BEE GEES TO LOVE SOMEBODY Live in Bern 1968

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tweet by John Merchant aug 8 2015

John Merchant @JohnMerchantMIX • 7 hours
Studio D at the Hit Factory in Miami.
Finishing up the last day of mixing for @GibbBarry 's album. Next stop: Gateway Mastering in Portland, Maine to see Bob Ludwig




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The sound of disco

Together, the Bee Gees, Karl Richardson and Albhy Galuten created what most of us think of as the sound of disco, but it was not their intention to invent a new style. "We never knew about disco and we didn't think about disco. We thought we were making rhythm and blues records. It was all about R&B. We loved all that stuff, we just couldn't figure out how to do it! 'Oh man, that sounds great, but it sounds like a room full of studio musicians.' 'Yeah, well...' The sound we came up with was therefore our sound, and for the Saturday Night Fever album we recorded all of the tracks in France, and overdubbed and mixed in Miami, while overdubbing in LA too. 'More Than A Woman' was given to the Tavares brothers, and their track came in sub-standard so we were asked to go out to LA and finish the Bee Gees' own demo. That's what we did, adding congas and strings before mixing at Criteria.

"'Night Fever' was cut live in France. Maurice was playing DI'd bass with his pick, Dennis Byron was playing drums, Blue Weaver was playing keyboards, Alan Kendall was playing rhythm guitar, and Barry was playing rhythm and singing the pilot vocal. The drums were the only thing retained from this live track — it was a complete take, not comped — and all the other parts were overdubbed, like the keyboard part that was carefully crafted. I mean, many parts weren't there from the start. Blue, Barry, Albhy and I would sit down and say 'That chord sounds great there, but how about when the guitar player goes "dang, wa-tang"? Do you want the seventh in the chord or do you want to leave that hole there?' Those were the kinds of things that had to be worked out.

"It was all very orchestrated. It was a process and it was all about 'head charts'; creating in the studio. You know 'Gee, OK, that's the part of the verse for the keyboards.' Then we would go for the performance. All of the arrangements were done on the spot and then the performance was executed until it felt good. That was the standard. It didn't matter how we got there — whether something was thrown together or it was one take — our concern was that it felt good, that it made a statement. How it's done, I don't know. I mean, how do you make a Mercedes-Benz? Do you start with the tyres? All I know is the end product. If that's accepted, then how it came to be is just detail.

"We had no guidelines. The only rule was there were no rules, so we could do anything. It didn't matter if it was a bass drum or a synthesizer sound — we would talk about it and say 'Well, why don't we do this?' And I can't recall anything specific because this took place almost on every song. Plus the fact that everything was at least second-generation, most of it third. On the next album, Spirits Having Flown, we discovered 48-track, so everything at that point was multitracked, Dolby, bounced, bounced, bounced, bounced, bounced, whereas the other stuff was 24-track. However, to get it to 24 a lot of it was hand-sync'ed and we'd overdub forever. Again, those sounds were probably limited to what we had available at Criteria in terms of reverb chambers, processing, MCI consoles. Who knows?

"I do know this: 'Night Fever' is the rough mix. We mixed that song in 10 minutes. We had overdubbed all these synthesizer pads, extra guitar notes, little percussion instruments and so on, and we kept mixing it again and again and again, and then finally we played the rough mix and everybody said it felt better. You see, it was all about feel at that time. It wasn't about trying to impress people. And that was the key to the music. As a matter of fact, we had a demo of 'How Deep Is Your Love' from France, with the brothers singing, Blue playing keyboards and Mo playing bass, and right up until the final mix we would play that rough mix from France to use as a guide, because the feel was everything to us. "

One thing that distinguished the Bee Gees from traditional R&B was their characteristic rhythms. "A lot of that was Barry's right hand," Richardson says. "I mean, every one of those records has some form of acoustic guitar with Barry going ching-ching-ching. Whether it's hidden or not, it's there, driving the track along."

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Spencer Gibb "I’ve Got My Dad’s Fever To Succeed"

      Sunday Express, Sunday 2^nd December 2007

The face is strikingly familiar and when Spencer Gibb opens his mouth to sing the voice is utterly unmistakable. Those same haunting, falsetto tones that made his father Robin and the Bee Gees one of music’s iconic acts are about to be unleashed on a new generation.
After years of struggle, Spencer Gibb has finally emerged from his father’s shadow with a record deal.
It would be easy to drift into clichés and say the Bee Gees 1979 hit Tragedy aptly describes Spencer’s years in a pop/rock wilderness in Britain and America but, at 34, he prefers the irony of applying another song title, Stayin’ Alive, to his two decades of anonymity, since quitting St Paul’s School in London as a starry-eyed 14-year old with the unshakeable belief that fame was merely a few footsteps away.
That very track, written by his father Robin and uncles Maurice (Robin’s twin) and Barry for the 1977 blockbuster film Saturday Night Fever, had long since heralded the dawn of the disco era and established the Bee Gees as its global tour de force.
As a rebellious teenager whose head was filled with the music of his own idols, notably Hendrix, Lennon, Joni Mitchell and Eric Clapton, Spencer thought he had it made.
As well as an immediate family more bathed-in than touched by stardust (his other uncle, the late Andy Gibb, was a successful solo artist) he also thought his decision would impress his godfather – legendary impresario Robert Stigwood, the marketing and production genius behind the Bee Gees, Cream and a slew of other Sixties and Seventies bands as well as such theatrical productions as Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar.
“I told everyone I was going to make it on my own and I didn’t need any help,” says Spencer, who had built his first guitar, a hybrid from otherwise worthless spare parts, at the age of 12.
“I half thought they would all fall over themselves to tell me how wise I was and what a huge star I’d be and I was already mentally taking bows on stage but my father’s reaction was horror. I think his dream was for me to excel at my private school, go to university and become a merchant banker or something.
“Dad and his brothers grew up in a shared bedroom in a Manchester council flat. They really endured hard times before they made it. He wanted what all fathers really want for their sons, an easier path to a respectable job.”
Spencer’s mother Molly, Robin’s first wife and a former personal assistant to The Beatles, was aghast too but promised to support Spencer’s dream with the caveat: “If you’re really hauling your butt out of here, good luck – but you’re not getting a penny out of us!”
Though used to a nomadic family lifestyle as a result of the Bee Gees’ success, a lifestyle Spencer believes ultimately caused his parents to divorce in 1980 after 12 years’ marriage, he began a period of “mostly aimless drifting” between London, New York and Miami – the city in which Robin finally settled and still lives with second wife Dwina. [inaccurate]
“As a kid I travelled the world in style, surrounded by bodyguards and staying in the finest hotels but before I was out of my teens, I was scraping up the cash for cheap flights and crashing on floors.”
Too young and naïve even to secure a modest toe-hold in the cut-throat music business, Spencer embarked on a series of low-paid jobs, most of which he failed to keep for long.
“I had a job as a waiter in Oxford but was fired after serving a guest at a wedding reception a pint of Johnny Walker whisky when he was already drunk. He was a huge, obnoxious guy, like Mr Creosote from the Monty Python sketch. To the horror of the bride and groom he followed the sketch precisely and vomited over an entire table of fellow guests. The head of the catering firm sacked me on the spot but, hey, I had been brought up in a rock and roll circus so had seen much worse.”
At the time, Spencer had been “dosing down” with his uncle Andy, the solo Gibb brother whose melancholy hits had included (Our Love) Don’t Throw It All Away. Andy’s death from a heart infection in March 1988 came like a hammer blow to Spencer.
“He had been more like a brother than an uncle to me,” he says.  “He was a simple guy with astonishing talent who partied until he died a few days after his 30^th birthday. I still love and miss him.”
More dead-end jobs followed his dream seemed to be slipping further away.
“I was writing, playing, trying to get something moving musically,” he says. The first breakthrough came in the mid Nineties when he landed a job as a freelance engineer at a recording studio in Florida.
While his father and stepmother enjoyed the rock high life a stone’s throw away at their Miami Beach mansion, Spencer began his grass-roots education in the music industry.
“I learned, in essence, what my dad and my uncles had been about for years, I took the education to heart and practised, practised and then practised some more.”
Five years ago, Spencer moved to Austin, Texas, a university city which styles itself “America’s Home Of Live Music”, to practise his craft and form a band. Having been there barely a year, he found himself flying back to the east coast following the death of another beloved uncle, Maurice, his father’s twin brother, from a heart attack in January 2003.
Both Robin and Spencer were devastated by the loss. Like Andy, Maurice had for a time been a party animal but had conquered his demons and in his later years tried to follow a spiritual life as well as a strict 12-step recovery programme.
“Maurice was never happier than when he was performing acts of kindness,” says Spencer. “At his funeral, there were as many blue-collar guys there as there were celebrities, most of them ordinary folk who had been touched by some act by Maurice. At the end, one man from Alcoholics Anonymous or Cocaine Anonymous came up and told us he owed Maurice his life.
“It turned out my uncle had donated one of his kidneys  [inaccurate] to this guy when he was in hospital facing death unless he got an immediate transplant. That’s the kind of guy he was.”
Back in Austin, Spencer, who now had a wealth of songs, put together a new band with a “Psychedelic pop” sound. Last month, the band 54 Seconds, landed a record deal with Warner Brothers and were told one of their album tracks, Postcards From California, is to be released as a single in America and Britain.
Spencer revealed, however, this it is his father’s blessing that matters most as he finally stands on the threshold of his lifelong dream.
“Dad and I have talked music many times over the years,” he says, “but for the first time. I asked his direct professional advice when I sent him the tracks we had recorded and held my breath as I waited for his verdict.
“He said, ‘You’ve got it bang on. You’ve done it exactly the way I would have done it’.”
Robin, who will be 58 just before Christmas, also told his son he was proud of him but more was to come.
“He also said, musician to musician, that he respects my tenacity and relates to the songs that I write. What does that mean to me? Here’s an example of the esteem in which you have to hold my dad.
“He invited me to an awards ceremony in Los Angeles in March because he was receiving a lifetime achievement award. When his name was announced some of the audience barely looked up and one close by me continued playing his hand-held video game but even he stopped when the announcer said it was my father’s 110^th professional award. I doubt there were many others that day who could count theirs on more than one hand.
“That’s why my dad’s endorsement means the world to me.”

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"BEE GEES' SECRET JET TRIP TO HANOVER"(New Musical Express, January 10, 1968)

The Bee Gees left London secretly on Tuesday by private jet, and made a surprise appearance that evening in Hanover at the ten-yearly convention of executives of Philips-Polydor combine. At the event they were presented with a gold map of the world to mark two-million sales of their "Massachusetts" hit. The group returned to London in time for a Polydor reception yesterday (Thursday) at which they were presented with a Gold Disc for the same recording.

The Bee Gees fly to America on Sunday for guest appearances in U.S. TV's "Smothers Brothers Show" and "Rowan and Martin Show," and for their Los Angeles concerts on January 27. They return to Britain on February 5 to complete their TV spectacular "Cucumber Castle," for which they have already recorded the soundtrack music.

This will be followed by a brief Scandinavian tour, leading immediately into a German theatre tour (with Procol Harum) from February 27 to March 8.
And their full tour dates
The complete itinerary of the Bee Gees' eagerly-awaited spring concert tour was announced by promoter Robert Stigwood. As previously reported, the tour opens at London's Royal Albert Hall on Wednesday, March 27.

Rank Theatres to be visited  during the 24-concerts schedule include those at... Hanley (April 19) Bolton (20th) Salisbury (24th) Romford (25th) Exeter (26th) and Cardiff (27th) The package visits ABC Theatres at... Chester (March 30) Cambridge (April 4) Carlisle (10th) Edinburgh (12th) Stockton (13th) Hull (21st) Dublin (May 2) and Belfast (3rd)

Remainder of the tour comprises: Leeds Victoria Hall (March 29) Manchester Palace (31st) Slough Adelphi (April 5) Sheffield Oval (6th) Birmingham Theatre (7th) Glasgow Playhouse (11th) Liverpool Empire (14th) Portsmouth Guildhall (17th) and Tooting Granada (18th)

Supporting attractions for the package have not yet been set, apart from the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. As previously reported, the Bee Gees will be accompanied by a large concert orchestra for the tour.


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Ten questions for Barry Gibb

    

Mojo, Februar 1998



Q: I've heard that Jimi Hendrix was a Bee Gees fan.
Barry: I don't think it was a matter of being a fan. We were friends, and we all came out of that same late '60's syndrome, and we got to know Jimi in London. He actually came to my 21st birthday party. We never discussed music. It was just friendship. I went with Ahmet Ertegun and Robert Stigwood to see Jimi in New York, outside in the park with The Rascals, in about 1968. I was backstage with them at that particular concert. That's a great memory.



Q: What do you recall about writing Massachusetts?
Barry: It was the first time the group went to New York. We stayed at the St. Regis Hotel, and while our luggage was being moved in we wrote it sitting on a sofa, the three of us. It came from our first exposure to America, our first thoughts of writing a song about flower power, which the song is about-or it's basically anti-flower power. Don't go to San Francisco, come home for Chrissakes, ha ha.



Q: Noel Gallagher loves a lot of your early songs. How do you feel about Oasis?
Barry: I like their work very much. They do some good stuff, but they've yet to really grow. They need to get past, basically insecurity between each other, and how crazy it is when you become famous for the first time and what it does to your head. I think they're about to get past that. What happens next? It's like Maurice once said in an interview, to the Gallaghers, "If you want to know what happens next, give us a call" (laughs). Because we've basically been through the whole thing-fighting, drugs, the drink, all the scenarios you can imagine. We've done all that and still survived. I've got a feeling those guys will, too.



Q:I like the lyrics of early songs like Harry Braff and The Earnest Of Being George-they were evocative without being locked into a literal meaning.
Barry: There was a lot of that in those days-psychedelia, the idea that if you wrote something, even if it sounded ridiculous, somebody would find its meaning. People used to ask if we took LSD. And we suddenly realised that that's what it really was about. People get carried away. It's like The Beatles and songs like Strawberry Fields, where people assume that it was drugs that concocted those songs- and we all know that some of it was-but I think there's a very rare gift that existed inside John Lennon, and also inside Paul. I think it came from more than drugs or drink.



Q:Your vocal on Lonely Days seems almost like a tribute to Lennon.
Barry: It's possible, yeah. We were very influenced by The Beatles, no question. A manager we had about five years back heard Lonely Days in a restaurant and he said to a friend, "That's one of my favourite Beatles songs." And he was managing us!



Q: A few years back, you expressed a desire to produce McCartney-and he got miffed about it.
Barry: He's always under the wrong impression that we'd criticised one of his albums. The fact is, we'd never heard the album he was pissed off about. I'd heard one song, Hope Of Deliverance, which I thought was going to be a Number 1. Maurice and Robin had heard in and didn't think it was going to be. Anyway, some reporter was interviewing us that week and we'd only talked about this one song; Maurice or Robin said something like, "It would be great for McCartney to work with somebody who would really push him harder than he pushes himself." I thought that was a fair comment-not a criticism as such. I think Lennon was always more muscular than McCartney. He challenged Paul. I think that now Paul is so ingrained in our lives and in our souls that he's of the belief that no-one else can push him. I just disagree with that belief. But I think the reporter told him we'd criticized his album, and he said something like, "Oh well, they can fuck off then." We sent a little note saying that we were in fact probably the three biggest fans he's ever had, that we would never have criticized his work and still wouldn't, and he sent another note saying, "Well, you can still fuck off," ha ha. So I just thought, Never mind, these things happen. But I dearly wish that he knew the truth. I've always loved Paul. If I ever bump into him again, I'll try to tell him, but I doubt that he'll listen.



Q: Any truth to the story of Ginger Baker setting fire to a Bee Gees mastertape?
Barry:I've never heard that, ha ha. It wouldn't surprise me, knowing Ginger. I've heard of Ginger hanging Robert Stigwood out the window by his shoes, three or four stories up, demanding his money. One good story was the [Stigwood] Sgt. Pepper album-they shipped about two million, then found about a million of them by the side of the road! Those days you could go platinum based upon your shipping. They'd shipped all those albums, but with no demand. So someone dumped a million!



Q: Since Saturday Night Fever, you've been known for your falsetto. Do you ever feel trapped by that?
Barry: No, I do it when I love it and I don't do it when I don't feel like it. The story is that during the recording of Nights On Broadway, Arif Mardin asked if any of us could go out there and scream ad libs-R&B style. I volunteered, and in doing so, sort of discovered that this voice was hidden back there. Then I started developing it. When I look back it's actually something I ought to be proud of. Brian Wilson, Frankie Valli and even Prince-they don't make any bones about it. The first rock'n'roll record I ever heard was Little Darlin' bt The Diamonds-that was falsetto. So in a way it's been an integral part of rock'n'roll. It's nice to be a falsetto that's well known.



Q: What's the story behind the Clive Anderson chat show?
Barry: With the greatest respect in the world, we've never commented on that story. We don't want to. It was a very upsetting experience and the guy was really out to ridicule us if he could, and every remark he made was, in a sense, created to try to ridicule us. I had just about enough of it and walked off. And Maurice and Robin followed me. It was not a nice experience. That was it. We never commented when it happened. Apart from what I've just said, I don't want to say any more. The details were not pleasant.



Q: What's next for you all?
Barry: I want us to go on making records. We're in our prime, believe it or not. I think vocally and mentally we've managed to stay intact, somehow. Two of us, Robin and I, don't smoke any more. I think that's made an enormous difference to the strength of our throats and our muscles. I'm the eldest at 51, and if the Stones can drag themselves around once more, then there's a few more albums in us. As long as you're having fun, that's the key. The moment it becomes a grind, it's over.




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Barry Gibb interviewed by Live

How many secrets do your brothers know about you that they hang over your head?
BARRY GIBB: I think it's the other way around.



Q: Really? You're the good brother?
BARRY GIBB: No, but how many secrets do I know about them?



Q: So this is what keeps the group together?
BARRY GIBB: I'd have to say, without a doubt, it's a pure love of pop music and the fact that we're a family that's knit together.




Q: Can you still fit in the old Bee Gees clothes?
BARRY GIBB: No. My waist is 32, but in those days I was about 29 to 30.



Q: There were no scandals were there?
BARRY GIBB: No, not like the Jacksons or situations like that. I think there was a small one when Robin got a divorce in England. But I don't remember anything you would call a scandal.



Q: What do you collect?
BARRY GIBB: Now there's a scandal. I can't tell you.



Q: The largest porn collection in Florida?
BARRY GIBB: You said it, I didn't.



Q: This could only do good for your image! Didn't that one night concert put a lot of pressure on you?
BARRY GIBB: Enormous. The only thing I don't want to do is a tour. I'm a 50 year old man, jumping out of bed each morning and getting on a place is no longer feasible for me. I have a condition that is pretty arthritic. It's one of 100 different kinds of arthritis, and I have to deal with that.



Q: Do you force yourself to listen to new music?
BARRY GIBB: No. I do like the Hansons, though. I think they're very talented. I think they're going to surprise a lot of people in the next 10 years. When I see the Hansons, I see us as kids.



Q: Do you ever feel embarrassed by your music because of the criticism? Did you ever wish you were the Rolling Stones?
BARRY GIBB: I don't ever wish I was somebody else. I know that I am meant to be who I am, and I'm meant to have my own destiny. Whenever that takes me, I'm sensible enough to accept it no matter what it is. My music, certainly, has never embarrassed me.


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