Last night in the car listening to someone talking on a CD I picked up the words “staying alive” and my mind immediately turned to the Bee Gees – born on the Isle of Man, they spent their childhood near Manchester, England and in Redcliffe on the outskirts of Brisbane, Australia, before going on to become one of the top acts in the USA.
The Bee Gees were really a Sixties band who reinvented themselves in the Seventies, beginning with “Jive Talkin’”, “Nights On Broadway” and “You Should Be Dancing”, and really taking off with songs like “Night Fever”, “Stayin’ Alive”, “How Deep Is Your Love” and “More Than A Woman” from the hit film “Saturday Night Fever” starring John Travolta.
The first album I ever bought was “Best of Bee Gees” (I thought it was in 1968, but apparently the record was only released in 1969), with classics like “Words”, “First of May”, “New York Mining Disaster 1941”, “Spicks and Specks”, “To Love Somebody”, “Massachussetts”, “I’ve Gotta Get A Message To You”, “I started A Joke”, “I Can’t See Nobody”, “Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You”…
And the first track, “Holiday”.
I particularly remember this track because it had a scratch on it!
Unfortunately “Best of Bee Gees” was one of the records that had disappeared from my collection by the time I retrieved them from New Zealand to Germany in January 1987.
By that time the Bee Gees had moved on musically to become the personification of the disco sound, with their soundtrack to the movie “Saturday Night Fever”.
Here’s the song I mentioned at the beginning, “Stayin’ Alive”, from 1977
Unfortunately only two of the brothers, Barry and Robin Gibb, have stayed alive.
Younger brother Andy, who had hits in his own right, died in 1988 only days after his 30th birthday and just before he was due to become part of the band.
Maurice, the third Bee Gee, passed away in January 2003 while waiting for emergency surgery.
Until today I never knew the Gibb brothers were not born in Manchester, but on the Isle of Man. When we first moved to Scotland, for nearly a year we could see the Isle of Man from the fishing village we lived in.
I also learned today that it is a myth that the name Bee Gees stands for “Brothers Gibb”.
Rather, by coincidence, “BG” were the initials of the two men in Australia who “discovered” them, DJ Bill Gates and racetrack promoter Bill Goode, who had seen them perform at Brisbane’s Speedway Circuit and then introduced them to the radio man.
For me, despite their later development, the Bee Gees will always remain associated with that black, red and above all yellow album cover.
And from that album, one song stands out for me as the quintessential Bee Gees track, the classic “Words”:
I was reading that in this original version they got the stereo mix wrong, increasing the vocals so much the percussion can’t be heard.
I think it’s fine the way it is – probably because that’s how I’ve always known it – but don’t take my word for it…
Paul