Entertainment For Lively Minds
Bee Gees
Posted by fortuneight on 25 April 2011 - 10:08pm.
Last night's BBC documentary proved quite enjoyable. Although familiar with their hits, I didn't know much about the back story, and was quite taken in with the way in which Barry and Robin were filmed side by side, whilst an archive footage of Maurice was cut in. I thought it worked very well.
One thing left me bemused. Absolutely no mention of Andy Gibb. Any ideas why?
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Quite simple really
Andy Gibb was never in the BeeGees
No fooling you is there
Andy's most successful songs were written with his brothers and he appeared on one of their albums. Reference was made to collaborations with other artists but not their own brother.
I enjoyed this
They're a funny lot the Bee Gees. Poor old Maurice came across quite a wit on his archive bits, and it's rather telling that he was the one who didn't flounce off on Clive Anderson with the other two. Interesting dynamic, and interesting seeing Barry and Robin interact without the lukewarm water between Fire and Ice, it seemed quite uncomfortable at times and it's clear older brother still thinks he's the dogs bollocks.
I love the image of them arriving off the boat from Australia hoping to catch the Merseybeat boom (their words!) in 1967(!) only to meet a group of lookalike mop-tops dressed as the HJHs circa 1964 who urged them to get the first boat back "groups are dead..it's all solo artists now".
I got the impression they were great songwriters, but resolutely uncool and a bit clueless. They blundered around trying to catch on to something for years, a bit of Merseybeat, a half hearted stab at Psychedelia, a bit of late 60s balladry and then they got bloody lucky with Disco.
How many bands hit their peak 14 albums in and twelve years into their career? And it was only just before Saturday Night Fever that they hit upon the Falsetto thing. Amazing. Those 'disco' era tracks are still astonishing and listening to the songs throughout the documentary you realise how much they have influenced contemporary Pop and R&B (far more than the HJHs arguably)
Rock Profiles
I have never really been able to take the Bee Gees seriously after this:
I would like to see that
Never been to keen on the disco stuff, but their late sixties was bloody brilliant. Anyone calling a song New York Mining Disaster 1941 deserves respect.
Yeah
Some of their late 60s stuff is very good indeed. I do like the Odessa LP.
Never heard Odessa
But heard a lot about it. Maybe I should give it a go. It´s on Spotify in a 40 track Deluxe edition.
Hmmm
The comment 'half hearted stab at psychedelia' wouldn't pass muster on one of the psych websites.
The Bee Gees quirky '67/'68 output is on a par with Jimi, The Kinks, The Small Faces, The Who etc. there.
'Cowman Milk Your Cow'.....wow!
What's disco?
You know disco, ranger.
It's the stuff the Bee Gees did when they worked out how to be good.
I'm no Psych expert so I woudn't be on a specialist website
trying to pass muster on such subjects, nor do I know much of the Chorlton lads oeuvre from the 60s other than the bigger hits so I'll defer to those in the know.
I wasn't knocking 'em, more pointing out how fascinating it was that they had such a mighty second wind after floundering a bit (that's how they put it across in the interview)....impressive even if you don't like Disco. How many bands get a 2nd act like that?