Has country and bluegrass legend Ricky Skaggs gone disco?

Not exactly. But the multiple CMA and Grammy-award winning artist collaborated with Barry Gibb of “Saturday Night Fever” fame on one of the songs on his new album, “Music to My Ears.”


“There’s a whole lot more to the Bee Gees than what most people remember,” Skaggs told FoxNews.com. “I mean, just songs like, ‘How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,’ ‘I Started a Joke,’ ‘To Love Somebody’–songs like that, I’m telling you, they are prime country songs.”
After hearing a song Gibb wrote, “Soldier’s Son,” Skaggs asked the author of “Night Fever” and “Stayin’ Alive” to sing on his new album.

“I asked him just to think about it. I told him he didn’t have to give me an answer right now, but just think about if he’d be willing to come and sing on this record with me,” explained Skaggs. “Barry said, ‘I don’t have to think about it, I’m going to give you an absolute yes right now. I want to do it!’”
Gibb even fulfilled a childhood dream with Skaggs this past July. Before rehearsals for an unannounced show at Nashville’s historic Ryman Theater, Skaggs made Gibb an offer he couldn’t refuse.

“I asked him, ‘Well, what would you think about doing the Grand Ole Opry with us on Friday night,’” explained Skaggs. “There was this long silence on the other end of the phone, and then Gibb said, ‘When I was 12 years old, living in Australia, I used to see Marty Robbins and others on the Grand Ole Opry on an old black-and-white television in Australia. I dreamed of standing behind that microphone that says, ‘WSN Grand Ole Opry.’ But I thought with the brothers and the pop and rock ‘n roll direction that we took, that would never, ever happen. So this is a dream come true.’
The show went well, to say the least.

“Barry was thrilled to death,” said Skaggs of the three standing ovations Gibb received at the Grand Ole Opry. “He told me, ‘I could die now, and it would be totally okay. This is one of the greatest moments of my entire career–you don’t know what this has meant to me.’”
Now, Skaggs believes that Gibb has a whole country album in him.

“He told me that he has got four or five things written that he wants me to listen to and there’s a song about (his brother) Robin that he’s written that no one’s heard yet,” said Skaggs. “I’m not trying to push them on that one, I just said, ‘Hey, send it on out to me when you want me to hear it.’ We’ve talked a lot about Robin’s passing, we just have a really great relationship and friendship and I love him dearly.”

Gibb already has property in Nashville, Johnny and June Cash’s former estate, which was tragically destroyed by fire in 2007.

“They were so torn up over it,” said Skaggs of Barry and his wife, Linda’s, reaction to the fire. “Their dreams just kinda got dashed for a little while. We’ve been talking to him over the last six or eight months, saying, ‘Hey man, you’ve still got the property, you can rebuild.’ 

While the Gibb may be reluctant to make a permanent move to Nashville, Skaggs is insistent. 
“I said, ‘Look, you need to live here. You need to just put roots town and come up to a place where people love you, honor you and appreciate your singing and songwriting abilities, you’ve got a lot of music left.’ Barry has outlived all of his brothers, and I know that’s been hard for him. But there’s a freedom that comes with that, too. He’s free now, he can do any kind of music that he wants to do. I think his plans are to do a record sometime and he wants me to help him. Hopefully, at some point we’re going to get more music out of him.”

Skaggs added that Gibb’s Christian faith can help him heal.
“He’s got a lot of Christian friends here,” said Skaggs. “Both he and Linda have been to Bible studies at my house. I think he maybe had a lot of that in early life with his mom and dad, but I think that the business can sometimes really consume our life. I just don’t think he wants that anymore. I think he wants to enjoy his kids, his grandkids, his good friends, and making music when he wants to make it. I think that’s what he’s looking forward to.”

Skaggs firmly believes that Gibb is on the verge of a songwriting renaissance.
“Some of his greatest songs are going to come in the next five or 10 years or so,” declared Skaggs. “I think he just needs the freedom to not have to worry about running things by his brothers. He’s got a clean slate and he’s got a short pen. He can write his future, he really can.”

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Heartache of the unknown Gibb sister who sang with the Bee Gees

Heartache of the unknown Gibb sister who sang with the Bee Gees

                          May 27, 2012 00:00

                        By Dominic Herbert

Lesley Evans, who turned down stardom, has buried three of her brothers who died premature deaths

 

She's the Bee Gee people have never heard of. The sister who sang with the band in their early days but turned down stardom.

Lesley Evans, 67, has always stayed in the background, away from the limelight loved by her legendary brothers.

Only the most die-hard Bee Gee fans know she exists.

But today she opens her heart to the Sunday Mirror for the first time about her anguish at the death of her younger brother Robin after losing his twin Maurice and ­youngest brother Andy too.

And she talks about her amazing memories of growing up in the Gibb family – and how she once saved Robin’s life. Holding a treasured photo of herself and the superstar, Lesley tells how her only ­surviving brother Barry Gibb, 65, called her to tell her Robin was dying of cancer.

“Just before he died, Barry rang and said to me, ‘You know he’s not gonna come through this, Les’,” she says.

“And I said, ‘Yes, I know’. And then he said, ‘It’s just us now, luv’. I can’t believe it. It doesn’t seem to make sense.’

Speaking at her home in Australia’s remote blue ­mountains, grieving dog ­breeder Lesley pours out her memories.

She tells how she once stood in for Robin, replacing him on stage in London for a sell-out performance in 1969 after he had a “brotherly spat” with the band. A new mum of twins, she had to step in and rehearse in his place a month before they were due to perform at the Talk of the Town.

Lesley says: “I secretly ­became the fourth Bee Gee. It was amazing. I loved it on the night. I know Robin watched it and he said he felt very choked up about it.

“I couldn’t sound like Robin, of course, but our harmonies as Gibb family members ­sounded very much the same.

“He said he loved my ­performance, but I told him if he felt like that, why don’t you just come back then? Which, of course, he eventually did.”

But Lesley was not ­interested in showbiz. Instead she was to become became a top breeder of Staffordshire bull terriers, married to an Australian ­salesman, Keith Evans, and having seven children.

But her mind keeps coming back to her childhood with Robin, and she recalls how she saved his life after he fell into a river when the family lived in the Isle of Man.

She says: “Robin and Maurice were about 18 months old and were toddling along. Robin fell in. I remember him floating along with his eyes staring up.

“I went in up to my waist and grabbed him under the arms until people came to help us both out of the water.”

She adds: “We grew up ­surrounded by love and music in a very ­happy household. We had a brilliant childhood.

“We all used to say, ‘Oh, ­Robin’s a stuffed shirt’, because he was always very pompous. He ­never called me Lesley. It was always sister. I would not see him for 10 years and I could walk into a room and he would say, ‘Oh, hello sister. How are you?’

“He was a thinker. He was very deep, really.”

She last saw Robin in Sydney in October 2010, shortly after he had emergency surgery for an intestinal blockage.

“He was bouncing off the walls. He couldn’t wait to tell me how fantastic he felt,” she says.

“But I thought he looked painfully thin. And a month or so later mum rang to tell me he had cancer.”

Lesley said Robin’s death last Sunday has left their mother Barbara, 93, devastated after losing Maurice to complications from a twisted intestine at 53 and Andy to heart inflammation at 30.

“She asked me, ‘What have I done wrong to lose three sons so young?’ She is still fighting fit,” says Lesley.

“I know Robin said they were being punished to pay for the fame and fortune.

“But a lot of it was ­fixable. Maurice had a twisted bowel and if it had been diagnosed properly, he would have been OK. And Andy never told us he had a heart condition.”

Lesley pays tribute to Robin’s wife Dwina, who cared for him throughout his cancer battle.

“She’s very sweet. You just feel her calmness, even when you talk on the phone.”

Lesley will not be at flying to England for Robin’s funeral because she is caring for ­husband Keith, 70, who is ­recovering from a stroke.

“Barry and mum understand. It would be all too much for me,” she says. “But he will live on in my heart forever.”

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Barry Gibb -The worst part on losing my brothers

The worst part of losing my brothers? We weren't even friends at the end: In a soul-baring confession, Barry Gibb tells of the guilt, remorse and loneliness of being the last of the Bee Gees

By David Wigg

Published: 20:59 GMT, 4 July 2013 | Updated: 00:57 GMT, 5 July 2013

The first time Barry Gibb went on stage to perform solo as the last surviving Bee Gee, he was urged on by his wife Linda. She told him to stop moping over the death of his brothers, get off his backside and make music again.   
Even so, it was a lonely moment. ‘The realisation that my brothers — first Maurice and now Robin — weren’t standing next to me any more made me feel pretty isolated,’ he says.
‘When I looked left or right, they weren’t there with me.


Maurice’s death in 2003 and Robin’s last year had been a huge trauma for me and everyone in our family. Before that, in 1988, we’d lost our kid brother Andy, who had his own solo career, and my father, Hugh, died soon after.
‘Robin’s much more recent passing had made me depressed, and there were times when I’d felt that nothing was worthwhile any more.
‘But getting back to performing in Australia earlier this year — thanks to Linda giving me a metaphorical kicking — turned out to be the tonic I needed.’
His sense of loss was eased, too, by inviting his guitarist son Stephen and Maurice’s singer daughter Sami on the tour, to keep it a family affair.
‘Now it has begun to feel like the sun has finally come out again,’ Barry tells me when we meet at his magnificent nine-bedroom mansion in Beaconsfield, set behind iron gates in 90 acres of Buckinghamshire countryside.



He and his Scots-born wife Linda — a former Miss Edinburgh — had flown in from their main home in Miami for Barry to receive a lifetime achievement honour for his services to music. It is his first visit here since Robin’s funeral in June last year.
‘I feel good — a lot better than I did this time last year with all the stress over Robin,’ he says.
At that time, his grief had threatened to engulf him.
‘We all lose someone and you have to deal with it and grow from it in some way,’ he says. ‘My way of handling it is to go back on stage.’
For Barry, it is an abiding sadness that in their final years his relationship with Maurice and Robin had deteriorated to the point where he feels they were no longer friends.

You see, it wasn’t just the loss of my brothers, it was the fact we didn’t really get on. And so I’ve lost all of my brothers without being friends with them.
‘When Maurice passed, Robin and I just didn’t feel like the Bee Gees anymore, because the Bee Gees were the three of us.
‘So while Robin went around saying “I’ll always be a Bee Gee”, he didn’t really want that: he wanted to be Robin Gibb, solo artist. Deep inside, I think that was so. That was the competition.’

 

 

Barry realised that, as brothers, he and Robin were becoming more distant from each other.
‘During the last five years, Robin and I could not connect in any way. A similar situation, I can imagine, would probably be Lennon and McCartney. That same kind of distance occurred between them. The fact that you couldn’t get over obstacles or issues in your life.
‘What drove me down was that we didn’t get a chance to really say goodbye. The only time I felt we made up was when I kissed Robin on the head the last time I saw him before he died.
‘I didn’t get to see Andy before he died, and I never got to Maurice before he died. Mo died in two days, so that was very quick and a great shock to everyone.
‘Robin’s process took two years. I won’t go that way. If something like that is ever diagnosed with me, I’ll find the funniest, most humorous way of checking out. Absolutely I will not be lying in a bed stuck on life support.
‘So when Robin died, I felt all those things: guilt, remorse, regret.
‘There was so much more to us, but we didn’t see it. There was so much more life in us that we didn’t attempt. So much neurosis that we could have avoided between us all. Because everyone wanted to be the individual star. And we never knew what we were.’
Barry, 66, with his trademark shoulder-length hair turned silver-grey, says that he always thought Robin knew he was dying, even though he insisted that he had beaten liver and colon cancer. 
‘I didn’t realise Robin was seriously ill for about a year, when I began to see the pictures of him in the paper. I thought something’s wrong here — but I couldn’t get any answers out of anyone


No one called from his house. I’d probably do the same thing — who wants to be thought of as an invalid?
‘I don’t think they knew how serious it was going to become, but I think they knew two years before, or a year at least, before I knew.
‘Dwina [Robin’s wife] started to tell us things gradually, and about six months before Robin passed she began to be very open with us.
‘We were hearing stories: the fact he didn’t want to go into hospital, that he didn’t want to have chemo. All the signs that you know something’s really wrong.

 

‘I showed my doctor in Miami a newspaper picture of Robin and he took one look and said: “You’ve got to go and see your brother.” I asked him for a prognosis because no one in England would give me one, and he said: “Three to six months. Go as soon as you can.”
‘We flew over to see him. He was extremely weak but he seemed OK otherwise. We laughed about a lot of things and we sort of made up. At least we were together, and we were talking to each other and laughing.
'When we left, he stood outside to see us off. It was freezing. My reaction was: “Go inside — you have no immune system.” But everyone was standing out there with him.
‘I said: “Get him inside. If he catches a cold, that’s the end of it.” And he did, in fact, get pneumonia.  
‘The last time when I came over to see him, just before he died, he was unable to speak to me because he had an oxygen mask and was drifting in and out of consciousness. But I always got the familiar thumbs-up from him.’
During one visit, while Robin was in a coma, Barry sang a song that he had written for him called The End Of The Rainbow.
‘He didn’t open his eyes, but I did get a response.’ Now, he intends to include the song in his new album. When Robin Gibb’s classical composition, the Titanic Requiem, commemorating the centenary of the ship’s sinking, was performed with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Robin’s wife Dwina and son R-J attended, but Barry stayed at his brother’s bedside



‘I couldn’t go — it was too much for me,’ says Barry. ‘Titanic was a tragedy in which 1,500 people died and I couldn’t watch that when my own brother was dying. It was just something I couldn’t handle.’
Barry and Linda were back home in Miami when the call came that Robin had died.
‘We’d had to leave Rob in hospital two days before, because our son Travis and his wife Stacy were about to have our granddaughter, Taylor. They needed our support — the attention of Mum and Dad. So,  from birth to death. It was such a dichotomy.’
Yet only two months earlier, he had been hoping that he and Robin would record together again.

 

 

‘We were going to, but neither of us really felt like we did when there were the three of us. It just didn’t get any further. It was on, then off, then on again . . .
‘We had different philosophies in life. I was relaxed and felt that whatever I was doing was OK.
‘Robin wanted to do more and needed recognition. I didn’t feel there was anything to prove any more, but Robin was very driven.’
The whole distressing experience of losing his brothers has made Barry very conscious of his own health.
‘I don’t eat red meat and I’ve cut out dairy products,’ he says. ‘I watched my brothers over the years, beating themselves up, for want of a better term. In various ways, we all did.’
Through drink and drugs? ‘Whatever, yeah. We never saw the hard stuff that other groups maybe got into.
‘But we saw enough of the things you can acquire every day to make ourselves more creative. I watched that go on constantly with all three of my brothers.’
As the eldest Bee Gee, Barry saw his role as the protector and sorted out many things for them during their career, even getting all their song publishing rights and master recordings returned to them.
‘Maurice was the extrovert, Robin was the worrier — and he worried a lot. My job was to make sure we got paid and that we were all there and ready to perform


‘I used to say: “For God’s sake, tell Robin to do his hair.” Or “Tell Robin  to polish his shoes.”  
‘When we were younger, it was a radical competition between us. Who would be the most popular, who got the spotlight. It happens in every group — and we were no exception.
‘What I’ve since learned about life is to laugh at everything. See through it all. Don’t let your ego be in charge.’
Barry tells me he was especially close to his youngest brother, Andy, who was a solo singer and died aged 30 from a heart condition.
‘We were like twins,’ he says. ‘Maurice and Robin were the real twins, but Andy and I were like twins, even though he was the youngest and I was the eldest. We sort of looked alike, and even had the same birthmark.

 

‘We sang alike. We were very similar people. We were the only two that played tennis. Maurice and Robin didn’t play, but Andy and I would play just about every day.
‘I could see something was wrong with him because he would get very, very red in the face.
‘I used to worry about that and say: “Maybe you shouldn’t play so much, Andy.”
‘So there was something going on with his heart. But over the years, his own [drink and drug] habits had caught up with him.’
Andy had a string of girlfriends, including Victoria Principal, star of the soap opera Dallas.
After going through a wild time as a singer who’d had early success, he moved to Miami to be near his mother and brother Barry.    
‘By then, he was really cleaning up his act — and I was keeping him on the clean side of life. He’d just got married, too. [His wife Kim and daughter Peta now live in Australia.]

‘I lost my best friend when I lost Andy. And I believe the shock of losing him is what killed my father, because he went downhill and soon after died from a heart attack.
‘Mum, Dad and I all tried to help Andy, because we were the closest to him. My mother, Barbara, was with Andy when he died at Robin’s house. She was watching Andy declining, the whole time feeling helpless. 
‘Now I’m on my own, so I’ve got to make it on my own. I feel as if I’m a piece of a puzzle, or a cog in a machine, and that it’s for the betterment of everyone to do just what I do.
‘And then I look at my mum. At 93 and reliant on a wheelchair to get around, she’s despondent and still hasn’t got over any of it. So I feel for her — I know it’s worse for her than it is for me.’

Remaining: Barry attends the Nordoff Robbins Silver Clef Awards at a Hilton in London last month

Barry’s lifetime achievement honour, from the Nordoff Robbins music charity’s 02 Silver Clef Awards, has helped to rekindle his enthusiasm.
‘Inside me, I’ve found the hunger to be on the stage again — like I did when I was a child. Music has been therapy. I didn’t go and see a psychiatrist or anyone for help. I have dealt with it myself, through music.’ His shows, the Mythology Tour, backed by a ten-piece band, were a huge success, with six nights in Australia. This autumn, he is coming to Britain and Ireland.
‘Making records has become a bit of a bore because of having to spend hours in the studio. For me, performing is best,’ he says.
‘On stage, I’m not singing the songs that Robin sang. I won’t encroach on his territory. I’m not going to try to do anything that Rob did, or Maurice or Andy. I’ll only do the songs I was instrumental in creating or that we collaborated on together.’
Nor will Barry be involved in the organisation of Robin’s memorial service, being planned by Dwina and R-J at St Paul’s Cathedral this year.
‘No, I can’t do that, because for me the grieving is over,’ he says. ‘It would throw me back into that dark place again.’ He is leaving it to Robin’s close family, ‘or whoever really feels they have to do that’.
He adds: ‘Robin is always with me. I don’t need to stand in a church or be in some place where there’s a ritual.’
Inevitably, though, he has been reflecting on his own mortality.
‘I don’t have any fear of death: it could just as well be tomorrow.
‘Don’t plan for the next five years: plan to get up in the morning. And that’s the lesson for me. That it can all disappear just like that


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The diva teamed with the Bee Gee for 'Guilty' and, on Oct. 25, 1980,

The diva teamed with the Bee Gee for 'Guilty' and, on Oct. 25, 1980, the album and her single 'Woman in Love' both topped the charts.
 

AT THE START OF 1980, BARBRA STREISAND, then 37, was in the middle of a red-hot streak on the Billboard Hot 100, having landed eight consecutive top 40 hits in just two years. Among those were the No. 1s "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" with Neil Diamond and "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)" with Donna Summer. At the same time, Barry Gibb, 33, was enjoying his own career high: He had just notched six straight No. 1 singles with the Bee Gees between 1977 and 1979.

A collaboration between the two might have sounded like a no-brainer, but it almost didn't happen. Streisand approached Gibb with the idea after seeing the Bee Gees in concert in 1979, but Gibb told Billboard in 1983 that he was "very nervous at first" about the offer because of "stories about how tough she is." His concerns proved unfounded. "She was … a true lady in every sense of the word," said Gibb, who co-produced the album Guilty and co-wrote its songs.

 

 

Barbra Streisand Makes History at No. 1 on Billboard 200 Chart

The record became the biggest-selling studio release of Streisand's career, shipping 5 million copies in the United States, according to the RIAA. On Oct. 25, 1980, she simultaneously topped the Billboard 200 with the album and the Hot 100 with the single "Woman in Love." Two more top 10 hits followed: the Grammy Award-winning title track and "What Kind of Fool."

Twenty-five years later, Streisand and Gibb reunited for Guilty Pleasures, which reached No. 5 on the Billboard 200.  

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Barry Gibb new song for T.G. Sheppard

T.G Sheppard
I'm working on my new solo album that will be coming out in 2015. I'm excited about that because one of my closest friends Barry Gibb gave me a great new song that he wrote just for me. It's a honor to have him write a song for the project. He's one of the top two songwriters in the world. Paul McCartney is no 1 and Barry is no. 2
Being pitched a song of that caliber means more to me than he'll ever know . It's called "Midnight in Memphis"and  it's a great song. I won't do the song live until i figure out how I want to do record it. That will happen in the next few months.

Request PR boost of 50 St. Catherine's Drive BY Robin-John Gibb

Hello guys, this is a request to pass on the news of the release of 50 St. Catherine's Drive to everyone and anyone you know or who is a fan. The PR needs this boost. So I thought who better than the loyal fans to get behind my father's final work to try and give it the recognition it deserves. Saturday Night Fever had no advertisement and it was only word of mouth that shot it to blockbuster status, if you want to help in the same vein then start spreading the news. Also I have an extensive amount of my own music to publish and of work myself and my father created together so if there are any agents, good PR officers and pluggers, then now is the time to rear your head,
I would love to hear from you,
Best wishes
RJ

coversong by Michel Azaïs of Belgium BG tribute band Massachusetts

Michel Azaïs , leader of the Belgium Bee Gees tribute band Massachusetts sings in the Morning.



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blind audition on THE VOICE Holland

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release recording of Broken Bottles by Dionne Warwick

 The recording of Broken Bottles by Dionne Warwick is scheduled for inclusion on  an expanded edition of her "Finder of Lost Loves" album in November.

 Amazon UK listing: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00NMUCLBQ/
[http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00NMUCLBQ/]...
Amazon US listing: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NMUCLBQ/
[http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NMUCLBQ/]

Disc: 1
1. No One In The World
2. Without Your Love
3. Run To Me
4. Finder Of Lost Loves
5. Love Doesn t Live Here Anymore
6. Its You
7. Its Love
8. Bedroom Eyes
9. Weakness
10. You Made Me Want To Love Again
Disc: 2
1. Broken Bottles (unreleased)
2. Dangerous (Unreleased Demo)
3. Finder of Lost Loves (Duet Version with Luther Vandross (Unreleased)
4. Finder of Lost Loves (Dionne Solo Version with Luther Vandross Background Vocals - Unreleased)
5. No One in the World (Alternate Version - Unreleased)
6. Without Your Love (7 inch version)
7. Run To Me (7 inch version)
8. Its Love (7 inch version)
9. Bedroom Eyes (Alternate Version - Unreleased)
10. No One in the World (Instrumental - Unreleased)
11. Run To Me (Instrumental - Unreleased)
12. Its Love (Instrumental - Unreleased) http://beegeesfanfever.blogspot.nl/

Bee Gees Album: Bee Gees’ 1st Year

Artist: Bee Gees Album: Bee Gees’ 1st Year: 1967 by Joe Jamnitzky November 2012

Anytime the Bee Gees are brought up, the first thing that comes to the mind of the general public is disco. Considering their arguably greatest dose of superstardom came as a result of one of the most hated music genres in recent history, people tend to cringe just at hearing their name.

This is a bit unfortunate, though, because what a lot of people tend to forget is that he Bee Gees had been around since the mid-60’s, had a number of hits during that time period, and were actually a full band that focused on rock, pop, soul, and psychedelia. “Bee Gees’ 1st” (actually their 3rd album, but the first one to be released internationally) demonstrates that perfectly.

For one thing, the group was an actual band at this time. While the brothers still did all the singing (their harmonies here are one of the few things that make it obvious who they are), they also did quite a bit of the guitar, bass, organ, harpsichord and mellotron playing. Along with them were Colin Petersen on drums and Vince Melouney on guitar. These two were not just sidemen, but were actual members of the group, making the band a 5 piece. The other thing is the music itself. This is definitely 60’s music, no two ways about it, which means you get differing styles of music rubbing shoulders with each other through the album’s 14 tracks.


This allows the blue-eyed soul of “To Love Somebody” (one of their earliest and best known hits) to occupy the same album as the rather bizarre “Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You”, and the brooding, minimal sounds of “Holiday” to sit comfortably alongside the extremely Beatles-esque “In My Own Time” (and I do mean extremely; listen to the song on youtube).

Even the album’s cover is pure 60’s. While I normally wouldn’t draw attention to an album cover unless it was an obvious standout, this is a bit of an exception. The cover, simply depicting the band standing behind a bunch of psychedelic grass and flowers (albeit with eyeballs in the ground), with the album title in the center, was actually designed by Klaus Voormann, who previously was responsible for The Beatles’ “Revolver” cover, as well as their later “Anthology” series (he also would go on to be the bass player in John Lennon’s “Plastic Ono Band”)

. When all of this is put together, we get an album that is a definite standout from the 60’s, and one which any artist would be proud of. I’ll admit to being in shock when I first heard it; I only knew one or two songs, and like many others who are more familiar with their later 70’s music, I was shocked by how different this album was. I can safely say this became one of my favorite albums, and if you like 60’s music, you’ll probably enjoy this just as much as I do.



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Andy Gibb & Mike Douglas - Medley of oldies

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When Aston was Maurice's only friend

When Aston was Maurice's only friend

Disc and Music Echo, 19. Juli 1969

Aston de Maurice de Beaudier is currently spending his summer holidays in Henley. He isn't punting up and down the river or eating strawberry teas.... He's being house-trained. And his owners, Maurice and Lulu Gibb, miss their Pyrenean mountain dog very much.

"It's sad," says Maurice, "but it's got to be done or he'd be a bind to live with. And there isn't really enough room for him in our house any more. It was all right when he was smaller and there was just me living there, but now it really is too small."

So when Maurice and Lulu went house-hunting for a bigger place for them to settle down in, Aston was one of the prime considerations. And in August 1st the Gibbs hope to move into a five-bedroomed house in Hampstead, with a huge garden. The present owner has even agreed to leave her dog kennel behind, although Maurice fears Aston will never fit into it.

Maurice bought Aston a year ago, after he'd seen Dave Dee's Pyrenean mountain dog. Then his brother, Barry, fell for Aston and bought one a few days later, Barnaby.

Maurice bought Aston as a companion. At the time he was so miserable the puppy was more than just a dog. He was a friend, sympathiser and comforter. "It was when I was broken up from Lu for a period of about six months. I was so much in love with her I didn't give a damn for myself. I didn't wash my hair for weeks. I drank rather too much, and Aston was the only friend I had. I used to sit and watch TV with him asleep on my lap. Then all of a sudden Lu came back and my affections turned to her. But I'll never forget those days, they were the best days of dog owning."

Now, says Maurice, Aston is more of a family dog "because Lu and I are planning a big family."

Aston got his name from Maurice's car at the time, but he's been through two more since then and has now got a Rolls-Royce.

When Aston was in residence at the Gibb's Knightsbridge Mews house, his welfare was organised from walks to getting someone to sit with him if Lulu and Maurice were out. Aston gets lonely you see. Maurice's personal assistant usually takes Aston for a walk in Hyde park, but on Sunday Maurice and Lulu take him out there.

"Lu loves Aston," says Maurice. "It would have been terrible if she'd hated him. But she does miss her dog. It was a little Yorkshire terrier called Dog, and she adored it. He went into kennels while she was in America, and he got killed. But nobody told her. For three weeks after she got back she kept wondering when Dog was coming out of kennels, and then someone told her. She was terribly upset. I keep saying I'll get her another terrier, but she says there could never be another Dog."

Perhaps the incident Lulu most regrets with dog-owning was when she suggested bathing Aston. She had just come in from the studios after one of her television series, and quite out of the blue said "let's bath Aston." Rather taken aback, Maurice agreed, and Aston was coaxed upstairs and plonked in the bath. The result was Lulu getting soaked from head to foot, drenching her dress she'd been wearing for the show.

"Aston's obedient if he feels like it. If you tell him to sit he runs under the table. The trouble is he still does it and forgets how big he's grown, so the table falls over. He's grown, but he's still mentally a puppy. I can never take him in the car because he slavers so, and he's usually sick. And his hair gets everywhere! Visitors keep sending us in dry cleaning bills."

For the record, Aston eats two fillet or T-bone steaks a day, or a little chicken. "But he's like Lu and I," admits Maurice. "He nibbles a lot. We eat big meals and then we nibble bits and pieces afterwards."

But despite his size and total disregard for dog obedience, Aston has a song dedicated to him on the next Bee Gees' album. A song written by Maurice called "My Thing".

 

 

 

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