Cocker, who famously disrupted Michael Jackson’s performance at the previous Brit Awards. “I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but they wanted to get this Jarvis guy to give us the award,” he complained. “What’s Jarvis Cock-Up got to do with The Bee Gees? I don’t want to be associated with anyone who might have pushed small children over.” He was successful on that point; Sir Tim Rice was the one to present the award on the night.

  In accepting the award, Barry said, “We’d like to thank our mum and dad, of course; our wives, Linda, Yvonne and Dwina; and the fourth Bee Gee, Dick Ashby.” He then read aloud a statement by Robert Stigwood and exclaimed, “Robert, as the greatest showman of all time, if you don’t accept this alongside us tonight, we won’t accept it either. We love you.”

  All the problems of the Eighties seemed to be forgotten as a frail-looking Robert Stigwood joined them on stage and embraced each brother. He then read a prepared speech, concluding, “I would like you to take a Bee Gees’ song, ‘I’ve Gotta Get A Message To You’, and I send that out to all young performers and composers — be like The Bee Gees and never give up!”

  Behind the scenes, Barry confessed that he was less than pleased that the Brit Awards producers wanted them to perform ‘Stayin’ Alive’. “I don’t like singing it,” he claimed. “We were delighted they decided to give us this award but that was another thing altogether.” Despite his declared reservations about performing the song, it was included in the show. The Bee Gees performed a spirited medley of their hits, to the obvious delight of the star-studded audience. ‘To Love Somebody’, ‘Massachusetts’, ‘Words’ and ‘How Deep Is Your Love’ all received a warm reception, but when they went into ‘Jive Talkin’ ’, the crowd were on their feet and dancing as a snowstorm of confetti dropped on the group. The audience danced and clapped their way through ‘Stayin’ Alive’ and ‘You Should Be Dancing’ as the confetti continued to fall.

  In March, Melvyn Bragg’s The South Bank Show dedicated an hour to the lives and careers of the group, taking them back to their childhood haunts of Keppel Road and Oswald Road School in Manchester, right up to the future, with ‘Just In Case’, a work in progress in the studio.

  According to producer Andrew Bell, the programme was 14 months in the making, after he had originally been contacted by Sam Wright, the head of television promotion for Polydor in the UK. Although he said he thought it surprising that The Bee Gees’ contribution to songwriting had never received the recognition he thought it deserved, he had never actually developed the thought into a project until the Polydor executive expressed interest in a collaboration. “The first six months entailed developing and researching the idea,” Bell explained, “including trips to Miami where we spent several hours with each brother, financing the project with advances from distributors and sales to broadcasters.”

  What followed was two months of pre-production, followed by about two months of shooting in Manchester, at the brothers’ homes in Miami and England and a multi-cam performance shot at Middle Ear Studio. Then came the months of post-production editing.

  Bell said that he went into the project with few preconceptions about The Bee Gees but added, “Having met the brothers, I was stunned by their intelligence, their articulacy [sic] and an aura. As a child, I had listened to John Lennon, particularly in the mid-Seventies. I was stunned then by Lennon’s presence and perception. When I discussed this idea with The South Bank Show in the UK, I could only compare the impact, and in many ways, that was a big turn on for Melvyn Bragg. I think Melvyn was intrigued by the songwriting achievements of the brothers but also cerebrally.”

  In addition to its screening in the UK, the programme was syndicated for television broadcast worldwide. A 90-minute version of the programme was released the following June on home video as Keppel Road: The Life And Music Of The Bee Gees.

  The World Music Awards, hosted by Prince Albert and Princess Stephanie of Monaco, were the next to honour the group with the Lifetime Contribution To Music Award on April 17. Prince Albert presented the award to the group, and Barry once again acted as spokesman, thanking the usual cast of characters and wishing Robert Stigwood a happy birthday. The Bee Gees performed a live medley of ‘I’ve Gotta Get A Message To You’, ‘How Deep Is Your Love’, ‘Jive Talkin’’, ‘Alone’, Stayin’ Alive’ and ‘You Should Be Dancing’. David Adelson, the managing director of Hits magazine noted, “They were the only band in Monaco that brought a very staid and jaded audience to its feet.”

  He added, “The Bee Gees are once again a combination of cool and kitsch. They evoke favourable memories and seem to have won renewed respect, proving that longevity enables certain artists to become hip again. If you survive long enough, you can thrive again.”

  On May 6, The Bee Gees were inducted into the Rock’n’Roll Hall Of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. “It’s like the pinnacle of everything you’ve worked for,” Maurice enthused. “It vindicates everything you’ve believed in.”

  The same day saw the American release of the Still Waters album. In the second week of sales, a limited edition package of Still Waters plus a special bonus CD, VH1 Storytellers, containing live versions of ‘Words’, ‘I’ve Gotta Get A Message To You’, ‘I Started A Joke’, ‘To Love Somebody’ and ‘Jive Talkin’ ’, was sold only in Target stores across the country. The bonus package rapidly sold out as album sales in the US exceeded Polydor’s expectations, but a lack of the product in the stores may have hurt its chart position. The album entered the American charts at number 11, with first week sales of 65,558. By comparison, the group’s previous album, Size Isn’t Everything, peaked at 153 on the Billboard Top 200.

  Jim Caparro, the CEO of Polygram Group Distribution, confessed, “The band delivered a terrific record, and everyone got juiced from that, but to say we were expecting 65,000 records sold in the first week — no. It shows that great music doesn’t die.”

  The American success pleasantly surprised The Bee Gees themselves, in spite of the album’s Top 10 status in Britain and Europe. “We were stunned, absolutely,” Barry admitted. “We would have been
happy to enter the charts at 100. The idea of actually reaching the public in the US is a new one for us.”

  “You’ve got moms in the forties and their teenage kids liking this record — and these kids weren’t even born when Saturday Night Fever was out,” said Left Bank Management’s Vice President of Sales, Jordan Berliant. “It’s clear you don’t sell these kinds of numbers for such an act without it being multi-generational. This represents the leading edge of a phenomenon in the music industry, a rare example where an act still appeals to its original audience, with a surprisingly high popularity among younger demographics.”

  “We feel we’re into our third period of fame now,” Barry explained, “but after Saturday Night Fever, there was a huge backlash against us. Radio wouldn’t touch us — we were censored. Now it appears we’re fashionable again. It’s quite confusing how suddenly you can be ‘in’ again when no one wanted to know before.

  “Fact is, your popularity will fail and people will start to disappear. We were wonderboys for a while, but I think having low spells is healthy. We had to work our way back, but we’ve always just written what we wanted. We never pandered to what we thought was popular at any time.”

  On September 22, The Bee Gees were inducted into the Hall Of Fame of the Australian Music Industry Association (ARIAs) for their Lifetime Contribution to Music. The audience was shown a pre-recorded video of the brothers thanking the Association before the award was formally accepted on their behalf by Bill Gates. The following month, it was Germany’s turn to honour the group, when they were awarded the BAMBI Award in Cologne and a lifetime achievement award at the Goldene Europa Awards.

  Despite all the attention to their past body of work, The Bee Gees bridled at any suggestion that they were perceived as a nostalgia act, as one unfortunate journalist found at a press conference in Australia.

  “We take issue with that, pal,” Barry retorted. “Actors and great comedians, like Ernie Wise for instance, are applauded for longevity and I would think that pop artists and rock stars are not applauded for longevity, and there’s something wrong with that.”

  “There’s no room for being just a part of yesterday,” Robin explained. “We want to be part of the now … contemporary. We want to have some relation to music as it is today.”

  * * *

  Barry and Linda were going through some trying times behind the scenes of The Bee Gees’ Nineties career revival. The previous year, they had been horrified to discover that their eldest son, Stephen, was using heroin. A family friend revealed, “The truth is he has had a drink problem for some years, but a while ago a female friend offered him heroin. He was hooked in no time.”

  With memories of Andy’s dangerous downward spiral fresh in their minds, the thought of losing another family member to addiction was unbearable. Stephen was quickly admitted to a drugs rehabilitation centre, and his parents were pleased with his progress.

  In March, Barry told OK! magazine, “He’s been clean and sober for some time now. His mother and I are very proud of him.”

  But in the autumn, it was Barry’s own condition which was cause for concern. A 21-date American tour was cancelled because of his arthritis. Although it had been troublesome in the past, his condition had seemed to deteriorate after the surgery for degenerating discs in his spine.

  Anxious to dispel the belief that the malady was connected with growing old, Barry declared, “Arthritis is something you can have at any age, and I think mine was really triggered off by my back surgery five years ago.”

  “A joint can swell up to the point where it’s like a blister and you think his skin is going to burst,” Linda said.

  “When he walks out on a stage, you’d think there was nothing wrong with him, but he suffers badly … He can still sing and write music, but sometimes the arthritis is so bad, it’s hard for him to grip the guitar and play it.”

  While the tour cancellation made his condition public, all aspects of Barry’s life had been affected.

  “I can actually hear him crying from the pain as he turns over in the middle of the night,” Linda revealed. “It wakes me up. He doesn’t hear the cries because he sleeps with ear-plugs, but I do. It is heartbreaking.”

  The family were only able to spend about two months of the year in their English home because of his condition. “I can’t handle the cold weather,” Barry explained. “I become very stiff and the arthritis can be quite chronic here, as the cold and damp affects me. Having lived in Australia when I was growing up, I’m used to a tropical climate and Miami is a compromise.”

  Even his favourite pastimes were no longer possible for him. Always a keen tennis player, he had been forced to give up the game. The couple’s 19-year-old son, Ashley, showed great promise as a young tennis player, even attending tennis academy with the hope of turning professional, but father-son tennis matches were now a thing of the past.

  “Physically, I’m not going to play at Wimbledon,” Barry admitted, “but mentally, I’m as strong as I ever was. It can be agony but I don’t take pills for it. I refuse to take anything — I’m completely drug-free.”

  “He’s seen so many doctors,” Linda said, “and I think he’s now a little tired of trying to find ways of relieving the pain.”

  But she refused to give up hope. “We’re not going to stop trying and hopefully one day we’ll find something or someone who can do something to help him. I believe there are injections you can have in Canada which you only need every six months, but they’re not available in America yet.”

  * * *

  When The Bee Gees had completed the Still Waters album, Barry revealed, “We overwrote a little bit for this album. We had about four more songs, which we didn’t use, but they’re great for other people. We’ve had some good offers, so we’re considering some of those.”

  Earlier that year, Robert Stigwood had approached the brothers with his idea to turn Saturday Night Fever into a stage musical. In addition to the original music, he requested something new. “Robert called us up and asked for one more song,” Barry recounted, “a big ballad if possible and that is what we came up with but, really, ‘Immortality’ is about anyone’s dreams.”

  Often during the songwriting process, the brothers will pick an artist to influence the direction that the song will take. “Then you get two different styles,” Robin explained. “You get your own style coming in with theirs, you then come up with something unique.”

  So it happened that they wrote ‘Immortality’. Although the song was intended for the new stage production of Fever, they wrote it in the style of French-Canadian pop diva, Celine Dion, and were delighted to offer it to her when she approached them with her request. “We always seize the chance to work with someone else that we really like,” said Barry. “If we’re always writing for ourselves, then I think you can become bored with that. Your voice is constantly the instrument by which your song becomes heard. If you’ve got someone else’s voice … someone who puts their personality into your song, it’s the cream on the cake. That’s what makes it happen. It stretches your songwriting. It makes you write songs that you would not write otherwise.”

  “We asked them if they could maybe write a song for the new album. You know, if you don’t ask,” Celine said with a Gallic shrug, “things will never happen, so we asked and they have sent me this amazing song.”

  “We just happened to have this one song that would suit Celine right down to the ground. In fact, it was written with Celine in mind,” Barry said. “The demo itself is almost identical to her record. That’s a perfect example of saying, ‘Well, here’s the song, here’s the demo and this makes the song shine. This brings out the personality of the person singing the song — that’s it, it’s a record.’ So they changed almost nothing, apart from Celine herself singing the song. That’s when it works right.”

  After Celine had finished recording her vocals against the backing vocals done by the brothers, The Bee Gees went to New York to give their approval to the rec
ording. “I just wanted them to be happy,” she said.

  If she had been worried about their reaction beforehand, her doubts were quickly laid to rest. “That was a great moment when we went and heard the vocal for the first time,” Maurice enthused. “It was magic.”

  Celine marvelled, “They listened to the song, and they were crying. They didn’t have to tell me anything because when you see somebody with emotion and crying, it says it all. I was very touched by it.”

  Barry has even gone on record as saying that of all the recordings of their songs, “I think our favourite at this point in time, of all time, is Celine doing ‘Immortality’. That, to us, is extremely special. That’s the finest cover version of any of our songs.”

  For Celine’s part, she declared, “I’m so glad I have this song — I just love it so much.”

  On October 4, The Bee Gees got another chance to relive their favourite cover version. The audience also got a special treat when they joined Celine on stage at her concert at the newly built National Car Rental Center in Sunrise, Florida to perform ‘Immortality’.

  There was yet another special cover version in 1997. ‘Nobody’s Someone’ on Million Dollar Movie, a CD by an artist simply credited as Andrew, would have to take the prize for the longest gap between the writing and release of a Gibb composition. ‘Nobody’s Someone’ had been written in 1968 at the start of the Odessa sessions, according to copyright information. Andrew Sandoval explained how he came to record the track some 28 years later.

  “I first heard the song around 1990 when I was working for Bill Inglot and Bill Levenson on a non-Bee Gees project for PolyGram,” said Andrew. “At the time, it was strongly being considered for the [Tales From The Brothers Gibb] box set they were working on.

  “Later, when I was gathering ideas for some of my own recordings, I decided to do some productions with orchestration in the early Bee Gees/Bill Shepherd style. I almost did ‘Never Say Never Again’ from Odessa, but I remembered this song, ‘Nobody’s Someone’, and thought I could join the long list of artists who recorded exclusive material by the brothers. The main difference being that they did not write the song for me, nor have they ever heard of me! The other factor being that I wanted to highlight the style of songs that they created during the Sixties, which were very unique, and not the modern songwriting/production style of today.”