The Bee Gees ( BEE jeez)
were a musical group formed in 1958 by brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. The trio was especially successful in popular music in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and later as prominent performers in the disco music era in the mid-to-late 1970s. The group sang recognisable three-part tight harmonies: Robin's clear vibrato lead vocals were a hallmark of their earlier hits, while Barry's R&B falsetto became their signature sound during the mid-to-late 1970s and 1980s. The group wrote all their own original material, as well as writing and producing several major hits for other artists, and are regarded as one of the most important and influential acts in pop-music history, and have been referred to in the media as The Disco Kings, Britain's First Family of Harmony, and The Kings of Dance Music.
Born on the Isle of Man to English parents, the Gibb brothers lived in Chorlton, Manchester, England, until the late 1950s. There, in 1955, they formed the skiffle/rock and roll group the Rattlesnakes. The family then moved to Redcliffe, in the Moreton Bay Region, Queensland, Australia, and later to Cribb Island. After achieving their first chart successes in Australia as the Bee Gees, they returned to the UK in January 1967, when producer Robert Stigwood began promoting them to a worldwide audience. The Bee Gees' Saturday Night Fever soundtrack (1977) was the turning point of their career, with both the film and soundtrack having a cultural impact throughout the world, enhancing the disco scene's mainstream appeal. They won five Grammy Awards for Saturday Night Fever, including Album of the Year.
The Bee Gees have sold an estimated 120 million to 250 million records worldwide, placing them among the best-selling music artists of all time, as well as the most successful trio in the history of contemporary music. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997; the Hall's citation stating at the time, "Only Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, Garth Brooks and Paul McCartney have outsold the Bee Gees." With nine number-one hits on the Billboard Hot 100, the Bee Gees are the third-most successful band in Billboard charts history behind only the Beatles and the Supremes. Following Maurice's sudden death in 2003 aged 53, Barry and Robin retired from the group after 45 years of activity. However, in 2009 Robin announced that he and Barry had agreed the Bee Gees would re-form and perform again. Robin died in 2012, aged 62, and Colin Petersen died in 2024, aged 78, leaving Barry, Vince Melouney, and Geoff Bridgford as the surviving members of the group.
History
1955–1966: Music origins, Bee Gees formation and popularity in Australia
Born on the Isle of Man in the late 1940s, the Gibb brothers moved to their father Hugh Gibb's home town Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, England, in 1955. They formed a skiffle/rock-and-roll group, the Rattlesnakes, which consisted of Barry on guitar and vocals, Robin and Maurice on vocals, and friends Paul Frost on drums and Kenny Horrocks on tea-chest bass. In December 1957, the boys began to sing in harmony. The story is told that they were going to lip-sync to a record in the local Gaumont cinema (as other children had done on previous weeks) but, as they were running to the theatre, the fragile shellac 78-RPM record broke. The brothers had to sing live but received such a positive response from the audience that they decided to pursue a singing career. In May 1958, the Rattlesnakes disbanded when Frost and Horrocks left, so the Gibb brothers then formed Wee Johnny Hayes and the Blue Cats, with Barry as "Johnny Hayes".
In August 1958, the Gibb family, including older sister Lesley and infant brother Andy (born in March 1958), emigrated to Australia and settled in Redcliffe, Queensland, just north-east of Brisbane. The young brothers began performing to raise pocket money. Speedway promoter and driver Bill Goode, who had hired the brothers to entertain the crowd at the Redcliffe Speedway in 1960, introduced them to Brisbane radio-presenter jockey Bill Gates. The crowd at the speedway would throw money onto the track for the boys, who generally performed during the interval of meetings (usually on the back of a truck that drove around the track) and, in a deal with Goode, any money they collected from the crowd they were allowed to keep. Gates named the group the "BGs" (later changed to "Bee Gees") after his, Goode's and Barry Gibb's initials. The name was not specifically a reference to "Brothers Gibb", contrary to popular belief.
During the next few years, they began working regularly at resorts on the Queensland coast. Through his songwriting, Barry sparked the interest of Australian star Col Joye, who helped the brothers get a recording deal in 1963 with Festival Records subsidiary Leedon Records under the name "Bee Gees". The three released two or three singles a year, while Barry supplied additional songs to other Australian artists. In 1962 the Bee Gees were chosen as the supporting act for Chubby Checker's concert at the Sydney Stadium.
From 1963 to 1966, the Gibb family lived at 171 Bunnerong Road, Maroubra, in Sydney. Just before his death, Robin Gibb recorded the song "Sydney" about the brothers' experience of living in that city. It was released on his posthumous album 50 St. Catherine's Drive. The house was demolished in 2016.
A minor hit in 1965, "Wine and Women", led to the group's first LP, The Bee Gees Sing and Play 14 Barry Gibb Songs. By 1966 Festival Records was, however, on the verge of dropping them from the Leedon roster because of their perceived lack of commercial success. At this time the brothers met the American-born songwriter, producer, and entrepreneur Nat Kipner, who had just been appointed A&R manager of a new independent label, Spin Records. Kipner briefly took over as the group's manager and successfully negotiated their transfer to Spin in exchange for granting Festival the Australian distribution rights to the group's recordings. Through Kipner the Bee Gees met engineer-producer, Ossie Byrne, who produced (or co-produced with Kipner) many of the earlier Spin recordings, most of which were cut at his own small, self-built St Clair Studio in the Sydney suburb of Hurstville. Byrne gave the Gibb brothers virtually unlimited access to St Clair Studio over a period of several months in mid-1966. The group later acknowledged that this enabled them to significantly improve their skills as recording artists. During this productive time, they recorded a large batch of original material—including the song that became their first major hit, "Spicks and Specks" (on which Byrne played the trumpet coda)—as well as cover versions of current hits by overseas acts such as the Beatles. They regularly collaborated with other local musicians, including members of beat band Steve & The Board, led by Steve Kipner, Nat's teenage son.
Frustrated by their lack of success, the Gibbs began their return journey to England on 4 January 1967, with Ossie Byrne travelling with them. While at sea in January 1967, the Gibbs learned that Go-Set, Australia's most popular and influential music newspaper, had declared "Spicks and Specks" the "Best Single of the Year".
1967–1969: International fame and touring years
Bee Gees' 1st, Horizontal and Idea
Before their departure from Australia to England, Hugh Gibb sent demos to Brian Epstein, who managed the Beatles and directed NEMS, a British music store. Epstein passed the demo tapes to Robert Stigwood, who had recently joined NEMS. After an audition with Stigwood in February 1967, the Bee Gees signed a five-year contract whereby Polydor Records would release their records in the UK, and Atco Records would do so in the US. Work quickly began on the group's first international album, and Stigwood launched a promotional campaign to coincide with its release.
Stigwood proclaimed that the Bee Gees were "The most significant new musical talent of 1967", thus initiating the comparison of the Bee Gees to the Beatles. Before recording the first album, the group expanded to include Colin Petersen and Vince Melouney. "New York Mining Disaster 1941", their second British single (their first-issued UK 45 rpm was "Spicks and Specks"), was issued to radio stations with a blank white label listing only the song title. Some DJs immediately assumed this was a new single by the Beatles and started playing the song in heavy rotation. This helped the song climb into the top 20 in both the UK and US.
No such chicanery was needed to boost the Bee Gees' next single, "To Love Somebody", into the US Top 20. Originally written for Otis Redding, "To Love Somebody", a soulful ballad sung by Barry, has since become a pop standard recorded by many singers. Another single, "Holiday", released in the US, peaked at No. 16.
The parent album, Bee Gees 1st (their first internationally), peaked at No. 7 in the US and No. 8 in the UK. Bill Shepherd was credited as the arranger. After recording that album, the group recorded their first BBC session at the Playhouse Theatre, Northumberland Avenue, in London, with Bill Bebb as the producer, and they performed three songs. That session is included on BBC Sessions: 1967–1973 (2008). After the release of Bee Gees' 1st, the group was first introduced in New York as "the English surprise". At that time, the band made their first British TV appearance on Top of the Pops. Maurice recalled:
Jimmy Savile was on it and that was amazing because we'd seen pictures of him in the Beatles fan club book, so we thought we were really there! That show had Lulu, us, the Move, and the Stones doing 'Let's Spend the Night Together'. You have to remember this was really before the superstar was invented so you were all in it together.
In late 1967, they began recording their second album. On 21 December 1967, in a live broadcast from Liverpool Anglican Cathedral for a Christmas television special called How On Earth?, they performed their own song, "Thank You For Christmas" which was written especially for the programme, as well as a medley of the traditional Christmas carols "Silent Night", "The First Noel" and "Mary's Boy Child" (the latter incorrectly noted as "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" on tape boxes and subsequent release). The songs were all pre-recorded on 1 December 1967 and the group lip-synched their performance. The recordings were eventually released on the "Horizontal" reissue bonus disc in 2008. The folk group the Settlers and Radio 1 disc-jockey, Kenny Everett, also performed on the programme, which was presented by the Reverend Edward H. Patey, dean of the cathedral.
January 1968 began with a promotional trip to the US. Los Angeles Police were on alert in anticipation of a Beatles-type reception, and special security arrangements were being put in place. In February, Horizontal repeated the success of their first album, featuring the group's first UK No. 1 single "Massachusetts" (a No. 11 US hit) and the No. 7 UK single "World". The sound of the album Horizontal had a more "rock" sound than their previous release, although ballads like "And the Sun Will Shine" and "Really and Sincerely" were included. The Horizontal album reached No. 12 in the US and No. 16 in the UK.
With the release of Horizontal, they also embarked on a Scandinavian tour with concerts in Copenhagen. Around the same time, the Bee Gees turned down an offer to write and perform the soundtrack for the film Wonderwall, according to director Joe Massot.
On 27 February 1968, the band, backed by the 17-piece Massachusetts String Orchestra, began their first tour of Germany with two concerts at Hamburg Musikhalle. In March 1968, the band was supported by Procol Harum (who had a hit "A Whiter Shade of Pale") on their German tour. As Robin's partner Molly Hullis recalls: "Germans were wilder than the fans in England at the heights of Beatlemania." The tour schedule took them to 11 venues in as many days with 18 concerts played, finishing with a brace of shows at the Stadthalle, Braunschweig.
After that, the group was off to Switzerland. As Maurice described it:
There were over 5,000 kids at the airport in Zurich. The entire ride to Bern, the kids were waving Union Jacks. When we got to the hotel, the police weren't there to meet us and the kids crushed the car. We were inside and the windows were all getting smashed in, and we were on the floor.
On 17 March, the band performed "Words" on The Ed Sullivan Show. The other artists who performed on that night's show were Lucille Ball, George Hamilton and Fran Jeffries. On 27 March 1968, the band performed at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
Two more singles followed in early 1968: the ballad "Words" (No. 8 UK, No. 15 US) and the double A-sided single "Jumbo" backed with "The Singer Sang His Song". "Jumbo" only reached No. 25 in the UK and No. 57 in the US. The Bee Gees felt "The Singer Sang His Song" was the stronger of the two sides, an opinion shared by listeners in the Netherlands who made it a No. 3 hit.
Further Bee Gees chart singles followed: "I've Gotta Get a Message to You", their second UK No. 1 (No. 8 US), and "I Started a Joke" (No. 6 US), both culled from the band's third album Idea. Idea reached No. 4 in the UK and was another top 20 album in the US (No. 17).
After the tour and TV special to promote the album, Vince Melouney left the group, desiring to play more of a blues style music than the Gibbs were writing. Melouney did achieve one feat while with the Bee Gees: his "Such a Shame" (from Idea) is the only original song on any Bee Gees album not written by a Gibb brother.
The band were due to begin a seven-week tour of the US on 2 August 1968, but on 27 July, Robin collapsed and fell unconscious. He was admitted to a London nursing home for nervous exhaustion, and the American tour was postponed. The band began recording their sixth album, which resulted in their spending a week recording at Atlantic Studios in New York. Robin, still feeling poorly, missed the New York sessions, but the rest of the band put away instrumental tracks and demos.
Odessa, Cucumber Castle and break-up
By 1969, Robin began to feel that Stigwood had been favouring Barry as the frontman.
The Bee Gees' performances in early 1969 on the Top of the Pops and The Tom Jones Show, singing "I Started a Joke" and "First of May" as a medley, were the final appearances of the group with Robin.
Their next album, which was to have been a concept album called Masterpeace, evolved into the double-album Odessa. Most rock critics felt this was the best Bee Gees album of the 1960s with its progressive rock feel on the title track, the country-flavoured "Marley Purt Drive" and "Give Your Best", and ballads such as "Melody Fair" and "First of May" (the last of which became the only single from the album and a UK # 6 hit). Feeling the flipside, "Lamplight", should have been the A-side, Robin quit the group in mid-1969 and launched a solo career.
The first of many Bee Gees compilations, Best of Bee Gees, was released featuring the non-LP single "Words" plus the Australian hit "Spicks and Specks". The single "Tomorrow Tomorrow" was also released and was a moderate hit in the UK, where it reached No. 23, but it was only No. 54 in the US. The compilation reached the top 10 in both the UK and the US.
While Robin pursued his solo career, Barry, Maurice and Petersen continued as the Bee Gees on their next album, Cucumber Castle. The band made their debut performance without Robin at Talk of the Town. They had recruited their sister, Lesley, to participate in at least one performance at this time as a replacement for Robin. To accompany the album, they also filmed a TV special with Frankie Howerd and cameos from several other contemporary pop and rock stars, which aired on the BBC in December 1970. Petersen played drums on the tracks recorded for the album but was fired from the group after filming began (he went on to form the Humpy Bong with Jonathan Kelly). His parts were edited out of the final cut of the film and Pentangle drummer Terry Cox was recruited to complete the recording of songs for the album. A proposed feature film starring the group, Lord Kitchener's Little Drummer Boys, was not made.
After the album was released in early 1970, it seemed that the Bee Gees were finished. The leadoff single, "Don't Forget to Remember", was a big hit in the UK, reaching No. 2, but only reached No. 73 in the US. The next two singles, "I.O.I.O." and "If I Only Had My Mind on Something Else", barely scraped the charts. On 1 December 1969, Barry and Maurice parted ways professionally.
Maurice started to record his first solo album, The Loner, which was not released. Meanwhile, he released the single "Railroad" and starred in the West End musical Sing a Rude Song. In February 1970, Barry recorded a solo album which never saw official release either, although "I'll Kiss Your Memory" was released as a single backed by "This Time" without much interest. Meanwhile, Robin saw chart success in Europe and Australia with his UK No. 2 hit "Saved by the Bell" from the album Robin's Reign.
1970–1974: Reformation
In mid 1970, according to Barry, "Robin rang me in Spain where I was on holiday [saying] 'let's do it again'". By 21 August 1970, after they had reunited, Barry announced that the Bee Gees "are there and they will never, ever part again". Maurice said, "We just discussed it and re-formed. We want to apologise publicly to Robin for the things that have been said." Earlier, in June 1970, Robin and Maurice recorded a dozen songs before Barry joined and included two songs that were on their reunion album. Around the same time, Barry and Robin were about to publish the book On the Other Hand. They also recruited Geoff Bridgford as the group's official drummer. Bridgford had previously worked with the Groove and Tin Tin and played drums on Maurice's unreleased first solo album.
In 1970, 2 Years On was released in October in the US and November in the UK. The lead single "Lonely Days" reached No. 3 in the United States, promoted by appearances on The Johnny Cash Show, Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, The Andy Williams Show, The Dick Cavett Show and The Ed Sullivan Show.
Their ninth album, Trafalgar, was released in late 1971. The single "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" was their first to hit No. 1 on the US charts, while "Israel" reached No. 22 in the Netherlands. "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" also brought the Bee Gees their first Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. Later that year, the group's songs were included in the soundtrack for the film Melody.
In 1972, they hit No. 16 in the US with the non-album single "My World", backed by Maurice's composition "On Time". Another 1972 single, "Run to Me" from the LP To Whom It May Concern, returned them to the UK top 10 for the first time in three years. Bridgford left the group partway through recording, and the band chose not to hire a new member to replace him. The resulting three-piece lineup of Barry, Robin and Maurice would remain unbroken for the remainder of the band's active years. On 24 November 1972, the band headlined the "Woodstock of the West" Festival at the Los Angeles Coliseum (which was a West Coast answer to Woodstock in New York), which also featured Sly and the Family Stone, Stevie Wonder and the Eagles. Also in 1972, the group sang "Hey Jude" with Wilson Pickett.
By 1973, however, the Bee Gees were in a rut. The album Life in a Tin Can, released on Robert Stigwood's newly formed RSO Records, and its lead-off single, "Saw a New Morning", sold poorly with the single peaking at No. 94. This was followed by an unreleased album (known as A Kick in the Head Is Worth Eight in the Pants). They also released an album only available in South America, Kitty Can. Another compilation album, Best of Bee Gees, Volume 2, was released in 1973, although it did not repeat the success of Volume 1. On 6 April 1973 episode of The Midnight Special they performed "Money (That's What I Want)" with Jerry Lee Lewis. Also in 1973, they were invited by Chuck Berry to perform two songs with him onstage at The Midnight Special: "Johnny B. Goode" and "Reelin' and Rockin'".
After a tour of the United States in early 1974 and a Canadian tour later in the year, the group ended up playing small clubs. As Barry joked, "We ended up in, have you ever heard of Batley's the variety club in (West Yorkshire) England?".
On the advice of Ahmet Ertegun, head of their US label Atlantic Records, Stigwood arranged for the group to record with soul music producer Arif Mardin. The resulting LP, Mr. Natural, included fewer ballads and foreshadowed the R&B direction of the rest of their career. When it, too, failed to attract much interest, Mardin encouraged them to work within the soul music style. The brothers attempted to assemble a live stage band that could replicate their studio sound. Lead guitarist Alan Kendall had come on board in 1971 but did not have much to do until Mr. Natural. For that album, they added drummer Dennis Bryon, and they later added ex-Strawbs keyboard player Blue Weaver, completing the Bee Gees band that lasted through the late 1970s. Maurice, who had previously performed on piano, guitar, harpsichord, electric piano, organ, mellotron and bass guitar, as well as mandolin and Moog synthesiser, by then confined himself to bass onstage.
1975–1979: Turning to disco
Main Course and Children of the World
At Eric Clapton's suggestion, the brothers moved to Miami, Florida, early in 1975 to record at Criteria Studios. After starting off with ballads, they eventually heeded the urging of Mardin and Stigwood, and crafted more dance-oriented disco songs, including their second US No. 1, "Jive Talkin'", along with US No. 7 "Nights on Broadway". The band liked the resulting new sound. This time the public agreed by sending the LP Main Course up the charts. This album included the first Bee Gees songs wherein Barry used falsetto, something that became a trademark of the band. This was also the first Bee Gees album to have two US top-10 singles since 1968's Idea. Main Course also became their first charting R&B album.
On the Bee Gees' appearance on The Midnight Special in 1975, to promote Main Course, they sang "To Love Somebody" with Helen Reddy. Around the same time, the Bee Gees recorded three Beatles covers—"Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight", "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" with Barry providing lead vocals, and "Sun King" with Maurice providing lead vocals, for the unsuccessful musical/documentary All This and World War II.
The next album, Children of the World, released in September 1976, was filled with Barry's new-found falsetto and Weaver's synthesizer disco licks. The first single from the album was "You Should Be Dancing", which features percussion work by musician Stephen Stills. The song pushed the Bee Gees to a level of stardom they had not previously achieved in the US, though their new R&B/disco sound was not as popular with some diehard fans. The pop ballad "Love So Right" reached No. 3 in the US, and "Boogie Child" reached US No. 12 in January 1977. The album peaked at No. 8 in the US.
Saturday Night Fever and Spirits Having Flown
Following a successful live album, Here at Last... Bee Gees... Live, the Bee Gees agreed with Stigwood to participate in the creation of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. It was a turning point in their career. The cultural impact of both the film and the soundtrack was significant throughout the world, and epitomized the disco phenomenon on both sides of the Atlantic.
The band's involvement in the film did not begin until post-production. As John Travolta asserted, "The Bee Gees weren't even involved in the movie in the beginning ... I was dancing to Stevie Wonder and Boz Scaggs." Producer Robert Stigwood commissioned the Bee Gees to create the songs for the film. The brothers wrote the songs "virtually in a single weekend" at Château d'Hérouville studio in France. Barry Gibb remembered the reaction when Stigwood and music supervisor Bill Oakes arrived and listened to the demos:
They flipped out and said these will be great. We still had no concept of the movie, except some kind of rough script that they'd brought with them. ... You've got to remember, we were fairly dead in the water at that point, 1975, somewhere in that zone—the Bee Gees' sound was basically tired. We needed something new. We hadn't had a hit record in about three years. So we felt, Oh Jeez, that's it. That's our life span, like most groups in the late '60s. So, we had to find something. We didn't know what was going to happen.
Bill Oakes, who supervised the soundtrack, asserts that Saturday Night Fever did not begin the disco craze but rather prolonged it: "Disco had run its course. These days, Fever is credited with kicking off the whole disco thing—it really didn't. Truth is, it breathed new life into a genre that was actually dying."
Three Bee Gees singles—"How Deep Is Your Love" (US No. 1, UK No. 3), "Stayin' Alive" (US No. 1, UK No. 4) and "Night Fever" (US No. 1, UK No. 1)—charted high in many countries around the world, launching the most popular period of the disco era. They also penned the song "If I Can't Have You", which became a US No. 1 hit for Yvonne Elliman, while the Bee Gees' own version was the B-side of "Stayin' Alive". Such was the popularity of Saturday Night Fever that two different versions of the song "More Than a Woman" received airplay, one by the Bee Gees, which was relegated to an album track, and another by Tavares, which was the hit.
During a nine-month period beginning in the Christmas season of 1977, seven songs written by the brothers held the No. 1 position on the US charts for 27 of 37 consecutive weeks: three of their own releases, two for brother Andy Gibb, the Yvonne Elliman single, and "Grease", performed by Frankie Valli.
Fuelled by the film's success, the soundtrack broke multiple industry records, becoming the highest-selling album in recording history to that point. With more than 40 million copies sold, Saturday Night Fever is among music's top five best selling soundtrack albums. As of 2010, it is calculated as the fourth highest-selling album worldwide.
In March 1978, the Bee Gees held the top two positions on the US charts with "Night Fever" and "Stayin' Alive", the first time this had happened since the Beatles. On the US Billboard Hot 100 chart for 25 March 1978, five songs written by the Gibbs were in the US top 10 at the same time: "Night Fever", "Stayin' Alive", "If I Can't Have You", "Emotion" and "Love Is Thicker Than Water". Such chart dominance had not been seen since April 1964, when the Beatles had all five of the top five American singles. Barry Gibb became the only songwriter to have four consecutive number-one hits in the US, breaking the John Lennon and Paul McCartney 1964 record. These songs were "Stayin' Alive", "Love Is Thicker Than Water", "Night Fever" and "If I Can't Have You".