BARRY GIBB
“For so long…” “If you give a little more than you’re askin’ for your love will turn the key…” “Ah, ah, ah ah stayin’ alive…” “Night fever, night feeever…” “…in Massachusetts…” “Tragedy…”
“Spicks & Specks…” “How can you mend a broken heart…how can a loser ever win?…” “How deep is your love?…” “Islands in the stream…” ‘It’s only words…” “I started a joke that started the whole world…” “Jive talkin’…” “You should be dancin’ yeah…” “Too much heaven…”
“More than a woman (to meeee)…” “Love you inside ‘n out…” “Man in the middle…” “To love somebody…” “I’ve just gotta get a message to you…” “Nights on Broadway…” “Lonely days, lonely nights…where would I be without my woman?…”
“Run to me whenever you’re lonely…” “If I can’t have you, I don’t want nobody baby…” “…Love so right…” “Fanny be tender…”
Twenty-six and counting; 26 songs, ballads, hits, #1s — a snippet here, a snippet there — coming to mind with but a smidgen of cyber assistance.
Lyrics which reappear in the head and tumble out of the mouth decades and decades later. Remarkable really.
After all, we’re talking about the Bee Gees here. Just the Bee Gees.
The Bee Gees for heaven sake.
I was young when they were big and not just BG bubble-gum big.
Sure their dulcet (?) vibrato and then falsetto tones (by definition high-pitched and sometimes bordering on shrill) didn’t necessarily appeal to the more sophisticated ear but their prodigious crossover talent — pop, soul, disco and rock — over a fifty-plus-year recording career ensured great success and with it, fame and fortune.
One of the best-selling music artists of all-time to the tune of (pardon the word-play) 220 million records sold worldwide, their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame citation reads in part, “…Only Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, Garth Brooks and Paul McCartney have outsold the Bee Gees…”
In his renowned 1980 Playboy Magazine interview, no less an authority than John Lennon offered something more than faint praise and defended the Bee Gees remarking, “…Try to tell the kids in the Seventies who were screaming to the Bee Gees that their music was just the Beatles redone. There is nothing wrong with the Bee Gees. They do a damn good job. There was nothing else going on then…”
McCartney and Ringo both thought the group was ground-breaking as did Duane Hitchings who co-wrote Rod Stewart’s 1978 disco blockbuster “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?”
Hitchings remarked that the song was “a spoof on guys from the ‘cocaine lounge lizards’ of the Saturday Night Fever days.
We Rock and Roll guys thought we were dead meat when that movie and the Bee Gees came out. The Bee Gees were brilliant musicians and really nice people. No big egos. Rod, in his brilliance, decided to do a spoof on disco…There is no such thing as a “dumb” super success in the music business.”
So an aficionado of their sound or not, the brothers Gibb clearly were a mega-force in the industry.
And now Barry, 70 is the only Gibb remaining.
Wow. Can you imagine? In the blink of an eye…your kids grow up, you get older and then you’re old. Those around you get old.
Some die. More die. And somehow or other you stick around, either by the good grace of God or for some, due to the wrath of God. No matter. The point is, you’re the last pin standing. The last one left. All by yourself. Must be very strange.
Not even sharing the record of six consecutive Billboard Hot 100 # 1’s as a writer with Lennon and McCartney or finding oneself listed by Guinness World Records as the second most successful songwriter in history (behind McCartney) can turn back the hands of time I’m afraid.
Among the many who influenced him — Tommy Steele, The Mills Brothers, The Everly Brothers, Paul Anka, Cliff Richard, Roy Orbison and Frankie Valli — the country music genre itself surprisingly was most appealing to Barry and his brothers. According to him, “…Country music always inspired us. I love Nashville and I love this music. Since my brothers passed, I’ve been able to be self-indulgent. I’ve been able to go where I love the music.”
In fact, in January 2006 Gibb purchased the former home of Johnny and June Carter Cash in Hendersonville, Tennesee with the intent of restoring it and transforming into a songwriting retreat. Unfortunately the house was destroyed by fire in April 2007 during the renovation.
Money and all of the trappings which can accompany it; fame knowing no bounds; and countless awards, commendations and the like are lovely indeed.
Self-satisfaction, peace and goodness are even better.
Hopefully Barry Gibb, one of the greatest songwriter-singers of all and any time is able to gain solace from the latter.
[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in October 2016.]
