Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Update from Barry Gibb and his team in Miami Beach.

Unfortunately there are no touring plans for 2015 but there may be one or two charity events where he does a short performance.
 We have at this time no details yet about these plans to announce.
 Then there is of course the Grammy presentation in February!
As for recording: Barry is planning on writing and putting down a few demos in the new year as to try out his newly refitted analogue home studio.

Source : Dick Ashby



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Saturday, December 20, 2014

The Joy of the Bee Gees review – a song of constant reinvention


The Joy of the Bee Gees review – a song of constant reinvention
The Gibb brothers’ saga could have been filled with an endless parade of hits, never mind their turbulent life stories


So deep is my love for Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb that you don’t know what it’s like having to avoid the temptation to review a programme like The Joy of the Bee Gees (BBC4) by – and I’ve gotta get a message to you about this – incorporating the titles of as many of their hits as possible.


It seems like a tragedy to waste such an opportunity. But perhaps to do so would be too much heaven. OK, you win again, dead hand of convention. I am more than a woman but one with a touch of night fever, barely stayin’ alive even without your clammy grip, so enough of this jive talkin’. Although I started a joke and we should be dancing, let’s return to work.

The point is, you could do it. Such is their catalogue of hits – even without the ones they penned for the likes of Dolly Parton, Dionne Warwick and Barbra Streisand – since they started singing together as children in the holiday resorts and dive bars of Australia in the late 50s that you could build just about anything out of them. After knocking out 11 hit singles down under, they found international fame in the UK. By the mid-70s, they were ready to conquer another continent.

So they moved to the US and – uh – did. Every so often over the decades the siblings’ rivalries would overwhelm them and they would split up. Then they would re-form, take the temperature anew of the times and adapt as necessary, moving from 50s novelty act to 60s beat group to 70s soul trio to early 80s disco gods before falling from Olympus and retreating from their suddenly too-kitsch image to become behind-the-scenes hitmakers for La Streisand et al. In the 90s their back catalogue was put into service by boy bands needing to tap into talent from somewhere. Doubtless there would have been another reinvention and resurgence in the new millennium but fate was against them; Maurice died suddenly in 2003 and Robin followed him in 2012 after a long struggle with cancer. “I still have very vivid dreams about my brothers,” said Barry. They sing together on stage. Close and harmonious still.

the joy of the Bee Gees

Thursday, December 18, 2014

The Bee Gees, George Harrison & More Honored with Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award

December 18 2014
  The Recording Academy announced its Special Merit Awards recipients today, and this year's honorees are: the Bee Gees, Pierre Boulez, Buddy Guy, George Harrison, Flaco Jiménez, Louvin Brothers, and Wayne Shorter as Lifetime Achievement Award recipients; Richard Perry, Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil, and George Wein as Trustees Award honorees; and Ray Kurzweil as the Technical GRAMMY Award recipient. '

A special invitation-only ceremony will be held during GRAMMY Week on Saturday, Feb. 7, 2015, and a formal acknowledgment will be made during the 57th Annual GRAMMY Awards telecast, which will be held at STAPLES Center in Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 8, 2015 and broadcast live at 8 p.m. ET/PT on the CBS Television Network. For GRAMMY coverage, updates and breaking news, please visit The Recording Academy's social networks on Twitter and Facebook. "

This year we pay tribute to exceptional creators who have made prolific contributions to our culture and history," said Recording Academy President/CEO Neil Portnow. "It is an honor and a privilege to recognize such a diverse group of talented trailblazers, whose incomparable bodies of work and timeless legacies will continue to be celebrated for generations to come." The Lifetime Achievement Award honors performers who have made contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording, while the Trustees Award recognizes such contributions in areas other than performance. Both awards are determined by vote of The Recording Academy's National Board of Trustees. Technical GRAMMY Award recipients are determined by vote of The Academy's Producers & Engineers Wing Advisory Council and Chapter Committees, as well as The Academy's Trustees.

The award is presented to individuals and companies who have made contributions of outstanding technical significance to the recording field.

About the Lifetime Achievement Award Honorees:

The Bee Gees, comprising of brothers Barry, Maurice* and Robin Gibb*, were one of the most successful groups in pop history with hits such as "Stayin' Alive," "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart" and "How Deep Is Your Love." The trio's contributions to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack made it one of the best-selling soundtracks of all time, selling more than 15 million copies in the United States and garnering the group four GRAMMYs, including Album Of The Year and Producer Of The Year.


Sunday, December 14, 2014

Island Ignited Bee Gees’ Musical “Fever”



March 12, 2013



The lyrics to one of their 1976 hits ran “What you doin’ on your back/You should be dancing, yeah/Dancing, yeah …” and the following year the entire world was doing just that when three songs written by the superstar Gibb brothers in Bermuda topped the international music charts.

“Stayin’ Alive”, the Bee Gees’ theme song to the phenomenally successful movie ”Saturday Night Fever”, along with two back-to-back number one hits by teen sensation Robin Gibb were all composed at the Bermuda home of Australian-born impresario and entertainment entrepreneur Robert Stigwood.

The Bee Gees — brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb — had been managed by Mr. Stigwood since the 1960s when they first found fame as a pop act. The trio later released their singles and albums on Mr. Stigwood’s independent RSO Records label which he launched in 1973.

The groups’s career was resurgent in the mid-1970s; they had moved from pop songs and ballads marked by their soaring harmonies to a more rhythmic, disco-influenced style, producing hits such as “Jive Talkin’”, “Nights on Broadway” and “You Should Be Dancing.”

In 1976 Barry Gibb, the eldest Gibb brother and the Bee Gees’ unofficial leader, along with brother Robin had spent a number of months at Mr. Stigwood’s luxurious resort home “Palm Grove” in Devonshire.

While on the island planning new projects with Mr. Stigwood, the brothers had penned several new songs — one of which was titled “Stayin’ Alive.”

Bee Gees Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb with Robert Stigwood



The songs were originally intended for a new Bee Gees album. The group was in the midst of recording the material at France’s Le Chateau Studios when Mr. Stigwood informed them the songs they were working on were now to be featured on the soundtrack of his upcoming film “Saturday Night Fever.”

Mr. Stigwood’s transitions from a rock band manager and producer to multimedia entertainment impresario had started in the late ’60s when he saw the musical “Hair” on Broadway and decided to produce it in London’s West End.

He went on to produce the stage and movie versions of “Jesus Christ Superstar”, a film adaptation of The Who’s rock opera “Tommy” and brokered the deals which repackaged British TV hits “Til Death Do Us Part” and “Steptoe & Son” as “All In The Family” and “Sandford & Son” on American television in the early 1970s.

A 1976 “Rolling Stone” magazine profile described Mr. Stigwood “as constant traveler, a bachelor with homes in Los Angeles, New York and Bermuda … a peripatetic power broker with a penchant for style and a fondness for life in the grand manner.”

When Mr. Stigwood arrived in Bermuda in 1976, he was planning a slate of new movies — one of them a low-budget production based on a “New York” magazine article about the disco sub-culture called “Tribal Rites Of The New Saturday Night”; the film’s title was changed to “Saturday Night Fever.”

Starring the relatively unknown sitcom actor John Travolta, the film told the story of of a Brooklyn paint store clerk who escapes his dead-end life on the disco dance floor.

A massive popular and critical success, the film was a cultural phenomenom. It popularised disco music around the world and turned Mr. Travolta into a superstar ["We thought we were making a little art film," the actor said in the wake of "Saturday Night Fever's" remarkable success].

The “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack, featuring four new songs by by the Bee Gees and two previously released tracks, became one of the best selling soundtracks of all time.

Some sections of the other chart-topping Bee Gees singles from the soundtrack — “How Deep Is Your Love”, “Night Fever” and “More Than A Woman” — had been sketched out in Bermuda. But “Stayin’ Alive” — the first and biggest selling single from the album — is the only song that was largely completed here.

Speaking to a Netherlands radio interviewer in 2002, Maurice Gibb said “Stayin’Alive” was “really born, I think, more in Bermuda than anywhere else. We finished it off in France.”

Independently of working on new songs for themselves in Bermuda during their 1976 sojourn, Barry and Maurice Gibb were also planning the next career move for younger brother Andy with Mr. Stigwood.

With his blonde good looks and clear, melodic voice, the youngest Gibb brother — he was then 18 — had become a pop sensation in Australia and Mr. Stigwood was interested in launching his career internationally.

After Andy Gibb married girlfriend Kim Reeder in Sydney on July 1, Mr. Stigwood invited the couple to spend their honeymoon at “Palm Grove”.

“[Following] the reception, the new Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Roy Gibb left for a honeymoon in Bermuda at Robert Stigwood’s lavish home there,” said Bee Gees biographer Andrew Hughes “Barry and Robert Stigwood were there to meet them and to begin making plans for turning ‘The Bee Gee’ Baby Brother’ into the teen idol, Andy Gibb.

While in Bermuda, Andy Gibb signed a recording and management contract with RSO and collaborated on two songs with brother Barry — “I Just Want To Be Your Everything” and “[Love Is] Thicker Than Water.”

“[When he wasn't working] Andy and Kim found plenty of time to themselves to enjoy their honeymoon,” said Mr. Hughes. “They rode motorbikes all over the island, went shopping and took sightseeing trips.

“They went swimming in the crystal clear water and went out in catamarans. An entire day was spent out on a big-game fishing boat.

“Kim enjoyed Bermuda and loved Stigwood’s house and its garden with a huge pond with a map of Bermuda in it.Stigwood’s culinary skills also impressed her. ‘We ate five-course dinners,’ she remembered. “Robert Stigwood imported nothing but the best and he cooked the food himself. He’s a pretty good chef’ …”

“I Just Want To Be Your Everything” was the first single released by Andy Gibb on the RSO label; released in May 1977 it reached number one in the US and Australia and was among the most played records of the year.

The follow-up Bermuda-penned song “[Love Is] Thicker Than Water” was even more successful.

Released in October, 1977 the single peaked in early 1978 during the time that the Bee Gees’ contributions to the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack were dominating the world charts.

Ironically, in the United States it replaced “Stayin’ Alive” — another product of Barry Gibbs’ frenetic “Palm Grove” writing sessions — at the top of the charts. ”[Love Is] Thicker Than Water” was in turn surpassed by the Bee Gees’ “Night Fever”, which also owed something to the Gibbs’ 1976 Bermuda retreat.

While he had a handful of other hits, Andy Gibbs’ career proved to be a troubled one. Succumbing to drug abuse and the pressures of fame, he died in March, 1988 of a heart ailment in Oxford, England. He was just 30 years old.

Among the best-selling musical artists of all time, the Bee Gees continued to record and tour for many years. Maurice died suddenly on January 12, 2003 at the age of 53 from a heart attack, while awaiting emergency surgery to repair a strangulated intestine. Robin Gibb died in May, 2012 following a long illness.

Surviving brother Barry Gibb lives and works in Florida.

Mr. Stigwood lived in Bermuda for many years, moving from “Palm Grove” — which he had rented — to the sprawling “Wreck House” property at the West End of the island [while he was negotiating to buy that estate one of his spokesmen told a Chicago newspaper the mogul was in the process of buying "a small corner of Bermuda the size of several golf courses ... He loves it there"]

“Palm Grove”, the luxurious South Shore estate rented by Robert Stigwood in the ’70s



While in Bermuda he went on to produce the ’50s-era rock’n'roll movie musical “Grease”, which co-starred John Travolta and Australian singer Olivia Newton-John, and the stage show “Evita” along with a later film adaptation starring Madonna.

He hosted such visiting luminaries as the Duchess of York, Mr. Travolta, film director Ken Russell and pop star Cyndi Lauper at his Georgian Wreck Road mansion before moving to the Isle of Wight in the late 1990s. Mr. Stigwood now lives near London.

 

Thursday, December 11, 2014

update The Joy Of The Bee Gees at BBC december 19th 2014




The special documentary BBC is going to air about The Bee Gees this year. The program is called: The Joy of the Bee Gees and will be aired on the British BBC Four at 9 pm on 19th Dec 2014. (local British Time!) This is be followed by an hour long compilation of Bee Gees' performances and promos called Bee Gees at the BBC...and beyond - which features performances from 1967 up to 2001, including a recent discovery of World from Top of the Pops 1967, How Can You Mend A Broken Heart from Whittakers's World Of Music 1972 to an acoustic of To Love Somebody from The Late Show 1994.
The contributors:
Barry Gibb
Alexis Petridis Music Journalist
Bill Oakes Former Head of RSO
Billy Gaff RSO Agent
Vince Melouney The 5th Bee Gee
John Lydon Fan
Guy Chambers Record Producer
Gary Brooker Procol Harum
Mykaell Riley Record Producer
Steve Levine Record Produce
r Ana Matronic Scissor Sisters
Mike Quinn Bee Gees' Tour Compere 1968
Helen Walmsley-Johnson Journalist
Blue Weaver Bee Gees' Musician
Mark Moore S'Express
Alan Jones Writer
Philip Pope The Heebeegeebees
(Thanks BBC: Dione Newton).



© GSI

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Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Andy Gibb, In the Shadow of the Bee Gees

Published: 3/5/2011

Andy GibbTeen idol Andy Gibb had a slew of hits in the late 1970s but struggled to emerge from the shadow of his older siblings. On what would have been his 53rd birthday, we take a look back.
Born March 5, 1958, Gibb grew up near Brisbane, Australia, the youngest son of Hugh and Barbara, working-class musicians who'd emigrated from Manchester, England. The Gibb parents encouraged their five children to pursue showbiz and Andy's three older brothers proved wildly successful.
Barry, Maurice and Robin – better known as the Bee Gees – would dominate the charts, first in the late 1960s as a soft rock act whose finely honed pop sensibilities won them comparisons to the Beatles (a band they often covered), and later during the disco era when their music was showcased in the film Saturday Night Fever. More than a decade younger than the oldest Bee Gee, Andy at once sought to emulate and distance himself from his successful brothers early in life, as their fame brought him unwanted attention at school, where he was subject to bullying and ridicule by classmates convinced that his musical heritage gave him a superiority complex.
While he sought his own identity, he didn't stray far from the family business. At 13 he began performing in Ibiza, a tourist destination in Spain popular with vacationing Britons. While it was generally assumed he would join the Bee Gees when he got old enough, Gibb was determined to forge his own path.
Well, sort of.
His first band, Melody Fayre, was named after a Bee Gees song. The first song he recorded in a studio, "My Father Was Reb," was written by his older brother Maurice. The band was managed by his mother. Unlike his brothers, Gibb never had to struggle through years of obscurity playing Brisbane speedways and Queensland resort towns, and unlike them, he'd never been exposed to the gray, working-class environs of England, but grew up amidst the sunshine and beaches of Australia. His more laidback, casual approach to work frustrated his bandmates. While Gibb could rely on the largesse of the Bee Gees, his bandmates needed the steady income that came with gigging and recording. Eventually, guitarist John Anderson and drummer John Stringer returned to England. The short-lived Melody Fayre was no more.
Deciding to continue on as a solo artist, Gibb recorded the single "Westfield Mansions," which charted in Sydney but had little impact elsewhere. He toured in support of the Bay City Rollers as a member of the band Zenta. After relocating to Miami he entered the studio to record his first full solo album – albeit with older brother Barry producing and penning both hit songs on the record

The album was a smash, with "I Just Want to Be Your Everything" – a tribute to Gibb's new bride (a year later, she'd be divorced from him and pregnant with his child) – staying in the Billboard Top 40 charts for 23 weeks. The follow-up, "(Love Is) Thicker Than Water" actually bested his brothers' "Stayin' Alive" before being toppled by another Bee Gees song, "Night Fever." (That, in turn, was knocked off by Yvonne Elliman's "If I Can’t Have You," a song written by Barry Gibb, making him still the only songwriter in history to simultaneously hold the top four slots in the Billboard Hot 100).
Gibb's next album, Shadow Dancing, benefitted from the help of all three brothers, with the titular tune they co-wrote spending seven weeks at number one and going platinum – making Andy Gibb the first male solo artist to have three successive number one hits.
Despite his success, he was more likely to appear on the cover of Teen Beat than Rolling Stone and was in some quarters dismissed as a blow-dried pin-up idol coasting on his brothers' coat tails. With the nascent punk rock and new wave scenes beginning to dominate England and "Disco Sucks" T-shirts a common sighting in America, the musical tide was turning. By the early 1980s, the hits stopped coming for the brothers Gibb.
His elder brothers were perhaps better positioned to weather this sea change. They'd had more than a decade of success, were all in their 30s and happily married. Gibb may have felt his career was cut off at its peak – he was only 22 when he recorded After Dark, his final studio album.
He tried diversifying into acting, starring in a Broadway production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The performance was well received but short-lived – he was fired for absenteeism. A television gig hosting Solid Gold ended the same way, and those around him worried about his increasing cocaine and alcohol addictions. His tumultuous romance with TV star Victoria Principal ended in 1982 over his drug use.

"The most embarrassing thing for me was the day Bob Hope called," Gibb later told an interviewer. "I was supposed to do his TV special and didn't turn up. Consequently, I was blacklisted by NBC for a long time. I damaged my career."
By 1985 his family had persuaded him to enter the Betty Ford Clinic. He successfully went through rehab and moved to Miami to be near his brothers, living on $200 a week after having declared bankruptcy. With his demons seemingly behind him, he signed a recording contract with Island Records and was preparing to enter a London studio when he died at age 30, a few days after complaining of chest pains while celebrating his birthday with his mother.
The official cause was an inflammation of the heart brought on by viral infection. Though many felt that years of cocaine abuse had weakened his heart, the attending physician announced there was no evidence that the condition had been brought on by drug or alcohol abuse. His family later admitted Gibb was drinking heavily during the final weeks of his life.
"A lot of people remember particularly his kindness," Maurice Gibb told VH1. "Because he helped a lot of people. He just couldn't help himself."



Bee Gees fan Fever

Sunday, December 7, 2014

wolfhound Mistletoe or "Missy"passed away

december 7th 2014

A few minutes ago our beloved wolfhound Mistletoe or "Missy" as she was always known, passed away. My father's last pet, she will be remembered as a loyal and beautiful soul who brought so much joy to us all for the past 8 years, she was Paddy's companion and practically reared Olly with us from a pup. R.I.P. Missy Love and best wishes to all,

RJ xx


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Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Spencer Gibb in movie Hostage 2008



 When Evan breaks into his drug dealer (Morgan's) house to find his stash he never expected to discover a woman scared and beaten and bound to a chair but as much as he tries to ignore the situation he quickly finds himself conflicted to either release the girl or to walk away making himself a hostage to the situation as well.


Cast
Spencer Gibb as Charlie
Gwendolyn Hanson as The lovely Daughter of Chief Superintendant Martins
Eileen vignoles as Emergency Operator
Crew
Executive Producer Amanda Zeigler
Produced By Amanda Zeigler, William J. Orendorff, and Spencer Gibb

Assistant Director Glen Moorman
Line Producer Sarah E Howell
Associate Producers
Tommy Rodriguez
Jen White
Tracie Laymon
Jess Haas

Original Music/Score by Stewart Cochran
Written and Directed By William J. Orendorff


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Monday, December 1, 2014

BBC 4 the joy of the Bee Gees

'The Joy Of Bee Gees' tells the inside story of the band - seen as iconoclasts and outsiders. The band went from been child stars on the Australian variety circuit to be competing against the Beatles in the UK charts in the late 1960s. The band reimagined themselves in the 1970s, with a image that eventually saw them elbowed out of fashion. In the 1980s the band came back, as a strong writing force, penning songs for Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton, Barbra Streisand and Diane Ross.
Classification: Documentary
Genre: Music
Status: New Series
Network:
BBC FOUR ( United Kingdom)
Airs: Fridays at 09:00 pm
Runtime: 60 Minutes
Premiere: December 19th 2014
 
bee gees fan fever