The Ultimate Biography of The Bee Gees

by Hector Cook

  While all three brothers have always enjoyed great popularity in the Far East, in recent times it is Maurice who has taken centre stage there. May 6 found him returning to Hong Kong where Universal Music Asia, perhaps displaying a lack of sensitivity towards his personal circumstances, celebrated his arrival with an impressive cocktail party at the plush Peninsula Hotel. The highlight of a memorable evening was the announcement that the new album had just gone to number one in the region. Clearly overjoyed at the news, Maurice affirmed the group’s desire to perform live there in the not too distant future.

  Meanwhile in the UK, their old chum Steve Wright once again brought the group into the limelight with a BBC Radio 2 special, The Bee Gees Story, with the first of three weekly hour long instalments being broadcast on May 8.

  Continuing with their promotional activities stateside, the next round of public appearances focused on the West Coast and began with a live performance on June 17. The venue was Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, where The Bee Gees were playing their first concert in the city for more than 20 years on the evening of the second day of KIIS-FM Radio’s Wango Tango 2001 event. Billed as the world’s biggest concert, the shows were hosted by Britney Spears and also featured Ricky Martin, The Backstreet Boys, Samantha Mumba, Joe, Krystal, Jessica Simpson, Blue Man Group, Shaggy, Nelly Furtado, 3LW, Nikka Costa, Aerosmith, American Hi-Fi, Eden’s Crush, Vertical Horizon, Dream and Tyrese. There was also a special performance of ‘Lady Marmalade’ by Christina Aguilera, Pink, Missy Elliot and Mya, but it was The Bee Gees who closed the show with a 50-minute set which featured ‘This Is Where I Came In’, ‘Man In The Middle’ and ‘She Keeps On Coming’ from the new album as well as nine of their standards. Clearly impressed by their performance, Natalie Nichols of the Los Angeles Times remarked, “The good reception for material from the band’s new album … further emphasised that the pop cycle has gone around again. Seeing their mature, smiling faces on the big screen was also a potent reminder that despite today’s emphasis on dewy youth, staying power is ultimately about substance … Three decades from now, The Bee Gees’ music may well fuel another spin around the pop turnstile, but most of Wango Tango’s no-longer-adorable participants will be forgotten.” Fans around the world were able to join in the event via the simultaneous web-cast.

  The following night, Jay Leno took advantage of their presence in town to include them on The Tonight Show, where they performed a live version of ‘She Keeps On Coming’. Larry King was also quick to secure their involvement on his show, which they taped the next evening.

  * * *

  A new generation of artists discovered The Bee Gees in the Nineties, and it seems likely that their musical influence will continue throughout the new century as well. Andrew Jenkins, the vice president of BMG Music Publishing International, told Billboard, “There was a succession of big artists here [in the U.K.] with big hits written by The Bee Gees — Take That, Boyzone, Blockster, Wyclef Jean, Pras Michel, 911. So we’ve seen an incredible interest in their songs by a new generation.”

  When Boyzone heart-throb Ronan Keating began work on his first solo album, he enlisted the assistance of the Gibb brothers. In August 1999, he travelled to Miami with his wife and their young son, where he visited Barry and Maurice. “Working with Barry and Maurice was a hugely memorable experience,” he said. “Meeting those guys inspires me to try to make music for the rest of my life. I hope in 25 years if I am still doing this I can just be like them.”

  Ronan collaborated with Barry and Maurice to write and produce a track called ‘Lovers And Friends’, on which all three brothers contributed backing vocals. “It’s sounding great,” he revealed. “They’ve helped out a lot and it’s come together really well.”

  Although the track remains unreleased at the time of writing, Bee Gees’ manager Dick Ashby was particularly enthusiastic about the commercial appeal of ‘Lovers And Friends’. “[It’s] one of those songs that you hear and want to hear again,” he declared. “It gets you, so you want to hear more, rather than it over gets you.”

  As a long-time Bee Gees fan, Ronan was clearly delighted not only with the assistance he had received from his fellow Polydor stars, but also for the friendship which developed. “It was amazing, you know,” he explained. “Barry and his family … took me and Yvonne and Jack in [and] made us feel one of the family. We had such a wonderful time in Miami, and Robin and Maurice, their family are fantastic. I feel like one of their sons, you know, it’s really cool, just getting invited to parties and weddings. They are just special people.”

  Popular American female trio Destiny’s Child were among the latest in the long line of artists to cover a Gibb composition, with their version of ‘Emotion’, the 1977 hit for Samantha Sang. It’s a cover which especially delighted the brothers. Barry has declared them one of the best groups in the world, while Robin raved, “The vocals are fantastic. I love Destiny’s Child.” Although the recording was initially available only on the Survivor album, a single release was planned for late 2001. Plans were also in place for Robin’s return to the UK for Party In The Park, Capitol FM’s free open-air concert in London’s Hyde Park on July 8, where he was expected to introduce the group prior to their performance.

  While there existed the possibility that Destiny’s Child’s recording of ‘Emotion’ might extend the Gibbs’ songwriting success tally to five consecutive decades of UK number one hits, hopes were even higher for an anticipated single release by Steps of the Gibbs’ ‘Chain Reaction’, a number one hit for Diana Ross in 1986.

  Another member of a toothy brother act, Donny Osmond recorded ‘Immortality’ for his This Is The Moment PBS TV special and album of the same name.

  All three brothers still consider any cover version a great honour. “Actually, I get the same feeling if somebody does a cover of our songs as I would if we’d written it specially for them,” Robin said. “There’s no real difference for me. And if it’s a hit, it’s even a nicer buzz.”

  * * *

  Although Barry, at age 55, and twins Robin and Maurice, at age 51, no longer choose to pursue the frenetic pace that defined their career in the late Sixties and Seventies, the suggestion of leaving the music business behind is still anathema to them. So what does drive them to continue to write new songs — not only for themselves but also for other artists — to make albums, and to stage the occasional major concert event?

  “It’s something we’ve been doing since we were kids, and we just keep on wanting to do it,” Maurice explained. “It’s also our hobby and our love. There is no other life for us. We’re really just three brothers … who love to write, to sing in front of an audience. It’s never been the money. We just wanted to be famous. If you’re a writer and you win a Pulitzer Prize, you don’t stop writing. If you’re a scientist and you win the Nobel Prize, you don’t say, ‘Now I don’t have to science anymore.’ It’s born in us, we’ve done it all our lives.”

  “We’ve just got to keep on doing what we do because we love it,” Robin agreed. “We enjoy doing what we do. There’s no cut-off moment. We just feel that as long as we feel that we’ve got something good to contribute, and we enjoy what we’re doing, then we’ll keep on doing it. It’s like painting, you just have to do what you do. I see no reason to retire when I’m 65,” he continued. “Picasso didn’t stop painting then, did he? Maybe someone will have to carry the colostomy bag onto the stage, but asking me about retirement is like asking me about death!”

  Whilst Robin can still be relied on to provide the trademark poignant quips that make his public relations people cringe, Barry can usually be trusted to give the carefully considered response of the responsible eldest brother. “First of all,” he maintained, “you gotta care about each other and we really do. We are brothers and we love making music. That’s infectious and extremely addictive for us. It’s the best drug in the world, and we can’t stay away from it. So whether something really works for us or not, we have to keep making music that’s instinctive and
we love it.”

  The fraternal link may be the all-important key. None of the brothers would deny that they have had — and will continue to have — their disagreements. No family is completely without conflict and discord; most grow apart as they grow older. Few brothers spend more than four decades working together, as The Bee Gees have done; fewer still all live minutes apart, as the Gibbs do in Miami Beach.

  “Barry lives next door but one,” Robin said, “and Maurice lives [just down the street]. In England our houses are 50 miles apart. We have our own independent lives and our own circle of friends. We get on very well but we work so much together that you need your own space for your own lives … spending so much time together you need that space.”

  “It’s been fun and friction,” Barry admitted. “We’ve developed tough skins … Now we don’t get hurt anymore and we don’t hurt each other. If we hadn’t been brothers, we would have split up. But if you’re brothers, it’s a dream you’ve shared right from the beginning of your childhood.

  “All along the way, we’ve always been reminded by experts that our music is now ‘out’ and it can no longer apply to what’s going on today, so we’re sort of used to it. We’re used to the idea of having failures as well as successes, but the up and down process is much more helter-skelter than others might see it, and it’s much more emotional and traumatic to us. We’ve gotten pretty hungry from it and pretty persistent because of it, pretty determined, and very close. As much as we get laughed at here and there, or we get told we’re ‘out’ here or there, we just continue on and keep our fingers crossed. As a family, we fight pretty hard now, and we’re not about to give up what we do. We’re not about to be rejected by anybody.”

  Barry has also pointed to the group’s loyal fan base as one of the reasons behind The Bee Gees’ longevity. “I never thought we’d be around as long as we’ve been,” he admitted, “and most groups have a five year span so I think we’re very fortunate. Very fortunate to have very strong fans who don’t take no for an answer — they’ve followed us through thick and thin, and I like that. I like the idea of signing 30 albums — not every five minutes, but I like it!”

  Despite the success they have achieved, all three brothers are reluctant to point to any particular composition as their masterpiece. “You don’t know that the next piece of work that you do may be the best you ever did in your life,” Barry explained. “It may be the most successful … We believe that there’s work for us to do yet … and we’re working towards that. We’re working to become the best, not just becoming good.”

  2001 had got off to a promising start for The Bee Gees with This Is Where I Came In reaching the Top 10 in Germany, Switzerland, the UK, New Zealand and Hong Kong; and the Top 20 in the US, Canada and Australia. The impact of all this was that the group earned the distinction of becoming the first act to have posted hit studio albums in the five consecutive decades. While this undoubtedly pleases the brothers, chart success and awards are not the driving force.

  “I’ve reached that point in my life when I feel liberated,” Barry confessed. “At long last I’m not a teenager trying to make it. I’m not that person who was desperately changing everything about himself in order to have a hit record.”

  Maurice’s laid-back attitude, which has long endeared him to audiences, has also come to the fore. “I used to look in the mirror and just see darkness,” he said. “Now I look and see little cherubs with flowers flying around my head. Well, it’s not quite like that, but I do know I’m one hell of a contented guy.”

  Maurice’s new found repose manifested itself in a song called ‘The Bridge’ which had some input from an emerging source. Adam and Samantha each contributed a verse in which they tell the story of how they’ve crossed “the bridge of tears” created by their father’s drinking, but how they’ve now come out the other side.

  While, at the time of writing, there were no firm plans for the release of ‘The Bridge’, there still existed the possibility that it may yet appear on a future CD single. Robin’s ‘Sensuality’ and the Domino remix of ‘This Is Where I Came In’, seem likely to be bonus tracks on the proposed single release of ‘Sacred Trust’. Hopefully Maurice’s song will see the light of day on a future single, with ‘Wedding Day’ among the candidates for selection.

  Although through the years, they have suggested that The Bee Gees as a group couldn’t go on past a certain point, the optimum quitting point seems to move further away with each passing year. Barry had once insisted that a pop group couldn’t possibly go on when its members were past the age of 40, but by 1997, he predicted another five years for The Bee Gees, adding, “I’ll be 55 — too old to be playing in a band. But now I can do another five years.”

  By 2001, he seemed to be reconsidering that deadline once again. “We have this great ambition for any achievements,” he confessed on Euro-vision’s Wetten Dass programme. “We’d love to see another good song in a good film … The idea of being nominated [for an Academy Award], when that went by with Fever, we were never too concerned after that about being nominated for anything in that area, but we are a good songwriting team, and I think that we should have the opportunity to put some of our good songs in good films … Those are still dreams. And there are still dreams about certain kinds of concerts that we have. Instead of doing things in a normal way, to do concerts in a different way. In other words, if there’s gotta be another five years to this group, let it be a five year experience that we’ve never done before … rather than things that we have done, so it stays exciting.”

  “The three of us are tremendously ambitious,” Robin explained. “We have this same feeling about life, that we’re here for a very short time, so it’s important when you do what you do to cram as much of it and achieve as much as you can into that space … I don’t understand people who say, ‘I’ve done enough; I’m gonna sit back and relax.’ It’s beyond my comprehension. The three of us are driven, a feeling that will never let us stop. It’s in our blood — I don’t think we’ll stop until we drop.”

  There were certainly no signs of their stopping just yet as there were tentative plans for further promotional activities in the latter half of the year involving Robin in the UK and Maurice in Beijing, China. In Britain, there was talk of an appearance at another Live Aid concert, organised to benefit children with AIDS, in Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium on October 20, although only Madonna and Robbie Williams had been confirmed at the time of writing. Carlton’s documentary, The Story Of The Bee Gees, was also expected to air that same month, whilst Universal/Sony Music were putting the final touches to a compilation tribute CD called Words.

  Another Andy compilation also appeared imminent when Universal announced the August release of Andy Gibb Millennium. Essentially a CD re-issue of his 10 track 1980 Greatest Hits LP, the only differences were that ‘I Can’t Help It’ was added and that the songs now ran in chronological order. It was disappointing for long-time fans, however, that space couldn’t be found for some of the previously unreleased material recorded for his proposed 1988 Island Records comeback album.

  Although concert appearances during 2001 were thin on the ground while the brothers concentrated their energies on showcasing their latest recordings, they did reveal their intention to tour on both sides of the Atlantic during the summer of 2002. Also on Universal’s drawing board was another Bee Gees’ Greatest Hits package, but this time it was speculated that it would probably include some previously unreleased material, perhaps even some songs written especially for the project.

  In the long term, even as The Bee Gees’ albums come fewer and farther between, it seems indisputable that the Brothers Gibb will continue as songwriters, producers and occasional performers. There will always be new goals to achieve, new records to make, new artists to work with, new dreams.

  Sharing in the dream is the of ten mentioned “fourth Bee Gee,” Dick Ashby, who continues to act as their personal manager. “We’ve grown up together and learned the mu
sic business together,” Dick said. “I’ve seen them become adults, get married and have kids. I feel about this family, about their kids, as if they were my own.

  “There’s incredible work and external pressure … but I’ve been fortunate to have an open and honest relationship with Barry, Robin and Maurice. Because of our long, close relationship, there’s a great deal of mutual respect.”

  * * *

  As the eldest brother, Barry has long carried the additional burden of automatically being perceived as the leader and main spokesperson for the group. With that responsibility has come an extra drive, more than just from his obvious love of what he does.

  The basic need for love and approval is the force which has driven many a performer. Barry Gibb has always had a burning desire that The Bee Gees should be accepted for what they are and should gain the recognition he feels that they deserve. When he first led his brothers onto that Gaumont stage on December 28, 1957, he dreamed of the day that they would become famous.

  “We’re on the same path today,” he admitted. “We’d still like to be a famous pop group. Hopefully, we’re going to make it. The dream is still there.

  “What the end thing is, no one knows,” he reflected, “[but my final goal is] to walk through the Golden Gates and have someone standing there saying, ‘Liked ya!’ ”

  43

  CAN’T BELIEVE THAT IT’S TRUE

  IN JULY, 2001 the future could hardly have looked brighter for The Bee Gees. With This Is Where I Came In, they had successfully reinvented themselves for the new Millennium, while popular young artists continued to bring Gibb compositions to a new audience. The group were to be the subject of a major TV documentary in Britain, their record company planned a definitive Greatest Hits package covering five decades of their music, and there was talk of their biggest ever worldwide tour during 2002.