Barry Gibb :'I SHOULD'VE BEEN THE FIRST TO GO'

30 september 2016

I’m sat in the lounge of his Buckinghamshire house as the ­former Bee Gees star discusses with me the making of his first solo album for 32 years — In The Now.


“I feel energised,” he says. “I needed to get off my backside and I’ve always needed to write and play music.
“I’ve been writing music since I was eight years old — they were pretty bad songs then but, as time moved on, I got better.”
Modest, to say the least — Barry is generally regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time.
His revered songs include How Deep Is Your Love, Stayin’ Alive, Jive Talkin’, You Win Again, Woman In Love (his ballad with Barbra ­Streisand) and Night Fever.


He adds: “I didn’t really retire. I kept talking about it and thinking it was all over.
“When Mo (Maurice) died, I felt like the bottom had dropped out. I didn’t want to go on without him but Robin was very hyper to keep the Bee Gees going and to make more music. But I was still grieving.
“Some groups last five years and we’d been around the charts for 45 years so I tried to convince Robin it was OK to wait, to have a laugh, but I didn’t know he was ill.” Robin died in 2012 aged 62 after a battle with colon cancer, which had spread to his liver.
Barry had already lost Robin’s twin, Maurice, 53, in 2003 to complications from a twisted intestine, while youngest brother Andy died aged just 30 in 1988 after years of drug abuse.


Barry, 70, said he never felt ­comfortable as an artist without his brothers and it was only when he went on tour in 2014 that he understood how much the music still meant to fans.
He says: “I did about 20 shows worldwide and I didn’t know what to expect because it was just me and not the Bee Gees. I was ­celebrating my family and ­celebrating my brothers.
“We’ve had an incredible following since we were kids in Australia but I felt I needed to re-convince ­people I am OK as an individual artist. It was ‘digest me and you might like it’.”
Barry’s eminence as a performer was confirmed at Glastonbury in June when Coldplay’s Chris Martin introduced him to the stage to ­perform 1977 disco megahit Stayin’ Alive and hailed it “the greatest song of all time”.


Barry admits: “That was terrifying, no question about that, but ­everyone was kind and nice. Chris was so kind and backstage there was lots of activity to calm my nerves. Kids were playing soccer, Gwyneth Paltrow was there and I met Noel Gallagher.”
In The Now marks a new chapter in Barry’s life and the album was another family affair, made with his sons Stephen and Ashley.
He says: “Working with my sons is not unlike with Maurice and Robin — though they are quite different types of people.


Stephen is very heavy metal and a gentle giant whereas Ashley is very analytical and very concerned with everything we do and every lyric. In that way Ashley is like me, a little intense.
“But they are great and I love them both. And my daughter Ali is involved in publishing and licensing.
“I just want the Bee Gees’ music to end up in a good place where they are looked after and presented in a big and bright way.”
Barry and wife Linda, a former Miss Edinburgh, have five children and seven grandkids.
Barry met Linda at a recording of Top Of The Pops and the pair have been ­married for 46 years.

It was Linda who inspired Barry to make this album. He says: “She told me to get off my ass — literally — and (new track) Star Crossed Lovers is for her.
"I wanted to write a pop song like a Carole King song with that sort of emotion.
“I wanted to write about what it’s like to be in love.”
Of the many heartfelt songs on In The Now, one called The Long Goodbye “came from the loss of all my brothers”, says Barry.
He adds: I don’t think it is specifically a love song, I think that’s how it came about. We spent a lot of time dealing with each other, whether it was positive or negative — we dealt with it.
“For the last few years, first ­losing Andy, then Mo and then Robin, it really was a journey for me. I am the eldest, I should have been the first. I am still sitting here wondering, ‘Why?’ Though I’ve accepted it more now.”

Barry admits he had a particularly up and down relationship with Robin and another song, the ­poignant End Of The Rainbow, is dedicated to him.
Barry says: “I will never forget being a kid.
“Even when I am 90 years old I will still feel like a kid in my mind and that is what I always used to say to Robin. It is happening right now, enjoy it.”
Barry is clearly a sensitive soul and, when we meet, he tells me he is about to fly back to Miami to see his ailing 95-year-old mother Barbara who recently had a stroke.
He tells me: “We’re just waiting for the call. It’s very difficult and at the moment we don’t know if we are coming or going.
“I talk to my mother on the phone but it’s very difficult to understand what she is saying. But I owe her a lot.

She is a strong woman and encouraged us to do what we love doing for a career.
“She’s had a long life and that’s another reason for In The Now as an album title.
“You must live for the sake of life and not worry about what is going to happen tomorrow.
“We live in the past, with all the memories and great moments but we need to think of the present too.
“I look for laughter all the time and I don’t look for issues. I can’t think of anyone I don’t like. I don’t nurture those things any more.”


Sadly, a few weeks after our meeting, news broke that Barry’s mother has passed away at home in Miami.
But his mother’s strength inspired him throughout his life.
During our chat, he tells me: “Not only has she lost her sons — the loss of Andy was particularly hard — but I had accidents as a child. I was hit by a car twice.
I was badly scalded when I was two and my mother told me I didn’t speak for two years. So music and songwriting was my way of escaping my own feelings. I didn’t really have any friends.”
As well as In The Now being Barry’s coming to terms with time, he says it’s also about release.
“It’s the rejection of ego and I’m afraid we all had one,” he says with a laugh, showing off those famous pearly whites.
“I suppose it’s made me a better person. I’ve evolved into someone who is more understanding of things going on around me.


I try to reject all negative things because, if you let any issue creep into you while you are working, you are going to cause yourself great stress.”
Barry’s lounge features many photos of family and famous friends including Michael Jackson and Jack Nicholson.
The Bee Gees were THE band of the Seventies, following the release of the Saturday Night Fever ­soundtrack which sold more than 40million copies.
But despite those colossal sales, the Bee Gees also attracted critics — something that pained Barry.
“Yes, I found the jokes hurtful,” he admits. “Interviews were often based on the negative, never based on the positive. And that’s one of the reasons we walked off Clive Anderson,” he says of their famous 1996 TV show clash.


It was just a barrage of inferred insults,” says Barry. “And we were fans of Clive Anderson so that made me sad. I just snapped.”
Barry adds: “Success followed by failure is actually healthy. Constant success is dangerous.
“Fame can actually kill you, either by drugs as we saw with Elvis, or professionally with The Beatles as they couldn’t collaborate any more. And Michael Jackson — who I knew very well and watched disintegrate.
He was totally unable to deal with the business and I never wanted that. It happened very early for Amy Winehouse and was too much.
“But now I’ve come to understand the long haul — that people change, too. The industry changes and the ­people change. One time you’re in fashion, the next time you’re not.”
One thing that hasn’t changed over time is Barry’s unmistakable falsetto.


I ask how does he keep it in tune? “I warm up a little bit every day when something important is coming up until I’ve built my confidence,” he says.
“I’m ­nervous, so in my bedroom I have two big speakers, a mixer with an echo and microphone.
I turn off all the lights and have a little spotlight so I can put myself in that world. I will rehearse like I’m on stage. And that is me doing my homework.”
Barry is now looking ahead and hopes to tour his album. “If I happen, by luck, to get a Rick Astley or a Jeff Lynne moment then I certainly will be out there touring,” he says.
“I’ve got the finest band I’ve ever worked with. We are meticulous.
“It’s just wonderful to have this chance again. Everyone has been so positive and I try to seize every moment in life. And that’s what making this album has allowed me to do.”

source : The Sun



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Barry Gibb: dancing out of the shadows

Barry Gibb’s mansion, in leafy Buckinghamshire, is at the end of a drive that’s at least a quarter of a mile long. It’s the kind of lavish, mock-Tudor pad that you may expect to be occupied by an England footballer, but it also feels like an apt home for the sole surviving Bee Gee and second most successful songwriter in history after Paul McCartney.

As well as rivalling his old friend Michael Jackson for the title of premier falsetto in pop, Gibb wrote or co-wrote some of the biggest songs of the 20th century, from his group’s Night Fever and How Deep is Your Love? to Barbra Streisand’s Woman in Love, Diana Ross’s Chain Reaction and Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton’s Islands in the Stream. He shares John Lennon and McCartney’s record for penning the most consecutive US No 1s — six — and is worth an estimated $50 million.

Parked outside the house are a succession of dune buggies, golf carts and dirt bikes — toys for Gibb’s seven grandchildren. Inside are chandeliers of the kind that are swung on in movies, a balcony from which Linda, his wife of 46 years, waves, and photographs of him and his three brothers — Robin (the unbearded one) and Maurice (the balding one), who were in the Bee Gees with him, and Andy, who wasn’t — plus their sister, Lesley, and, randomly, Sylvester Stallone.

Gibb emerges from a side door and we settle down in armchairs. He is 70 and a bit fragile-looking in tinted glasses, V-neck T-shirt and jeans, but the disco era’s finest mane is luxuriant and only slightly greying. These days he spends most of his time at his house in Miami — he has a US passport and is a fan of Donald Trump — but his famous toothy lisp is still full of Manchester, where he lived until he was 12.

He is slowly getting used to being the only Gibb brother left, and an artist in his own right, with his first solo album in more than 30 years out this month. “Andy passed first, then Mo, then Rob, all in a 24-year period,” he says. “They were all too young.” Andy, who had a solo music career, died at age 30 in 1988 from an inflammation of the heart, Maurice at 53 in 2003 from complications due to a twisted intestine, Robin at 62 in 2012 of liver and kidney failure following cancer. Losing three of her five children was, he says, “pretty devastating” for his mother, Barbara, who died in August aged 95.

Robin once wondered if “the tragedies my family has suffered are a karmic price for all the fame and fortune the Bee Gees have had”. Does Barry agree? “You can be punished for being successful,” he says. “Michael Jackson was punished for being successful, to the point when he no longer wanted to make records. Barbra Streisand doesn’t like making records, which shocks me.”

What does he miss most about his brothers? “Camaraderie; coming up with the next song. The madness of it, because we were all different and we were all a bit crazy. Sharing failure as well as success: being really pissed off if a record didn’t go well. And the incredible sensation of a No 1 record. There’s nothing like it.”

As Maurice once said: “We weren’t on the charts. We were the charts.” Is it true that they once wrote three US No 1 singles in a matter of hours? “I think we were pretty high,” Gibb says. Amphetamines were their poison back then. “We wrote Too Much Heaven, Tragedy and Shadow Dancing (sung by Andy Gibb) in one afternoon, but we were flying. Ha ha.”

Later in their career, tensions emerged between Barry and Robin, the main songwriters. While Barry was always “the ideas guy”, Robin sometimes struggled for inspiration. “He had a beautiful voice but he lacked self-esteem,” Gibb says. “He came up with some brilliant ideas in the late 60s and then he seemed to withdraw.” Whoever wrote a song generally sang lead vocals on it, so Barry “dominated by default”, he says. “I felt guilty about it because I didn’t want him to step back.” One of his regrets is that they weren’t getting on when Robin died.

“Everyone wanted to be a solo artist,” he says. “I can’t say that I didn’t feel the same way.” Familial loyalties always got in the way, but Gibb is now free to go it alone and pursue one of his loves: country music. “I wasn’t supposed to embrace country,” he says. “It was always in what we did but the others didn’t share that passion.” He’s drawn, he says, to “the pure honesty of emotion. It does something that goes right through me.”

Two months after Robin died, Barry made his debut at the home of country, the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. He’s getting comfortable as a solo performer, he says: at a recent show in New York there were five minutes of applause before he began.

Now he is releasing a solo album, only the second of his career, that’s steeped in country. Called In the Now and written with his sons Stephen and Ashley, it’s a lovely, elegiac record on which his voice is hushed and melodious. There are excursions into windswept rock and Carpenters-style pop but the focus is on confessional country ballads such as The Long Goodbye, about losing his brothers (“There’s nothing I can say, to erase that final day”).

When I say I enjoyed the album, he claims surprise. “I expect the opposite. You’ve made my day.” Come off it, Barry! He must be aware that the Bee Gees’ harmonies, hooks and sophisticated songwriting have come back into fashion in recent years, with gushing endorsements from the likes of Noel Gallagher and Bono, who has said that their back catalogue makes him “ill with envy” and puts them “up there with the Beatles”.

In June, Gibb made his debut at Glastonbury, joining Coldplay for renditions of To Love Somebody and Stayin’ Alive, which Chris Martin introduced as “the greatest song of all time”.

He met Martin a few years ago in Australia, during a charity telethon, when they had breakfast with Olivia Newton-John and cricketer Shane Warne. Heaven knows what that foursome talked about but it led to Gibb’s appearance at Worthy Farm, during which he looked stunned by the reaction. “It was electrifying,” he says. “I don’t think I’d ever seen an audience of 120,000 people.”

If that kind of reception genuinely surprises him it could be because his memories are still raw from the 1980s and 90s, when the Bee Gees were as likely to be spoofed as feted. The teeth, the falsettos, the open-neck shirts: all were ripe for ribbing by comedians.

It came to a head in 1997 when Gibb, followed by his brothers, stormed off a chat show, snarling “You’re a tosser, pal” after the presenter repeatedly joked about the band’s high voices, drug problems and fraternal tensions.
“I thought, ‘I’ll give you five minutes to retrieve it’ but he didn’t so I thought, ‘F..k you.’ I think if he’d have spoken to me like that in life I might have hit him.” He insists he’s now more sanguine about mickey-taking. He can still bristle, though. “I heard Jim Carey say to Graham Norton that he had survived the Grinch movie by listening to our music. I felt that was a piss-take.”
Gibb was born in 1946 on the Isle of Man, but the family later moved to Manchester. He paints a nostalgic picture of the brothers’ salad years: “Kids in shorts, 10 years after the war. Our father (Hugh, a bandleader and drummer, who died in 1992) couldn’t get work. We were always wandering around bombed-out buildings, shoplifting, getting into trouble. It was always cold and if it wasn’t cold it was foggy. Everything around you was black and they had to run in front of buses with lanterns.”

In 1958, the Gibbs migrated to Australia, where the brothers first performed as the Bee Gees. Returning to Britain in 1967, they broke through with their first internationally released album, Bee Gees’ 1st.

In 1970, Gibb met Linda, a former Miss Edinburgh, during a recording of Top of the Pops at the BBC. Rather fabulously, they had their first romantic encounter in the Tardis. “Surrounded by Daleks. What can I say? Time stood still. Then we went for a cup of tea in the canteen and reality came back.”

He and Linda have a daughter and four sons, whose wives hail from as far afield as Israel, Sweden and Russia. “It’s a multicultural family,” he says. “To me it’s one of the most successful families in the record industry.” It’s a happy one too, he adds, although there’s something faintly unsettling about the way he says: “I won’t have arguments in my house. Nobody shouts in my house.”
His politics swing rightwards: “You’ve got to watch out for your family, protect your own territory. Go back to the Stone Age, you know!” He says he’ll probably vote for Trump in November. “I want to see a big character,” he says. “If it was some guy with spectacles and a side parting, that’s boring. During the war we had great characters that led us.” He met Trump at a charity event in the 90s and found him “very pleasant. Behind this big, rich guy is probably a really big heart.”
The Donald’s support for the second amendment is also a factor, you suspect. Gibb likes his guns, a passion that got him into trouble in the 60s when he was living with Linda in a flat opposite St Paul’s Cathedral. She had been having problems with a prowler and when the man rang on the intercom, Gibb confronted him with a blank pistol. “Big guy, about 6ft 6in. I pulled the gun from behind my back and said something like, ‘Freeze, motherf..ker!’ I chased him down the street and emptied the gun into the air. People hit the ground.”
He ended up being fined $50 for possession of handguns. “Besides possessing two pistols,” the judge said, “about the only thing I can see Mr Gibb has done wrong is wear a white suit to court.”

The Times

In the Now is released on October 7.

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Barry Gibb TV Shows 2016

September 30th. 2016...
Later with Jools - Find out more from Barry Gibb on Friday’s show
BBC 2 at 11pm UK Time ! http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07xs59r

September 30th.
BBC The One Show, 7pm ( 19 Uhr ) UK time 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07vw62j


Don`t forget - Barry will perform on Strictly Come Dancing , October 2nd.
at BBC One, UK.


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Barry Gibb performs In The Now on Later… with Jools Holland (27 September 2016)

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Barry is on the Chris Evans Breakfast show Radio 2 september 20th 2016

Barry is on the Chris Evans Breakfast show Radio 2 tomorrow. Shows on from 6.30 Am till 9.30

There will be a podcast after the show on the  radio 2 website

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07vvyls 


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Barry Gibb on Strictly come Dancin' october 2 2016

Strictly Come Dancing  will welcome a very special guest for its first results night – Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees. The music legend is scheduled to perform on the popular BBC show on 2 October.
Barry will take to the stage on the same night that the first pair of dancers will leave the competition.


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Barry Gibb - Star Crossed Lovers (Audio)

Gepubliceerd op 16 sep. 2016

Barry Gibb's new album 'In The Now' will be available October 7, 2016. Pre-order now.

iTunes - http://smarturl.it/InTheNowiT?IQid=vevo

Amazon - http://smarturl.it/InTheNowAmzn?IQid=...

Stream the title track on Spotify - http://smarturl.it/InTheNowSpotify

Follow Barry on Social Media:

Facebook - http://smarturl.it/BarryGibbFB?IQid=vevo

Twitter - http://smarturl.it/BarryGibbTW?IQid=vevo

Instagram - http://smarturl.it/BarryGibbIG?IQid=vevo

More info here: http://barrygibb.com/

http://vevo.ly/T7ZRUh

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Barry gibb on jimmy fallon

SONG PREMIERE! Listen to "Star Crossed Lovers" from Barry's new album now on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Pre-order 'In The Now' to get an instant download of the new song on Friday September 16.

Frankie Valli reveals the truth behind Grease theme on This Morning

MUSIC legend Frankie Valli appeared live on This Morning today and went down a storm with fans as he revealed the truth behind the iconic Grease theme tune.

http://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/708945/Frankie-Valli-Grease-theme-song-This-Morning-Barry-Gibb

 

 

The song, with its instantly recognisable intro, was released in May 1978 and was a big hit worldwide, hitting No1 on the US Billboard and selling half a million copies in the UK.

But today Frankie, 82, speculated that its writer - the Bee Gees' Barry Gibb - may never have let him sing it if he knew how big it would be.

On This Morning, he said: "I can start out by telling you I was a big fan of the Bee Gees for a very long time, and Barry Gibb and I had talked many times about doing something together.

"While the movie was being shot, the Bee Gees were also doing a movie and the movie they were doing was Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and I had a call from Barry and he said, 'I wrote this song, it's perfect for you'. He sent it over and I listened to it and I loved it."

 

However, he added: "But I think if he knew the magnitude of that song and what it would be, I probably never would have got it.

"When the Bee Gees were touring, they did that song. They merged my recording with their live performance."

Frankie also criticised artists who spend the majority of their gigs playing new material, arguing that it's the big hits that sell tickets.

"It's a simple philosophy: if you advertise that you're appearing somewhere, and even if you have an incredible fan base, and said 'I will not being any of my hits', you might get three people coming to see the show," he joked.

"So you're not doing a show for yourself. You do it for an audience."

 

 

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Bee Gees : Boeing 7201 spirits plane

At the beginning of the 1950's the Boeing company created one of the greatest planes of the Twentieth Century - the Boeing 707, which undoubtedly initiated the era of passenger jet travel for the masses. In 1957, the company's management decided to modify the aircraft for possible use on medium-range routes and on runways of shorter length. Thus the Boeing 720 was developed, which in comparison with its predecessor was slightly shorter (the fuselage was reduced by 2.45m) and had a redesigned wing and in general was more straightforward to operate than the Boeing 707. Pratt & Whitney JT3C-7 engines were installed in the airplane. On November 23, 1959 its first flight took place, and 65 were constructed. A year later a more advanced modification was developed, the Boeing 720B, with JT3D engines. The principal operators of the Boeing 720 were US airlines, although a small number was sold to Germany, Israel, Pakistan, Ireland and some other countries. This machine with the serial number N7201U was delivered to United Airlines and was used by it on internal routes from 1960 to 1973.

 In 1973 famous former American actor and singer Bobby Sherman together with his manager Ward Sylvester, co-owners of artists agency Contemporary Entertainment, purchased the plane from United Airlines with the intent of converting it into a convenient and comfortable 'flying hotel' for effecting flights between cities and out of the country by various artists. The music industry during this period was at its peak - a considerable number of performers of all styles of music plied their trade on numerous tours of the territory of the USA, and without any particular financial drawbacks the considerable fees received by them for concerts at that time allowed them to rent the plane for fast and comfortable travel from city to city.

 The idols of that time, bands such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, the Rolling Stones, Allman Brothers Band, and singers Elton John, Peter Frampton, Sonny & Cher, and John Lennon, from time to time were clients of the VIP plane, known as Starship One. However, in the late 1970s, because of problems with its engines, it was retired, and then the famous American luxury hotel Caesar's Palace offered to the various bands' managers their own plane. It was also a Boeing 720 and it likewise had its own name - 'Caesar's Chariot' - which emphasized its glamorous status. The level of comfort on board was the equal of its predecessor, although Led Zeppelin, the first of the stars who used the services of the new machine, noted that they remembered Starship One with special nostalgia.
In 1979 following a number of 'bad events', Led Zeppelin cancelled their regular tour across America, and the Bee Gees pop group became the next clients of the 'superplane'. Now the Gibb brothers trio already had enormous popularity around the world, selling disks with sales of millions of copies. Their recent album Spirits Having Flown had been hugely successful and it wasn't surprising that their tour of the cities of the USA was undertaken with special grandiosity. For this purpose the plane was once again completely repainted - on its fuselage and tail was written the name of the album and a characteristic logo featuring profiles of the group members. In such fashion Caesar's Chariot made a grand tour with the Bee Gees around the country, however for the plane it was to be the last 'star tour' – Led Zeppelin's tour of the cities of the US, due to take place shortly, was cancelled because of John Bonham's death and the effective demise of the well-known rock group. The Bee Gees may have been the last clients of Caesar's Chariot, however this tradition has carried on, and stars of later eras continue to hire modern aircraft, carrying out tours on different continents  and the countries of the world.

 

 

 

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Barry Gibb sept 4th 2016 :'I have seen my brothers' ghosts' part 1

The last surviving Bee Gee believes his brothers may be stayin’ alive, after experiencing life-after-death visions of them.

In a moving interview with The Mail on Sunday’s Event magazine today, Barry Gibb says he and his wife, Linda, have seen deceased bandmate Robin as well as younger brother Andy – and found the manifestations disturbing.

Father-of-five Barry, 70, says: ‘It’s not fun because you’re not quite sure what it was about. If it was real. I saw Robin and my wife saw Andy. Maybe it’s a memory producing itself outside your conscious mind or maybe its real.’

 

He adds: ‘The biggest question of all is: is there life after death? I’d like to know.’

As the Bee Gees, Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb’s catalogue of hits includes pop classics Jive Talkin’, Stayin’ Alive, Night Fever, How Deep Is Your Love and Tragedy. Barry, the oldest of the three Bee Gee brothers, also went on to enjoy success outside the band, most notably on Guilty, his duet with Barbra Streisand.

He says the loss of three of his brothers had a devastating effect on those left behind, including his mother, now 95. His younger brother, Andy, a star in his own right but not part of the band, died aged 30 in 1988 after years of drug abuse.

There was further heartbreak in 2003 when Maurice, then 53, died in hospital after he suffered complications from a twisted intestine. And Robin died from cancer at the age of 62 in 2012.

Barry says: ‘Mo was gone in two days. Maybe that’s better than long and tortured? Which is what Robin went through. Andy went at 30. All different forms of passing and for our mum, devastating.’

 

The star admits he considered turning his back on music altogether following Robin’s death.

But after winning rapturous applause when he joined Coldplay on stage at this year’s Glastonbury Festival, he is looking forward to promoting In The Now, his first solo album in more than 30 years. And the star reveals that the pain of no longer being able to perform with his brothers has been eased by the fact that he now shares the stage with his son Stephen, 42.

He adds: ‘It’s not hard if your eldest son is standing next to you. He’s not a Bee Gee. He wouldn’t like that. He’s Stephen. He’s covered in tattoos. He’s a metalhead with a heart of gold.’

 

 

In a searingly emotional interview, Barry Gibb – the last surviving Bee Gee – opens up as never before about the pain of losing all three of his brothers... and how they haunt him to this day 

By Chrissy Iley

Barry Gibb is telling me he has seen ghosts. ‘Yes and it’s not fun because you’re not quite sure what it was about. If it was real. I’ve seen two brothers.’ Which brothers? ‘I saw Robin and my wife saw Andy. 

Maybe it’s a memory producing itself outside your conscious mind or maybe it’s real.’ He likes pondering the big questions. ‘Yes. The biggest of all, is there life after death? I’d like to know.’

Andy, the youngest Gibb brother, died in 1988 aged just 30 after years of drug abuse, Maurice died 13 years ago at the age of 53, and Robin died in 2012 at 62 after a protracted battle with cancer. And Barry, who has never spoken with such emotion about his loss, is clearly haunted by their deaths.

I meet the last surviving Bee Gee in his local Indian restaurant just around the corner from his rarely visited British family home in Beaconsfield (he has lived mainly in Florida for the past 20 years). The sole remaining brother, who turned 70 on Thursday, still looks leonine, with a full-ish mane of hair and thick beard.

He talks about the death of his brothers almost without prompting. ‘After Rob died I just sat moping around thinking that was the end of it and I would just fade away. I thought I was quite happy about fading away, but then the President of Columbia Records, Rob Stringer, came to see me and signed me and said: “We’re gonna move your ass!” And I thought: “Oh well, that’s OK.” So I’m back.’

 

 

 

‘You are in a kind of tunnel. You have to come out the other side and I waited for that and I watched television. Downton Abbey – that got me through it, and Ray Donovan and Billionaire. I love them more than movies. I love the cliff-hangers. We get British television in America because I have Apple TV.’

It’s a surprising confession but Downton helped him recover. ‘We loved it. My wife was sitting next to Maggie Smith recently at Wimbledon and told her.’

He reveals that Paul McCartney also helped him through the grieving process. 

‘He always got me through everything,’ he says of the man who’s been a lifelong friend. ‘I met him for the first time at the Saville Theatre in 1967. He brought Jane Asher to see a show and he said: “You guys have got something, you should keep going, and I always found that very encouraging.” 

 

 

'The last time I saw him was at Saturday Night Live in 2013 when we were both playing. We had adjoining dressing rooms. We started talking about the time before we had any success. We talked about being naive. Not understanding what was happening. About being a great band and being happy and not competitive.’

Competitive with The Beatles? ‘No... about not being competitive with each other.’ He’s in a cloud of nostalgia now. ‘Those days of not understanding the business and not knowing why everybody wanted to know when for a long time they didn’t. That naivety.’

How intense was the sibling rivalry in the Bee Gees? ‘Well, I don’t think it’s any different from any other brothers or sisters.’ A mix of competition and closeness? ‘Yes. All of those things, and you have enormous arguments. Then you become incredibly close and you have really angry moments with each other. Nothing different from any other family except our obsession with music. That’s how it was.

‘There was always competition within the group. We weren’t competitive with The Beatles. We were just another pop group, but they changed the world.’

 

 

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Barry Gibb sept 4th 2016 :'I have seen my brothers' ghosts' part 2

McCartney gave him fascinating singing tips, as well as style inspiration.

 

‘McCartney hasn’t changed his keys down. He’s still singing in the keys he always did and I’m still doing that. A lot of artists have lowered their keys. He’s always been inspiring to me. What he said was, “Always look down [when you’re singing] on your highest note,” and I said yes, OK.’

The Beatle was also responsible for his famous Bee Gee beard. ‘I grew it in 1968 because McCartney grew a beard for The Long And Winding Road. He’s always been that big of an influence on me. Even when The Beatles broke up! I thought, “That’s it, we should break up.”’

Did he feel as the oldest Bee Gee he was always the leader? ‘Yes, yes, because the oldest brother is always put in that position. Watch over Maurice and Robin, watch over Andy. And often they didn’t want to be watched over. Maurice and Robin were twins so they were always secretly chatting. I was the one that had to make sure we got paid.

‘I had to look out for business. I enjoyed it. It was important that we were not cheated and I think that was pretty common. You hear all these horror stories about the manager making a fortune. Robert Stigwood was kind to us. We were all given about £100 per week and in 1967 you could live well on that money – and that was before we had any real success.’

The Bee Gees in their late Sixties and Seventies heyday were known as Medallion Men. Today Barry is wearing beaded bracelets under his black shirt and a discreet silver neck chain with a mystic symbol on it (‘I’ve outgrown all that gold and diamonds and chains that I used to wear, but I do love jewellery.’)

They were never style icons. Kenny Everett used to do a fabulous take-off of the Brothers Gibb. They were mocked at the time when the cool kids were into Bowie and Roxy, but over time Bee Gees songs have been reassessed, with How Deep Is Your Love lauded as a pop song as flawless as Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. By the time they created the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever in 1977, their falsetto came into its own.

 

 

They were unbelievably productive. Some of the most famous songs, such as How Deep Is Your Love and Jive Talkin’ were written in less than a day. ‘Yes, there was a half-day when we wrote Too Much Heaven, Tragedy and Shadow Dancing and a couple of other songs in one afternoon. I think we were high. Amphetamines, nothing heavy. We never took heavy drugs like heroin or cocaine. There were no songs written on that,’ he says adamantly.

Does he have any vices now? ‘I never drink alcohol except sake, which I love. You don’t get a hangover. You never feel bad.’ He tells me that the last time he got drunk was as a teenager. ‘I got so drunk mixing different drinks at a convention, I woke up in the bridal suite. I was so violently ill they put me in the room and left me but when I woke up I did wonder if there was a bride. Fortunately there wasn’t.’

He starts to talk about his new album In The Now but he’s drawn irresistibly back to his brothers. ‘It’s about the denial of the past and the future. Yet it’s about the moment and how to seize it. It’s about the loss of the people closest to you so it’s live in the moment, grab every moment because you see what happens.’ The eyes tangibly sadden. ‘Mo was gone in two days.’ He died from complications from a twisted intestine in hospital in Florida.’ Maybe that’s better than long and tortured? ‘Which is what Robin went through. Andy went at the age of 30. All different forms of passing and for our mum devastating. She’s 95. She had a mild stroke two weeks back.’

He seems overcome with sadness. ‘There’s been so much passing in my family that at one point I said I’d prefer to go in my sleep or on stage but I never said [that] while singing Stayin’ Alive’ [as was reported a few years ago]. Perhaps that was made up because it’s a funny line.’

There are 12 songs on the new album and three bonus tracks. ‘Daddy’s Little Girl is one of them and that’s written for my daughter Ali. She’s 24 and still lives with us. I’ve never met a lady with a stronger opinion. Star Crossed Lovers is written for [his wife] Linda.’ They met at a taping of Top Of The Pops in London when she was the reigning Miss Edinburgh.

 

When we first met our manager didn’t want me to have a girlfriend so she always had to stay at home. I always had to seem available. Everyone was against it but that made her stronger and we’re still together 49 years later.’

After the high of Glastonbury, is he up for another tilt at the summit, this time without his brothers? ‘I’ll happily hit the road if this album means something. It’s an enormous effort to go on tour without that momentum and I want that momentum.’ Is it harder to go out on stage when he’s been used to his brothers standing beside him? ‘It’s not hard if your eldest son is standing next to you. He’s not a Bee Gee. He wouldn’t like that. He’s Steven. He’s covered in tattoos. He’s a metalhead with a heart of gold. He plays on the album. He’s part of the band, in fact it’s the best bunch of musicians I’ve ever had. I want to be on tour so I need to create a reason for people to come and see me. I need to feel that full-cycle feeling, you know? That I can come back.’

Many people think he never actually went away. While there was no conscious decision to stop, there was no decision to write a new album while Robin was alive either. His illness took a toll on any creative output. ‘The feeling is I am reintroducing myself as an individual.’ When he did Guilty with Streisand, a huge hit in 1980, he was an individual, not a Bee Gee. ‘But I was never allowed to go on about it. We won best duet at the Grammys and my brothers never mentioned it. It’s that kind of brothers and sisters thing. If I would ever say we won this many Grammys they would always go one less saying “No, no, it was this many.”’

Is there a vault of unreleased Bee Gees songs? ‘No. Robin always emptied it out. I would always say, “That’s not good enough to go on the album, Robin” and he would say, “Yes, but it’s another song. Let’s put it on.” In the eyes of the record company the more songs you give them the better deal it is for them, but I don’t feel it was necessary.’

Does he see the Bee Gees’ influence in any of the current music-makers? ‘I always felt that I used to hear it with Prince and Michael Jackson. The multi harmonies, the grooves. A lot of people have told me that I made a difference to them, and I’d like to keep doing it for as long as I possibly can.’

This year there’s been a pop icon death overload. Bowie, Prince. How did this affect him? ‘Prince!’ he says adoringly. ‘I’ve always loved Prince. I didn’t quite understand a lot of David Bowie because he was such an artist. I admire it but I was more involved with people like Prince. The R ’n’ B influence, the falsetto is more me. We worked in his building where he lived in Minneapolis. We did a performance for the music industry of Minneapolis at one point. He was there but hiding behind a speaker so we never met.’ Hiding behind a speaker? ‘I know. You can’t be that shy, right? But there you are.’

Does he have a bucket list of things he wants to do before he dies? ‘No, I have a f*** it list. I have a list of things that I know I’ll never do. I’ll never walk through the Grand Canyon, not with my ankles. I’ll never get to the top of the Eiffel Tower. I hate heights. I just think in terms that I’m going to be quite happy with whatever comes around the corner.

‘I’ve grown up in three different cultures. I’ve seen the Pyramids and I’m a real fanatic on the ancient worlds. There is no evidence of how that civilisation developed. Those people might already have been there before. I’m fascinated by civilisations that were around 20,000, 30,000 years ago that could be as advanced as we are now in different ways.’

Does he feel he’s been here before? ‘Perhaps. I’ve had a few incarnations. I try not to question it. There’s been so much loss in my family, for me it’s a standing mystery.’ Does he believe he will see them again? ‘I don’t want to question it. Don’t want to go there.’

 

Barry with his good friend Sir Paul McCartney

Part of him is very modern. His shirt and bracelets, his attitude. And part is very old school. ‘I don’t do Instagram or emails but I do text. I have a Twitter account that goes through Ashley, my second-eldest son. I try not to think about that stuff too much.’

In the olden days he always used to see himself as a lion with his virile mane. In a 1979 authorised, illustrated biography of the brothers called The Greatest, there were caricatures of him as a lion, Robin as a red setter and Maurice as a badger.

I assumed he would have been a Leo and he says, ‘I’m actually a Virgo. I’m ambidextrous, left-footed, play the guitar right-handed and I think I’m a little too old for a lion but I’ve still got a bit of a mane going on.’ Pause. ‘Although I have always associated myself with a lion,’ he says rather proudly. ‘In South Africa I bought a walking cane with a silver lion’s head on it so if there’s ever a time when I can’t walk I’ll be able to be helped by the lion and it’ll still be a lion walking.’

Although he’s known pretty well at his local Indian, he says restaurants are rare for him. ‘I’m such a home body. I don’t rise early and I don’t get going till about noon. I’m still useless to everybody till 2pm and then I get sharp and I start to look forward to what’s on TV that evening. I read three books at a time. I love ancient history. At the moment I’m reading a book about the French Revolution, another about the conscious mind and I’m obsessed with Egyptology. I’m into the unknown, the supernatural. All that world. I like things that can’t be explained – like ghosts.’

In the meantime his album ponders all kinds of shadows, yet he’s not a sad man. He laughs a lot and jokes with me. ‘And I love a good curry,’ he says. 

Barry Gibb’s new album ‘In The Now’, is out on October 7.

Source : dailymail

 

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Bee Gees back in time :"JUNGLE BOOK TO BEE GEES" (David Griffiths, Record Mirror, February 3, 1968)

On now to an appointment with the Bee Gees in the jungly pad of their manager. Surrounded by pelts and stuffed animals' heads, we argued. You can rely on Bee Gees to get a good argument going - they're always putting forward varying viewpoints contradicting each other. Because they are so open and eagerly talkative they make excellent interviewees for a journalist. Some popsters have nothing much to say for themselves, others babble away and still don't come up with anything interesting, others think too carefully, calculating what they ought to say - which makes them overcautious. But the Bee Gees just let rip, talking how they feel, letting anybody make what they will of their remarks. Terrific!

Our meeting started calmly enough, as usual. Lon Goddard (who'd come along with me to peer closely at the group; see his cartoon on this page) sat quietly on his best behaviour. While the other Bee Gees wandered about, Robin talked about how they had written a whole LPs-worth of songs in the last few days -"In our spare time we write, it's our hobby, it's how we relax." I said how much I admired the bright cover picture on their Bee Gees First album. "Yes, it was done by Klaus Voorman who did 'Revolver' for the Beatles."

On the table in front of us was Sgt Pepper's LP, no less, and I picked it up while offering the opinion that this one could have been more attractively packaged.

"I agree," said Robin. "I expect The Beatles supervised most of the artwork themselves. They're taking too much of other people's business in their own hands."

I murmured that I rather admired them for having a go and seeing what they could do. This led into a discussion of 'Magical Mystery Tour' with all Bee Gees contributing their opinions.

Robin: " I sat down prepared to enjoy it and it was all right for a while and then I got bored and gave up."

Barry: "It was badly directed and edited. You can't direct yourself properly, you're not in a position to judge how things are going."

Maurice: "I liked it."

Robin: "But it was so dated - that sort of thing had all been done in 'Help'. Look at that 'I Am The Walrus' scene. Flower power went out months ago. They're behind their own trends."

Vince: "The Beatles have been around for five years now... They've gone so far, how far can they go? Everybody's got to have some sort of flop. They were at least trying a new thing. On the whole, I liked it - except for the abrupt ending."

Colin: "Doing it for themselves is the only way they'll get to know anything about it. I enjoyed little parts of the film but there was no unity..."

Barry: "No actual plot. Well, it obviously failed in some respect." (Perhaps it did, but I honestly don't think "Magical Mystery Tour" was anything for the producers to be ashamed of; I didn't expect anything smooth and glossily professional; it received a farcial excess of inane abuse and McCartney seemed far too ready to apologise for inadequacy; there were many merry touches).

What about the Bee Gees' film plans? "We are about to make two," answered Barry. "The first is 'Cucumber Castle,' an hour's show for television based on the Knights of the Round Table. We've just finished writing the script."

Hold on! Isn't that getting like The Beatles - taking other people's jobs, "I don't think so," replied Barry. "We are, after all, song WRITERS."

Well, after what you've said about The Beatles you can't complain if your scriptwriting efforts get put down.

"We're expecting to get slammed," confessed Barry. "But if it doesn't work out it won't be released. Anyway, two top professional comedy writers -Galton and Simpson- have read it and said it's very funny."

"And we'll have a top director and top cameramen," added Maurice.

"We're not going to go out and do things that aren't our jobs," pointed out Robin.

Unlike The Beatles, the Bee Gees are not putting any of their own money into this television film - or into their forthcoming cinema film vehicle, "Lord Kitchener's Little Drummer Boys." And Barry was insistent that if they did venture some of their own capital in a movie they'd make all the more sure of having the services of a skilled director.

So we talked of other matters - of how their first number one record in USA had been in Boston, Massachusetts. The song was "I can't see nobody", though it was the flipside, "New York mining disaster", that attracted more attention elsewhere. In gratitude to the good record buyers of Boston the Gibb brothers wrote 'Massachusetts", which was a top seller in many parts of the world. But not in Boston, Mass.

And we talked of how really sick and sleepless with worry the Bee Gees were when it looked as though Vince and Colin weren't going to get work permits and were going to have to return to Australia, thus breaking up the group just when it had struck it rich. (They couldn't go on to USA because they'd be liable to be drafted into the armed forces).

"It looks as though we got our permits, at the last minute, because we were earning a lot of foreign currency," said Vince.

"We're Backing Britain," commented Robin.

There followed a discussion of the effects of the amount of work they're doing these days. "It doesn't seem hard at all," admitted Colin, "yet six months ago it would have seemed ridiculous. We've just got used to the pace but we reckon we're getting near the limit. We haven't much time for anything."

Vince: "I worked harder in Australia than I did here." (He was with the down-under top group Billy Thorpe and The Aztecs). "Now we're involved in interviews, picture sessions, TV shows with little or no playing. I'm not playing as much as I'd like."

Robin: "Still, there are compensations."

Vince: "On sure, money and success. But playing is what I like best."

Colin: "Yes, I'd like to play more than we do."

Robin: "Of course, I feel differently because of the writing. If we played a lot more I'd feel too tired to write."

Vince: "Another trouble is that we mostly play to teeny-boppers and they might know a good guitar solo from a bad one but they don't know enough to recognise a really good solo. It's discouraging."

By this time, Barry and Maurice had resumed their wandering about. There was a certain tension in the air. Robin began accusing Vince of being insulting about his fans. He challenged Vince to name guitarists and blues artistes he greatly admired. Vince obliged and Robin dismissed at least one of these artistes as a load of rubbish. Outraged, Colin stormed away to the other side of the room, shouting to Robin that he was a fool who shouldn't shoot his mouth off. All hell was breaking loose around the peace-loving heads of Lon and myself; we tried to lower the temperature by making flippant suggestions, such as would make for the RM if Colin were to express his disagreement by hurling Robin through the huge plate-glass window. Robin chortled, thoroughly enjoying the situation.

As the drama subsided I took my leave, along with Lon -who'd been delighted at an opportunity to observe Bee Gees faces registering all kinds of emotions from laughter to fury

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