The Bee Gees in the 1960s

Sonicbond Publishing Limited

www.sonicbondpublishing.co.uk

Email: [email protected]

First Published in the United Kingdom 2021

First Published in the United States 2021

This digital edition 2023

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:

A Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright Andrew Môn Hughes, Grant Walters and Mark Crohan 2021

ISBN 978-1-78952-148-1

The rights of Andrew Môn Hughes, Grant Walters and Mark Crohan to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Sonicbond Publishing Limited

Typeset in ITC Garamond Std & ITC Avant Garde Gothic

Printed and bound in England

Graphic design and typesetting: Full Moon Media

Acknowledgements

The authors would collectively like to thank the following:

Stephen Lambe and Sonicbond Publishing for giving us the opportunity to take on this project. Your faith in us is very much appreciated and we believe that it will ultimately be rewarded.

Spencer Gibb, who has been a critical connection between the authors and his family’s work, and a committed, ardent supporter of this entire project from start to finish.

Vince Melouney and Jonathan Lea for the continual time and care they’ve invested in this volume.

Lee Meadows, Reinhard Wenesch, and Frank Stiller for their kind assistance with record sleeve scans; Luke Taiapa for providing valuable archive clippings; Jaesen Jones for his incredible Go-Set archives expertise; and Joe Brennan, whose Gibb Songs website remains one of the most important chronicles of Bee Gees history.

Marion Adriansen, Dick Ashby, Steve Barry, Tony Bates, Melinda Bilyeu, Dennis Bryon, Hector Cook, David Fedor, Hazel Gibb, Justine Gibb, Gerard Groux, Milton Hammon, Beth Kujala, Kitt Larue, David Leaf, Brett Leslie, Mary Merrill, Erling Paulsen, Tim Roxborogh, Andrew Sandoval, Bob Stanley, Faye Ward, Blue Weaver, Peta Gibb Weber and Minako Yoshida, for their many heartfelt contributions and conversations along the way.

The ‘Oh No’ Group - Dan Box, Mark Byfield, Judy Farrar, Michelle Gibson, Ann Grootjans, Linda Keane-Bacon, Paul Mann, Darrin Mitchell, Richard O’Donoghue and Ronnie Olsson for their friendship, banter, and shared love of the Gibbs’ music. This book series was written with all of you in our hearts.

Albhy Galuten and Karl Richardson for so many candid, helpful conversations in which their technical, behind-the-scenes insight has breathed so much life into many aspects of this series.

And last, but never least: Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb for their unfathomable talents that gifted the world with one of the greatest musical legacies of all time. Every word written here is dedicated to you with our utmost respect and admiration.

Thanks to...

Andrew would like to thank … my wife Judy, for her love, patience, understanding and making my life so complete, and Bella and Patch, our wonderful furry companions for the joy that they bring; my mother and father Enid and Mervyn for encouraging my love of music – the record player for Christmas in 1970 was the start of it all, but I guess the headphones a few years later showed that my tastes were changing; my sons Jonathan and Christopher, whose laughter is infectious – but usually at my expense. I love you all.

Special thanks to Jon Owen for working his techie magic like no other; Colin Trueman of VOD Music and record fairs; fellow music book authors Toni Schiavone and Malcolm C. Searles, and community radio presenters Dai Sinclair (Môn FM) and Steve Snelling (Radio Aber).

Extra special thanks for extra special friends - Frank & Manuela Stiller.

Grant would like to thank … my wife Julie for her love and encouragement; my parents Gordon and Wendy, whose Bee Gees albums and turntable inspired a lifetime of listening; my brother Andrew for his enthusiasm and listening ear; Spencer Gibb for his friendship and many long late nights talking shop; Justin Chadwick, Quentin Harrison, Andy Healy, and all of my fellow scribes at Albumism; Walker and Anne Evans, Susan Post, and the staff at Columbus Underground who gave me my very first writing gig; Stacy Oliver-Sikorski for equal measures of support and sarcasm; and my colleagues at ACUHO-I who patiently listened to me lament over deadlines and eye strain. Thanks also to Bob Stanley, Grant-Lee Phillips, Juliana Hatfield, Edie Brickell, Brad Houser, Brandon Aly, David Wild, Libby Kober, Jacki Andre, Whitney Gear, Jenny Johnson, Sarah McNeal, Paul Stelzer, Jimmy Mak, Russ Bradley, Michael Gerbrandt, and so many others who have taken such a keen interest in this project.

Mark would like to thank … my father, the late Joseph Gabriel for giving me my love of music; my three children Bree, Edan, and Daina and their respective spouses Dale, Michelle, and James for their enduring patience over the past few years. I would also like to acknowledge my six grandchildren Eliza, Ava, Archie, Darcy, Oliva, and Poppy, for the joy they have given me; and Lisa Maddocks, my friend and muse who has constantly inspired and encouraged me.

Authors’ Note

This volume is the first in a series of four books in the ‘Decades’ series dedicated to The Bee Gees’ lengthy career.

Contents

Foreword

Prologue

1960

1961

1962

1963

1964

Brilliant From Birth

1965

The Bee Gee’s Sing And Play 14 Barry Gibb Songs (1965)

1966

Spicks And Specks (1966)

Inception/Nostalgia (1970)

1967

Bee Gees’ 1st (1967)

Turn Around, Look At Us (1967)

1968

Horizontal (1968)

Rare, Precious And Beautiful (1968)

Idea (1968)

Rare, Precious and Beautiful – Volume 2 (1968)

1969

Rare, Precious And Beautiful – Volume 3 (1969)

Odessa (1969)

Best Of Bee Gees (1969)

Epilogue

Bibliography

Foreword

When I was first asked to write this foreword, I must admit I was a little intimidated. Not because of the subject matter itself, but because I assumed that it would be just as hard for me to discuss The Bee Gees on an impersonal level as to attempt the opposite. I then had an epiphany of sorts: it turns out I do it all the time. I reference them often when I’m producing or engineering a record for someone, working on my own material, or even when I’m teaching a class on the music business, songwriting, or production.

The Brothers Gibb are naturally ingrained in me, but not specifically as family. I’ve realised that I’ve always been able to separate the music and the talent from my personal relationships. I judge their achievements for what they are. This is important because I feel that’s what every musician, performer, producer, and especially songwriter, should do. I’m often asked – usually because I am related – how The Bee Gees have influenced me. My response is always, ‘How are they not influencing you? And if they’re not, then you need to start listening’. Of course, I’d be lying if I said there weren’t personal exceptions. Losing my uncle Andy and the music his brothers wrote relating to that, will touch me forever. There are certain songs that connect to my parents’ divorce, and naturally, many others that occurred at pivotal moments in my life. My dad playing me ‘Nights On Broadway’ is one of my earliest memories, and I have a humorous virginity story related to ‘You Win Again’ that I won’t share here. I could go on and on.

Don’t get me wrong – as someone who chose a career as a musician, songwriter, and producer, I did have the luxury of a front row seat to not just some of the best recordings of all time, but the opportunity to discuss those elements with many of the people involved. Of course, that includes the Gibb brothers themselves, each with their individual perspectives – and legends and great minds such as Arif Mardin, Albhy Galuten, Brian Tench, Femi Jiya, and so many others over the years. Another question I often get is ‘How do you live up to your family?’. The teenage ‘artist’ in me definitely felt like I was in their shadow, but the adult answer is ‘You don’t’ or ‘You can’t’. The truth is, nobody can live up to them. The Bee Gees are a truly unique phenomenon.

There are no other artists in history that have achieved what they accomplished. Not only because of their history of decades working together, but also because they were the first to achieve so many milestones. At the height of their career, when many or all of their hugely successful predecessors or peers had either broken up or faded away – for example, The Beatles or Elvis Presley – they went on to become the biggest artists of a generation. They broke world records, including the greatest number of songs in the top ten at one time; the number of weeks on a top ten singles chart; and, of course, the biggest-selling album of all time until it was surpassed by Michael Jackson’s Thriller a few years later: itself a record that might not have existed without the impact the Gibb brothers had on pop culture.

The obvious downside of being the first to achieve something, is that there was no rule book. It meant they were also the first artists to experience a public backlash for their success. Sadly, in my opinion, they were unfairly labelled as the face of ‘disco’: a genre I personally believe they weren’t even a part of. That ‘rule book’ they were never given ended up becoming the one they inadvertently wrote. It served as a road map for so many other artists in the years to follow, including myself – the knowledge that things can turn on a dime. Understandably, being the first to experience something like this, the brothers were hurt – professionally, artistically and personally.

Nonetheless, where others might have disbanded or quit entirely, The Bee Gees persevered and endured – and as they had before, they reinvented themselves. They wrote and produced countless hits for other artists and then regrouped as performers, only to have more and more success in the decades to follow. If my father and my uncle Maurice were still alive today, there would without a doubt be new Bee Gees records still being released. Regardless of that, to this day – and depending on the chart or list you’re looking at – you can often see them listed as the most successful songwriters of all time. I believe that is the achievement and legacy they would care about the most. Their songs are still being covered or re-released, documentaries are being made, and movies are in the works.

This book – the first of a forthcoming series – is important for so many reasons, and I’ll name a few. I feel others will hit you as you read. One is that it needed to be written and should probably have been written a long time ago. To reference my earlier point, there are no other artists in modern history to have written and recorded together over multiple decades, so breaking that down doesn’t just deserve to be documented – it is vital.

Another – and this is me being a little ‘nerdy’ as an engineer/producer – is that this book breaks down every record, track by track, with backstory and details from a time when studio technology was changing almost daily. Producers, artists, and engineers were striving tirelessly every day to come up with new sounds and new standards. Who better to follow than the career of these brothers and the teams in which they worked? They were present at the infancy of modern recording and were a part of the innovations that took us into the digital age; perfectionists who achieved that goal of discovering and changing sounds.

I once witnessed a session where my uncle Barry was producing a vocal part my father was singing. It sounded flawless to me, but Barry wasn’t happy. He made Robin do it again, and honestly, I couldn’t tell the difference, but Barry was ultimately satisfied. They then swapped roles, and Robin began supervising Barry’s performance. Identical story. Those brothers understood things about each other, heard things in each other, and drove each other in a way that’s probably impossible for most people to understand – all of this from three brothers who couldn’t read or write music but instead relied on gut feeling, intuition, and passion.

My last point is that this book gives an insight into the brothers’ process and so much more. It’s something that will appeal to multiple audiences. If you’re interested in recording and the history behind it, you’ll learn something. If you’re interested in music history in general, you’ll learn something. If you were already a Bee Gees fan and thought you knew a lot, then I guarantee there are many things you’ll discover – maybe even something about a closet favorite song of yours that wasn’t a huge hit. Finally, if you weren’t a fan to begin with, or didn’t know too much about the history, then I believe there’s even more of a reason to read. I promise it will make you want to listen.

When I was initially asked to write this, the premise was for a single book from the authors that would cover the entirety of The Bee Gees’ career. Since then, it’s evolved into multiple volumes that will cover different eras, which in my mind, is absolutely the right decision considering everything I have previously mentioned. The career of these brothers is so unique, long and extraordinary, that a single book or documentary couldn’t do it complete justice. Once I found out there would be a book series, I went back to rewrite this and tailor it for this specific volume. Other than the addition of this paragraph, I decided not to. While some of what I wrote is not related to The Bee Gees’ 1960s era, I believe it serves as an introduction to the series and who they were as artists and professionals, regardless of the decade. Because I was not alive for this period of their career and have no fly-on-the-wall experience of it, I can appreciate this era through stories that have been passed down to me, but mostly as just a music lover and audio geek witnessing music history unfold just by listening.

This was the beginning of a decades-long career covering revolutions in recording technology; a time when managers and labels nurtured and developed talent because they had nothing to lose; dramatic shifts in how radio and promotion, in general, were handled; the early days of artists being able to write for themselves as well as other people; the ups and downs of being a family while dealing with fame and success for the first time – an incredible insight into not only what was the dawn of the modern music industry, but also a pivotal understanding of the dynamics and evolution of these three brothers and what The Bee Gees ultimately became.

The three authors that have come together to create this project have left no stone unturned. In addition to getting to the bottom of all the information they could about these tracks, sessions and albums spanning multiple decades, they’ve also created a narrative that will make you feel closer to The Bee Gees and undoubtedly have a new perspective on the music, the story, and the legacy. I may have been intimidated to write this at first, but I sign off being proud to have been asked.

Spencer Gibb

(Yep, my dad was Robin fuckin’ Gibb)

Austin, Texas, USA

May 2021

I first met Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb in 1964 on the set of the popular Australian TV show Sing, Sing, Sing, which was hosted by legendary Australian rocker Johnny O’Keefe. I was there with my band Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs, and together with the Gibbs and JO’K, we performed The Beatles’ arrangement of ‘Money (That’s What I Want)’. It was amazing to hear Beatlesque harmonies coming out of the mouths of such young people. They were very friendly and funny, doing and saying silly things, but also driven and determined to be successful in the music business. Little did I know then that I’d eventually get to know them much better.

In late 1966, despite having had big hits on the Australian music charts with Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs (in addition to several releases of my own), I left Australia for the UK, where all the music that was turning me on was coming from. I wanted to be where The Yardbirds, The Pretty Things, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Animals, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Them, and others were happening.

Shortly after I arrived in London, I was happy to find that my friends, Australian rock group The Easybeats, were in town. I was able to track them down and they told me that the Gibb brothers had just arrived in London, and they had a phone number for them. I called and spoke with Maurice, who told me that they’d just been signed to a contract with a guy called Robert Stigwood at Brian Epstein’s NEMS Enterprises, and they were going to be recording in a few days’ time. He then asked me if I would come and play guitar during the session. I, of course, said ‘Yes’. What I didn’t tell him, was that I had no guitar, as I had sold mine to help pay the fare to London. Fortunately, Harry Vanda of The Easybeats graciously helped me out and lent me his cherished Gibson guitar.

The address Maurice had given me was in the centre of London, at what turned out to be a world-class recording studio called IBC, where it was great to see the Gibbs again; there was so much to talk about. They told me about ‘Spicks And Specks’, which was released just as they were leaving Oz and that it was getting a lot of airplay. It was really good to reconnect with the guys. I also met drummer Colin Petersen for the first time at this session. Colin had played in a popular band in Australia called Steve & The Board, but we’d never crossed paths. He’d also been a child film star, starring in the title role in the movie Smiley. He was a great drummer, the perfect man for the job. That night at IBC, the five of us recorded ‘New York Mining Disaster 1941’, which would become an international hit when released only a month later. That night completely changed my life. The next day, I went out and bought a new guitar and returned Harry’s Gibson.

At first, I was paid as a session musician, as there were contractual issues that needed to be dealt with, so I missed the group’s first photo and video sessions. But a very short time later, I became an official member of The Bee Gees. We always had a great time in the studio. There was lots of laughter, good vibes and excitement. We would try out many ideas, try different instrumentation – one had to tear the Mellotron away from Maurice – and we each had the freedom to play what we wanted, with all of us having input in the song arrangements and recording production. The songs that the brothers were writing were unique – songs such as ‘Lemons Never Forget’, ‘Indian Gin And Whisky Dry’, ‘The Earnest Of Being George’, and of course all the singles: ‘Words’, ‘To Love Somebody’ and ‘I Started A Joke’, to name just a few. We must not forget Bill Shepherd. Bill was the man that wrote all the orchestrations, which I thought were tremendous. ‘Less is more’ was his approach. It’s so fantastic that the chemistry between this group of people created songs that are remembered and still appreciated over fifty years later.

Less than two years on, unfortunately, the non-stop whirlwind of constant travel, concert tours, recording sessions, TV and radio appearances, photoshoots, press interviews and business meetings caught up with us. By that time, the immediate and enormous success had taken a mental and physical toll on everyone – it really was ‘such a shame’. I felt, for my own health and well-being, that I had to leave the group. Robin quit a few months after, with the remaining three disintegrating later in 1969. The Gibb brothers reunited as a trio in 1970, by which time I had formed Fanny Adams and signed to MCA Records.

Sadly, Robin and Maurice are no longer with us, but their memories live on. I’m proud to say that Barry and Colin remain friends of mine to this day. All the many things we accomplished during those two incredible years of my life are included in this fantastic book. I sincerely hope you enjoy reading about those years as much as I enjoyed living them.

Vince Melouney

Somerset, England

May 2021

Prologue

The Bee Gees’ musical reach now extends across more than 60 years and a multitude of generations. Their influence and identity are contextual depending on when listeners happened to discover them. For some, they were the very definition of 1970s culture, rising to stratospheric fame on the shoulders of their contributions to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. Others unearthed their lengthy catalogue in the 1980s and 1990s when the group had already been declared industry icons as consummate contemporary pop singers, songwriters, and producers.

Before they mastered their crafts as performers, songwriters, and recording artists, The Bee Gees spent a decade climbing their way out of their commonplace working-class upbringing in Britain to forge a path for themselves as career songwriters and musicians. This volume will tell the story of the Brothers Gibb in the 1960s – a decade they began as fledgling performers and ended rather painfully disassembled as colleagues and family members. In between, they rose from obscurity to find bona fide success as internationally recognised artists. It’s a fascinating chapter in The Bee Gees’ story, and the music that evolved from it is equally compelling.

However, exploring the group’s 1960s legacy requires a few backward steps to unearth their family roots: beginning with Hugh Leslie Gibb, the family patriarch, born 15 January 1916. He was considered an ‘oddball’ in his family. ‘I liked music, and the attitude was that it would never do you any good’, he recalled of his aspirations. ‘The main theme then was to go to work, have a steady job, and bring your wages home every weekend. To deviate from that wasn’t right in their eyes. To be a musician was like the old days, you know, when they were considered vagabonds, and that’s all I ever wanted to do’. Much to the chagrin of his conservative parents, Hugh sought work as a drummer. While in his early twenties, he eventually gained enough experience and credibility to build and lead his own band. By 1940, The Hughie Gibb Orchestra was well-known on the circuit of Mecca ballrooms, playing mainly in the north of England and Scotland.

Hugh’s work also led him to his future bride, Barbara May Pass (born 17 November 1920), at the Stretford Trades & Labour Club in 1941. It was a match made in big-band heaven. Barbara was an occasional vocalist who happened upon Hugh’s gig on a night off. Mr. Gibb was entranced to the point that he left the stage to dance with her during their performance. After a courtship of three years, they married at St. Matthew’s Church in Stretford on 27 May 1944.

Their first child, and only daughter, Lesley Barbara, was born on 12 January 1945. Hugh’s work took the young family to Scotland, where they lived for a short while before returning to Manchester at the end of World War II. From there, the family moved to the Isle of Man – a small enclave in the Irish Sea – after Hugh was offered steady stints at the Douglas Bay, Alexandra, and Glen Helen Hotels on the island.

Hugh and Barbara’s first son, Barry, was born at 8:45 a.m. on 1 September 1946 at the Jane Crookall Maternity Home in Douglas, the island’s capital. Christened Barry Alan Crompton Gibb, the first of his middle names, was in honour of Hugh’s youngest brother, who died on 14 February 1929 of pneumonia, aged just ten months. The second was in honour of the Gibbs’ purported famous ancestor, Sir Samuel Crompton, who had invented the spinning mule in Lancashire in 1779.

Robin Hugh Gibb came into the world at 3:15 a.m., and his fraternal twin, Maurice Ernest Gibb, debuted twenty minutes later, on 22 December 1949, at the Jane Crookall Maternity Home.

Although the brothers would later recall their formative years on the Isle of Man with great clarity and fondness, that period was tumultuous for the family. The availability of work for Hugh’s band on the small island proved to be inconsistent. As a holiday destination during the summer months, it was a hive of activity, with mainlanders seeking a break from post-World War II recovery. However, during the winter months, tourists were exceptionally scarce. Even though Hugh was prepared to turn his hand to anything – working on board the local tourist ferry, The Thistle, which went from one end of Douglas Bay to the other; nursing at the local mental hospital; selling insurance; and delivering bread – the family’s fortunes would fluctuate wildly at times. After nine years as Manx residents, the Gibbs – now numbering six – returned to Manchester in 1955 in search of better opportunities.

Shortly after, the children were all enrolled at Oswald Road School: Lesley and Barry (recorded as ‘Barrie’ in the admissions register) in the Junior School on 5 September, and Robin and Maurice in the Infant School on the same date. Barry recalled having ‘a very bad experience at school’, evoking a memory of a teacher who he felt was ‘particularly unkind to children’ as the reason for dodging school and being chased by the truant officer, who would, on occasion, come knocking on the Gibb family’s door. Conversely, Robin recalled his days at Oswald Road School quite differently: ‘I enjoyed my time at Oswald Road. It was the first school where I made really good friends’.

Living in a semidetached house at 51 Keppel Road in the middle-class south-Manchester suburb of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, the Gibb family was still struggling to make ends meet. Hugh was working two jobs, while Barbara also worked part-time. However, life for the Gibb children was one of fun, exploration, and occasionally, mischief. Barry:

We were street kids. Our parents had no control over us. I had a great fear of the law, which you did have in those times, but I was also very rebellious. Life on the street became more fun, and we wouldn’t come home until eleven or twelve at night, because in the summers, it didn’t get dark until eleven o’clock at night, so kids around my age didn’t go home. We’d be on the streets every night.

Robin was disarmingly candid with his recollections: ‘I was a little swine actually. I didn’t know it at the time, but I look back now and I know I was. For the things I did, they put kids in reform school. I was the same as Barry; we used to go and set fire to golf courses and things like that. We never did anything that could have harmed people, but we did a lot of damage to open land. We were very young and came from the kind of area where we weren’t the only kids like that. My best friend, who lived down the road from us in Northen Grove in Manchester in ‘57, went with us. We used to go into houses that had been vacated and do a lot of wrecking. My friend was found the following day walking down the road and was picked up and sent to reform school because he’d had a previous record. Barry and I went to court, and we were put on probation’.

Maurice, however, always made it clear that his elder brothers’ problems with the police did not involve him: ‘I was the goody-goody really. I never got into any bother. Once, I stole a bottle of orange juice at the store, but I got caught. It was the first and last time I ever nicked anything’.

Abandoned car wrecks and advertising billboards were all fair game to the boys. But Hugh and Barbara’s blissful ignorance of their sons’ activities came to a sudden end when the local police came knocking, citing Robin as the culprit who had burned down a shed at the back of a butcher’s shop. With threats of being sent to reform school, the brothers’ well-documented activities as junior arsonists, were no more.

Thankfully, Barry, Robin, and Maurice’s attention turned to other less-destructive hobbies, at least for now, and their parents’ adoration of music began to surface in their young sons.

As far as anyone knows, the origin of The Bee Gees’ prodigious singing can be traced back to one of 51 Keppel Road’s bedrooms. Barbara arrived home one day (although sometimes Hugh would appropriate the story) to competing noises from their television set being watched by her father-in-law, Hugh Gibb Sr., and what she thought were singing voices playing on a radio elsewhere in the house. ‘We used to bring Hugh’s father over to our place to watch the cricket’, she remembered. Asking if Hugh Sr. wanted her to turn the radio off, he nonchalantly replied that the voices weren’t coming from a radio but from his grandsons and further revealed that it wasn’t the first time he’d heard them singing. A mystified Barbara went into the bedroom and, sure enough, she discovered nine-year-old Barry with six-year-old Robin and Maurice, sitting on the bed harmonising effortlessly. Robin mused later that ‘Our father Hugh was a band leader, and he played the piano and the drums brilliantly. Neither of our parents were aware that we could sing in harmony’.

Barry remembered vividly the day the three brothers discovered their gift: ‘The three harmonies, as such, was a beautiful sound. We wanted to do that; we started finding out what