Biography of The Bee Gees

One of the most successful pop groups of the 1960s and 1970s, the Bee Gees have had two distinct careers and at present are embarked on a third. The name is an acronym for "Brothers Gibb," and the nucleus of the group has always been the brothers Barry (b. Sept. 1, 1946, Douglas, Isle of Man), Robin, and Maurice Gibb (the last two are twins, b. Dec. 22, 1949, Manchester, England), though in their first successful manifestation the group also featured guitarist Vince Melouney (b. Aug. 19, 1945, Australia) and drummer Colin Petersen (b. Mar. 24, 1946, Melbourne, Australia).The Gibb brothers were the sons of band leader Hugh Gibb, and were performing in Manchester, England, when they were still children. The family migrated to Brisbane, Australia, in 1958, which is where the Bee Gees were organized as a pop group. After achieving some success there, they moved back to England in January 1967, where they hooked up with manager Robert Stigwood (an Australian who was an associate of Beatles manager Brian Epstein). Their first British and American single, the vibrato-laden ballad "New York Mining Disaster 1941," which appeared during the Sgt. Pepper Summer of Love of 1967, was in keeping with the eclectic pop scene of the time and became a Top 15 hit in both the U.K. and the U.S. It also led to charges that they were copying the Beatles. (The Bee Gees would never earn approval from rock critics.)They enjoyed a series of hit singles and albums over the next couple of years (due to their enormous chart success, only Top Tens will be noted) -- Bee Gees' First (U.S. #7/U.K. #8, 1967); "Massachusetts" (U.K. #1, 1967); "World" (U.K. #9, 1967); "Words" (U.K. #8, 1968); "I've Gotta Get a Message to You" (U.K. #1/U.S. #8, 1968); Idea (U.K. #4, 1968); "First of May" (U.K. #6, 1969); "I Started a Joke" (U.S. #6, 1969); and their answer to Sgt. Pepper, the red-felt-covered double-LP Odessa (U.K. #10, 1969) (they also wrote the Marbles' "Only One Woman" [U.K. #5, 1968]) -- after which they were rent by dissension. Melouney quit in December 1968. Robin Gibb left for a solo career in the spring of 1969. He had a solo hit with "Saved by the Bell" (U.K. #2) in July, but follow-ups were less successful. Petersen was fired in August, just as the Bee Gees' "Don't Forget to Remember" (U.K. #2) was hitting the charts. In September, Best of the Bee Gees made U.K. #7/U.S. #9. Barry and Maurice Gibb carried on as the Bee Gees, releasing Cucumber Castle (April 1970), the soundtrack from a film in which they appeared. Each one also made a flop solo single.The trio reformed in December 1970 and scored two reunion hits, "Lonely Days" (U.S. #3, 1971) and "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" (U.S. #1, 1971). In the U.K., they had "Run to Me" (#9, 1972). The rest of the early '70s were a rough time for them, but in April 1975 they organized a new backup group (Alan Kendall on guitar, Dennis Byron on drums, Blue Weaver on keyboards) and returned to the top of the U.S. charts with a disco beat, falsetto vocals, and a song called "Jive Talkin' " (U.K. #5). It was followed by "Nights on Broadway" (U.S. #7, 1975), "You Should Be Dancing" (U.S. #1/U.K. #5, 1976), and "Love So Right" (U.S. #3, 1977), while Children of the World (1976) and the live album Here ... at Last (1977) each went to U.S. #8.In 1977, they were engaged by Stigwood to write songs for the movie Saturday Night Fever, and their contributions helped make the resulting double soundtrack album one of the best-selling records of all time, moving a reported 30 million copies worldwide. (As of 1993, it was certified by the Record Association of America for sales of 11 million copies in the U.S., making it the seventh biggest selling LP in history.) It spawned three U.S. #1 Bee Gees hits, "Stayin' Alive" (U.K. #4), "Night Fever" (U.K. #1), and "How Deep Is Your Love" (U.K. #3). The soundtrack also featured hits written by the Bee Gees for others: "If I Can't Have You," by Yvonne Elliman (U.S. #1/U.K. #4) and Tavares' "More Than a Woman" (U.K. #7). In the late '70s, the Bee Gees wrote and produced hits for Samantha Sang ("Emotion," U.S. #3, 1977), Frankie Valli ("Grease," U.S. #1/U.K. #3, 1978), and Andy Gibb (the youngest Gibb brother, b. Mar. 5, 1958, Manchester, England - d. Mar. 10, 1988, Oxford, England) ("I Just Want to Be Your Everything," U.S. #1, 1977; "Love Is Thicker than Water," U.S. #1, 1978; "Shadow Dancing," U.S. #1 1978; "An Everlasting Love," U.S. #5, 1978; "[Our Love] Don't Throw It All Away," U.S. #9, 1978).At one point, five of the Top Ten singles on the Billboard Hot 100 had been written, produced, and/or performed by the Bee Gees. They also appeared in the film and on the soundtrack of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (U.S. #5, 1978), a fiasco. But Spirits Having Flown (1979) (U.K./U.S. #1) contained three more #1 hits in the U.S.: "Too Much Heaven" (U.K. #3), "Tragedy" (U.K. #1), and "Love You Inside Out." They also released Bee Gees Greatest (U.S. #1/U.K. #4, 1979).In 1980, Barry Gibb wrote and produced Barbra Streisand's Guilty album (U.S. #1), another multimillion-selling success that contained "Woman in Love" (U.S./U.K. #1) and their duets on the title track (U.S. #3) and "What Kind of Fool" (U.S. #10). The Bee Gees themselves, however, suffered from the backlash against disco in the 1980s and sustained a second career slump, even though they reverted to their pre-disco sound with 1981's Living Eyes. Staying Alive, their soundtrack to the sequel to Saturday Night Fever, was a U.S. #6 in 1983. The same year, Barry Gibb produced Kenny Rogers' Eyes that See in the Dark (U.S. #6) and wrote Rogers's hit duet with Dolly Parton, "Islands in the Stream" (U.S. #1/U.K. #7). In 1982, Barry Gibb worked with Dionne Warwick, resulting in "Heartbreaker" (U.K. #2/U.S. #10) and "All the Love in the World" (U.K. #10). In 1985, the Gibb brothers wrote and produced for Diana Ross, scoring with "Chain Reaction" (U.K. #1). (Robin and Barry Gibb also made solo records during this period.) E.S.P., the Bee Gees' first new non-soundtrack studio album in six years, which reunited them with producer Arif Mardin, was released in 1987 and became a substantial hit in the U.K. (#5), along with the single "You Win Again" (#1), but flopped in the U.S. Follow-ups have seen moderate British success, while in America the single "One" (#7) returned them to commercial favor in 1989. Their records have sold poorly since, however, including the 1997 comeback effort, Still Waters. ~ William Ruhlmann