The Bee Gees Stayin' Alive

Rip It Up, Issue 15, 1 September 1978, Page 11

The Bee Gees Stayin' Alive

Raymond Hooper

Let’s face it, the Bee Gees are a phenomenon, but not in the rock n’ roll field; they've notched into what is probably best termed the ‘glossy wave’ (most people call it show business) where artists are part of some master plan engineered by a Mr Big. But rather than get the horse pushing the cart let us go back eleven years to 1967 when the Bee Gees burst upon the international charts with "New York Mining Disaster 1941”, their first million seller. They were certainly distinctive, and as was to become obvious, prolific. Between February and August 1967, they had three singles reach the English top ten. Basically in the romantic mould (I should have said entirely), their music was based on three facets: the songwriting of the Gibb brothers, their excellent vocal work and the production of their manager, Robert Stigwood, with, more importantly, musical arrangement and direction by Bill Shepherd. From Feb ’67 to March ’69, the group released four albums which is a remarkable output, although no-one would deny that the three ingredients of the Bee Gees sound only produced satisfactory results on less than half of the material. "To Love Somebody" (June ’67), "The Singer Sang His Song” (March ’6B) and “I’ve Got To Get A Message To You" (Aug ’6B) are perhaps the best examples of just how fine a production the Bee Gees and Bill Shepherd were capable of. In contrast, their fourth album (a double) entitled Odessa was the prime example of just how gross they could be. An album of excesses, it should really have been titled 'Bill Shepherd and his Orchestra with Special Guests, the Bee Gees’. In late '69, with personnel problems (Robin fell out with Barry and Maurice .. . tut, tut) and touring pressures, the group split but, due to the fact that they were worse on their own (those who witnessed Robin Gibb’s appearance at the Redwood Festival in Auckland in 1970 must agree) they reformed in early '7O. Thus began phase two; the worst in their career.

ture singles crashed. The problem? It was now 1973 and the Gibbs were singing sappy stuff that no-one was interested in. In mid '74, Robert Stigwood, still their manager, stepped in (shortly after the release of the unpopular Mr Natural album) and said "You guys are a bunch of saps. Cut out all this poofta stuff and give us some decent funky stuff that people can get their feet into”. Now the Bee Gees, it must be realised, are very good at doing what they're told, particularly if they are in the pits, so they sat down on command and produced the Main Course album which was released in 75. The single from the LP, "Jive Talking’ ”, was a huge success and surprised everyone with its disco orientation. Robert Stigwood, renowned for his keen sense of the show-biz market, realised the Bee Gees had got into a rut so he told them to pull finger, as he puts it, “I had a confrontation with them.” With the success of "Jive Talkin’ ” and obvious record company pressure to continue in that vein, the Bee Gees have been producing American music (principally white disco) ever since. Old fans, of course, jumped up and down complainig of a cop-out but the Bee Gees replied “We were always writing this kind of music but we weren’t putting it down right. We were writing R & B but we weren’t going in an R & B direction.” Very interesting, methinks, but I suspect it’s all bullshit. Children of the World (76) saw a change in production crew although the basic slick feel remained (Stigwood saw to that) and then in 77 Stigwood realised his golden opportunity. A disco film with the Bee Gees dominating the soundtrack . . . showbiz . . . bright lights . . . white disco music for the dudes . . . and once again under instruction from Stigwood, the Gibbs came up with the goods. Well, good on them. It’s bland, yes, yes, but it has sold phenomenally, and money in the USA speaks louder than anything. So the Bee Gees are now more popular than they probably ever imagined (if that’s a desirable thing). It took eleven years and a certain Mr Stigwood . . . Phase three complete and what next? You guessed it. Movies.

Initially things looked good with "Lonely Days” achieving considerable chart success but then things slid and record sales of fu-