Tribute Robin Gibb by David English

'The best white soul voice of all time': Bee Gees manager on the Robin Gibb he knew

David English, Bee Gees manager and friend for 40 years, pays tribute to generous, modest, amusing and talented Robin Gibb

 

Although we all knew this sad day was coming, I still can’t believe Robin Gibb has gone.
It might sound soppy and sentimental, but the Gibb boys – Barry, Maurice, Robin and Andy – were like brothers to me.
At times I felt like The Other Bee Gee.
One by one I’ve seen them go… first young Andy, then Maurice, now Robin. Poor old Barry is the last one standing. 
I’d known them all since 1973 when they joined RSO Records which I had started with Robert Stigwood.
I quickly learned the strength of the Bee Gees was their closeness, their incredible love for each other and for their families.
That never waned – from when they were little lads growing up together in Chorlton, Manchester, singing three part harmonies in the bath, while they were learning their trade singing at speedway circuits in Australia or when they were performing to a sell-out crowd at Madison Square Garden.
As songwriters they were phenomenal. Next to Lennon and McCartney they were the most successful song-writing team in history.
* "Talented beyond even his own understanding": Tributes pour in
* Robin's life and career in rare and unseen pictures
* High notes: Watch the greatest moments in Robin Gibb's career
* The curse of the Bee Gees: How the Gibb family has been dogged by countless setbacks
* Robin Gibb: The disco pioneer with the ethereal voice
* The Bee Gees wrote that? The songs you didn't know were penned by Robin Gibb and his brothers
They were like tailors who could cut a suit to fit anyone – their songs were perfect for whichever artist they were writing for, be it Celine Dion, Elvis, Barbra Streisand or Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton.
And as artists they were uniquely talented. Nobody could sing a three part harmony like those Gibb brothers did.
But Robin had the greatest voice – in fact, I think he had the best white soul voice of all time.
It could take you to heaven. He also had the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met, and cared for others more than himself.
That’s why he was such a wonderful writer of love songs.
Robin truly understood the workings of the human heart and was able to portray that through his music and touch millions of people of all ages.
But I don’t think he ever realised the magnitude of his talent.
Robin was so generous in his charity work too.
<:figure class="inline-image clearfix "> <:figcaption>Close bond: Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb
In 1978 the boys donated all the proceeds of their song Too Much Heaven, to UNICEF, and Robin was always ready to turn out and support my own charity cricket team, the Bunbury XI.
He also campaigned for years for a memorial to the heroes of RAF Bomber Command who lost their lives in the war – and said that was one of the greatest achievements of his life.
But bizarrely enough he was terrified of flying himself.
Despite Robin becoming an international star and living the jet-set lifestyle I had my work cut out getting him on a plane.
In 1980 we were due to fly to Kansas City but at 1am there was a knock at my bedroom door and Robin is standing there with an old blue suitcase containing his toothbrush and a couple of pairs of underpants.
He said: “I’ve been looking at the weather, Dave – it’s not looking good over the Gulf of Mexico, so I’m going to get the train.”
I spent the next couple of hours saying “Robbo, trust me, it’s going to be all right” until I managed to talk him round.
And despite being so modest about his talent, Rob was fanatical about topping the charts, being on every radio station playlist and getting the Bee Gees to number one.
He once called me at 3am from Paraguay because he’d gone into some obscure back-street record shop and found there was no promo poster for the new album in the window.
I had to get one sent round.
But I remember sitting with Robin and the boys in Time Square, New York, in 1978 on the day it was announced the Bee Gees had the top four records in the singles chart.
He turned to me and said “Dave, we cracked it.”
The thing that I remember most about my happy years with the Bee Gees is the laughter.
I’ve never met three other people who could make me laugh as much.
They were hysterical – and Robin was the ringleader with his surreal, Pythonesque sense of humour.
He would have Maurice and Barry crying with laughter with his off-the-wall jokes and naughty gags.
I remember being with them in Paris in the 70s.
After a long day of media interviews we all went out on to our hotel balcony for some air and saw there was a ledge that went right around the building.
We decided to explore. I went first, followed by Robin, Maurice and Barry, and as we passed one window we glanced in – and saw a young lady in the throes of passion beneath her lover.
She saw us too... and the look of shock on her face when she spotted the Bee Gees grinning at her was priceless.
By sheer coincidence, she was on the same plane as us on the way home. Robin couldn’t resist going up to her and saying “Hello, love, I almost didn’t recognise you with your clothes on!”
I was privileged to watch the way they worked together.
In 1975 they were looking for inspiration for new songs and, at Eric Clapton’s suggestion, they moved out to Miami Beach to stay at 461 Ocean Boulevard, which had inspired his album of that name.
I remember watching them in the studio and realising just how close they were.
They would come in one by one to start work each day but would all have the same melody in their heads… it was very spooky.
One day we were heading back from the studio to the house when we drove over Sunny Isles Bridge.
As the station wagon wheels rattled over the bridge they made this very particular “ch-ch-ch-ch-ch” sound.
Robin suddenly said “Turn back to the studio”. … and they all got it in an instant.
<:figure class="inline-image clearfix "> <:figcaption>Maurice Gibb & Robin Gibb

Daily Mirror

 

Based on the rhythm those wheels had made they sat straight down and wrote Jive Talkin’, which became their second US number one and the start of the next stage of their career.
Later that year we went to a studio in France and in just 36 hours they wrote Stayin’ Alive, Night Fever, How Deep Is Your Love and More Than a Woman - which helped Saturday Night Fever become the biggest soundtrack album of all time.
But that telepathic bond was particularly strong between Robin and Maurice, because they were twins.
When they were kids Maurice fell off their bicycle and even though Robin was 30 miles away, he actually felt the pain.
So when Maurice died so suddenly in 2003 Robin never got over it.
He’d already had to cope with Andy dying at the age of 30 - he was staying in Robin’s house at the time too.
That was the first arrow to his heart. But when Mo went, I don’t think he ever accepted it.
We were devastated when we found out Robin had cancer and that it was very advanced.
Part of me has always wondered if he had been ill for much longer but never said anything, because he didn’t want to worry and inconvenience people. He was that kind of guy.
I last saw Rob about seven weeks ago. Barry and I went to his home and he was so frail and emaciated.
I gave him a big hug and said: “Blimey, Robbo, you’re a bag of bones. We need to get you on the pies and Guinness and build you up so we can go on tour.”
His eyes lit up and he said “When?”
It was the best tonic we could have given him – even though Barry and I knew that it wasn’t going to happen.
Baz knew his brother was going, that it was a terminal illness.
But we just went along with it, saying “We’ve got to get you better and do some gigs in America.”
We had a laugh and a joke. He took the mickey out of me like he always did and his mind stayed as sharp as ever, right to the end.
We never talked about Rob’s condition or that he was dying – and I don’t know if he ever talked directly about it to Barry either.
But he did talk about Maurice all the time, about how he had died and how he had never got over it.
My heart goes out to Dwina and the kids, and to Barry and his mum Barbara who is 92 and has lost her husband and three of her boys.
Baz is a strong guy, he was always the leader, and I know he will want to celebrate the life of his brother and his incredible talent.
Perhaps there will be a tribute concert at some point.
Over the last few months I have felt as if we have been living under a big black cloud, knowing that the rain was coming but not when.
Today it is raining, and we are all mourning dear, dear Rob.
Robin Gibb’s memory will shine on through his music.    

Barry Gibb -Hawks

Review of Hawks

Filmed on location at London's Charing Cross Hospital and in the Netherlands, Hawks is the most overlooked and underrated movie in Timothy Dalton's career.



A British production, funded on the strength of Dalton's success with the James Bond franchise, Hawks was based on an idea by Barry Gibb, who also composed and performed the melodic and effective score. Co-starring Anthony Edwards (of "E.R."), Hawks presented the stars with the ultimate acting challenge: how to portray the subject of untimely death, coupled with it's inevitable pain, suffering and fear with both humour and pathos.



Timothy Dalton's complex portrayal of Bancroft blends the actor's flair for physical humour, with his ability to convey innate fear while delivering lines ostensibly meaning the opposite. He infuses his own indomitable spirit into the character, intensifying Bancroft's fate to grow into an abiding concern which carries the movie. Dalton's Bancroft is a "dead realist," chronicling the end-stage disease processes on the faces of playing cards; an escapist who slips away from hospital to go to movies and disco dancing; a man ultimately afraid to confront death by at first refusing to touch a dead body, or to come to grips with his own impending death.



Hawks is more than the story of how two men confront their own mortality: it is the weaving of a relationship that proves life is ultimately worth struggling for, then touchingly and tragically allows death to become more gentle and acceptable because it occurs in the arms of a friend.



If one inviolable rule in life is that everyone, young or old, experienced or innocent, must die, then Hawks may seem a depressing story of two young men ravaged by a disease they cannot accept, nor comprehend the finality of, yet there are no heavily redundant "why me?" scenes in this film; rather there is a sad acknowledgement of a mortal's condition, and the resolve to assert an indomitable human spirit by racing to meet death, rather than by letting it quietly overwhelm them as separate and solitary individuals.



Bancroft and Deckermensky "escape" from hospital in a "borrowed" ambulance and eventually drive drive to Amsterdam, in search of the ultimate bordello. As developed in the script, it is not really sexual gratification they seek (both men assumingly impotent, despite Bancroft's complaint of being constantly "randy"), but rather a control over their lives that modern medicine is helpless to provide, and blind in it's treatment. In hospital, patients are merely bodies who must follow rules: undergo radiation treatments that will only sicken and disfigure, while offering merely the slim hope of a quite temporary remission; obey the curfews and maintain the facade of cheerfulness, while staff and patients alike are expected to deny the known fatality of the disease; wait patiently, while turning a blind eye to those dying around you; accept IV tubes in the arm without the simple dignity of being assisted to the toilet.



When Bancroft, a wealthy solicitor by occupation, refuses to let his roommate, a former American athlete, commit suicide or succumb to the depression of physical weakness, they take oaths to become "knights of the sick joke," and pledge to enjoy what vitality that have left. Once in the Netherlands, they befriend two English women on a pathetic journey of their own. Neither woman is attractive by the men's standards of physical beauty:


Hazel is a "ten-foot giraffe," while Maureen is short and "chunky." After an initial attempt to abandon them, the two "knights errant" agree to take the women to their unpronounceable destination, where Hazel seeks the unknowing father of her unborn child.


Slowly, and with a subtle unawareness, Bancroft and Deck's relationship develops, while Bancroft's feelings for Hazel grow from unemotional detachment, to genuine concern, then finally to real love. The bedroom scene between Bancroft and Hazel is masterfully played; Deck's death is touching and poignant, while the concluding scenes are uplifting, giving cause to believe that Bancroft, like Deck, will find his death more meaningful because he has finally discovered how to love.


Hawks may be far from a perfect movie: too carefully written (or perhaps too reworked), the script suffers from intermittent lack of intensity in the writing, compelling the actors to generate, on their own, a depth of emotion without benefit of one clearly climactic scene. The characterization is sketchy, and would have benefited from clearer opportunities for Bancroft and Deck to do some soul-searching with one another as their relationship expanded from that of strangers sharing the same hospital ward, to become caring friends, sharing profound experiences of life and death. All the female characters in the movie suffered from an overall lack of dignity, being the recipients of most of the cheap humour the movie relied upon to keep the plot moving.



Hawks saw limited release in the US, and was not slightly aided by an incomprehensibly inept advertising campaign, featuring a poster centered on two men (clearly not Dalton and Edwards) sitting in hospital gowns on a power line, surrounded by mourning doves, the men's backs to camera with the legend "They found a funny way of looking at life... Just when they needed it most."


The fact that Hawks was not a commercial success belies the fact that it was a film well worth making. At this peak in his career, Timothy Dalton, the actor, could have chosen any number of critically and financially safe projects to which he could have lent his name and talent. The fact that he chose a film that challenged his acting ability, while dealing with a complex and traditionally difficult subject, is a tribute to Timothy Dalton, the human being.

The meaning of the song I Will

BARRY GIBB:
This is a three-person song. It's a triangle. If this person doesn't stand by you, then I will.
 I'll be there. And you can reject me, and that's okay. And I'll go away, but I'll come back because I don't believe the guy you love is really the right person for you. I believe I am, and I'll come back if he disappears.

the meaning of the song Blue Island

BARRY GIBB:

 The other side, what we call heaven, in fact is blue and it's an island. Good or bad, this is where we all end up.
So we wrote 'Blue Island' and dedicated it for the children of Yugoslavia, because even though they may not survive, the hope is that they, as well as us, are all going to this beautiful place.

Robin gibb 60 th Birthday present

We discussed having a party for Robin's 60th Birthday, but he categorically did not wish to celebrate this milestone, having reached it without his twin brother Maurice, so we did not celebrate on that day, but lit a candle in the Prebendal Chapel instead. A couple of days later, we combined Christmas dinner with the giving of Birthday presents to Robin. He was delighted with a wonderful signed copy of an Operette in three acts by Noel Coward from Barry and Linda; Robin loves history, so we gave him a special pen made of metals and a part of the crystal chandelier from the Titanic, authenticated by Harland and Wolff. My cousin worked for many years at Harland and Wolff in Belfast. Out of respect for the survivors of the Titanic, the salvaged metals could not be used until after the last survivor passed away last year.

Dwina

Sir Tim Rice about the Bee Gees

Bee Gees 'on a par with Beatles'

The Bee Gees had more than 30 UK top 40 hit singles

The Bee Gees, whose founder Robin Gibb has died, had hits spanning five decades in genres from disco to country. Here, two songwriters explain why they were among the greatest ever songwriting teams.

"You can easily speak about them in the same breath as Lennon and McCartney and Elton John and Bernie Taupin," according to award-winning lyricist Sir Tim Rice.

The Bee Gees were on a par with The Beatles when it came to songwriting, he believes, adding that the band wrote songs that would be around forever.

Sir Tim, who presented Robin, Barry and Maurice Gibb with a lifetime achievement honour at the Brit Awards in 1997, said the trio's place in the songwriting pantheon was "almost as high as you can get".

THE BEE GEES' GREATEST HITS

• Massachusetts - UK number one, 1967
• I've Gotta Get A Message To You - UK number one, 1968
• How Can You Mend A Broken Heart? - US number one, 1971
• Jive Talkin' - US number one, 1975
• How Deep Is Your Love - US number one, 1977
• Stayin' Alive - US number one, 1978
• Night Fever - US & UK number one, 1978
• Tragedy - UK & US number one, 1979
• You Win Again - UK number one, 1987
• Not forgetting To Love Somebody - released in 1967, missed the UK top 40, but became one of their most enduring tunes

He told BBC News: "It took a bit of time for some of the more so-called intellectual end of the music business to realise this, but the public realised it almost from the word go."

Much of the group's appeal came down to Gibb's voice in the early days, Sir Tim believes.

"He had this extraordinary soulful voice, which was very unusual - especially from a boy still in his teens - on records like Massachusetts and I Started A Joke," he says.

"But they also had two other singers in Barry and Maurice, with Barry taking over a lot of the lead vocals in the disco era. Whatever style they presented their music in, it was always original.

"They were fantastic performers and singers but of course why they will last forever is the songs. They had jolly good melodies and very original lyrics and they were songs an awful lot of people could identify with."

Sir Tim, who has won numerous awards, including an Oscar, Grammy, Golden Globe and Tony, during an illustrious career, also praised the longevity of the band.

"In a way, unusually for most pop singers, they actually got better as they went on," he says.

"Islands In The Stream and I Am A Woman In Love and all these other songs were quite late in their career."

Sir Tim Rice presented the Bee Gees with an outstanding contribution award at The Brits in 1997

Jive Talkin', which gave them success in 1975 after three years out of the charts, was a pivotal release for them, Sir Tim explains.

"Jive Talkin' was the record that got them back in a big way when they'd been out of favour," he says.

"That one is quite overlooked - it was a huge hit, but the thing about it was that it really ushered in a new rhythm and it was a key record for the whole disco movement.

"They just got those rhythms going really early on and coupled them with fantastic melodies."

The trio's songwriting has influenced generations of artists, Sir Tim says.

Continue reading the main story

THE SONGWRITERS - OTHER HITS WRITTEN BY THE BEE GEES

• Islands In The Stream - released by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers in 1983
• Chain Reaction - a hit for Diana Ross in 1985
• Grease - Barry Gibb was the primary writer of the film musical's title track, performed by Frankie Valli
• Emotion - released by Samantha Sang in 1977 and covered by Destiny's Child in 2001
• Heartbreaker - Dionne Warwick's biggest solo hit of the 1980S
• Woman In Love - a number one around the world for Barbra Streisand in 1980

"Their influences are such that a lot of people from The Fugees to Take That, from blatant pop acts like Steps to quite sophisticated acts today, are covering their songs.

"And of course, people who have done their songs over the years include legendary artists like Al Green, Elvis, Nina Simone and Barbra Streisand. These are Division One artists."

Gary Osborne, songwriter and chairman of the Ivor Novello songwriting awards, suggests that if it had not been for the Beatles, the Bee Gees would have been recognised as the best writers of all time.

"The Beatles were in a different league, then there was the Gibbs, then there was everyone else," says Osborne, who has written tunes for Sir Elton John, Jeff Wayne and Kiki Dee.

"I don't even think [Mick] Jagger and [Keith] Richards could quibble with that, just in terms of the quality of the actual songs.

"In the dance era, the groove was very important, but the Bee Gees weren't about the groove. They were about the song, whereas the Rolling Stones are about the feel of the riffs.

"We love the vibe and the synth on Jive Talkin' and all those things, but when you strip them down to a guitar they would have worked in any era. They were just classy writers.

"They won 29 Ivor Novello Awards between them in pretty much every category we've got, culminating in the Academy Fellowship in 2005. And in songwriting terms that pretty much says it all.

"They just wrote brilliant tunes. It's not a mystery but it's magic."

TALKING MONEY WITH: BARRY GIBB;

TALKING MONEY WITH: BARRY GIBB;

 Harmony on the Stage, Solo at the Bank"

WHEN they stepped onstage at the Grammys ceremonies in February to accept the Legend Award, Barry and Robin Gibb, the two remaining Bee Gees, gave a touching tribute to their brother Maurice, who died a month earlier at the age of 53. Barry Gibb told the audience that ''the measure of a man is his family'' and gracefully handed the gold statue to Maurice's son, Adam.

It was an appearance that cast the Gibb family as close-knit. But it masked a dispute in recent years among the three brothers, whose falsetto singing in the soundtrack of the film ''Saturday Night Fever'' came to symbolize the harmonies of the disco world in the late 1970's. That soundtrack, which once sent polyester partyers swooping onto dance floors around the world, turned the Gibbs into megastars.
Though they
continued to work together on albums and their families live within minutes of one another in Miami, Barry Gibb, the oldest, has at times been unhappy with his brothers, in part over the management of the Gibb business interests.

 By January of this year, his relationship with Robin had so deteriorated that Barry did not even know that Robin had made ''Magnet,'' his first solo album since 1985, until it was released. And Barry said he was ''devastated'' to learn that Robin, in that album, had altered a classic Bee Gees song, ''Wish You Were Here.''

Although Barry Gibb's rapport with Maurice was better, in 2001 Barry severed ties with Michael Eaton, a British lawyer who represented the group for over 30 years. Maurice and Robin Gibb, who were fraternal twins, stayed with Mr. Eaton.
 But Barry hired his own team to direct his business affairs. And in a striking divergence from decades in which the trio acted as one, Barry decided last year to have Warner/Chappell Music, a part of AOL Time Warner, handle his interest in the song publishing business. His brothers stayed with the group's longtime publisher, the BMG unit of Bertelsmann.

The turmoil among family members has been resolved in recent weeks, Barry Gibb said in a telephone interview last Wednesday. But the differences among the Bee Gees, which he discussed during an interview earlier this year at his Miami mansion, offer insights into how complex family dynamics can affect what amounts to a successful family business.

'What changed for me was a midlife crisis,'' said Barry Gibb, who is now 57. Sitting in the living room of the mansion he has owned since 1981, and dressed casually in sports slacks, a blue shirt and a gray cardigan, he talked softly of the unhappiness that led him to rethink how his affairs were handled. Mr. Gibb, whose songwriting skills were responsible for many Bee Gees hits, said that about five years ago he began to look hard at how the group's music was being promoted and how his own finances were managed. He didn't like what he found. He didn't feel that the publishing rights to the group's songs were promoted aggressively enough in a time when popular songs are used not only for advertising but also in other commercial applications like background music on telephone systems. ''They were stagnating,'' he said.

Mr. Gibb also wanted a better handle on his investments, which were spread between Britain and the United States.
''WHEN you get to 50, you change,'' he said. ''I gained a fascination for the business, for understanding it, for archaeology, for ancient civilizations. You just reach an age where other things really start to interest you. So Mr. Gibb hired John Cousins, a British accountant who is senior partner of Cousins Brett, a firm that handles the business affairs of music groups. He also hired John Branca, a Hollywood music lawyer who sought a new music publishing deal for the Gibbs. But Robin and Maurice Gibb decided not to go along.Whether that decision was the cause of growing tension, or a result of it, Barry Gibb apparently wanted to establish more of his own identity.
 ''All three of us were living in each other's pockets for 35 years,'' Barry Gibb said. ''For the past five years, we were strangers.''

Among the sore points for Barry Gibb was family resistance to a suggestion he made five years ago that each group member write and produce for other people. ''Neither Robin nor Maurice would accept that,'' he said.
Though he did not name names, he said the tension had been exacerbated by a close family adviser, ''who wanted to keep them together until there was trouble, and then it was divide and conquer. Make sure each brother doesn't trust the other,'' he said.

Several associates said that Mr. Gibb believes that Mr. Eaton is the adviser who aggravated the tensions among the brothers. Mr. Gibb sounded neither angry nor bitter about the rift but appeared pleased that he had moved on and now had his own affairs under his control. There is a lot to tend to in his business empire.

The Bee Gees, for Brothers Gibb, are pop music royalty. The group, known for tight white jumpsuits and big hair during its prime, has written hits in every decade since the 1960's. The only group to outsell the Bee Gees has been the Beatles, according to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

After the death of Maurice Gibb, Barry and Robin said they would continue to work together, but not as the Bee Gees. The Bee Gees' sound was always a seemingly effortless harmony, but their energy and productivity were enormous. Their first hit, ''Spicks and Specks,'' which went to the top of the Australian charts in 1967, started a family career that produced a catalog of 600 songs and 28 albums.<''When I first heard them, I was astounded,'' said Ahmet M. Ertegun, a founder of Atlantic Records, the group's first American distributor. ''They had the most beautiful voices, unlike anything I had ever heard: beautiful clarity and a lot of feeling. It was the sound of brothers -- like the Everly Brothers. There is something about brothers harmonizing together. They were fantastic.''

With ups and downs, the Bee Gees created a roster of hits like ''Massachusetts,'' ''Stayin' Alive'' and ''How Deep Is Your Love.'' Barry Gibb produced successful albums for Dionne Warwick, Barbra Streisand and Diana Ross, as well as the best-selling version of ''Islands in the Stream'' performed by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers. The group was never a touring phenomenon, however, and so it did not cash in on an extremely lucrative side of the music business.

 Although Mr. Gibb would not reveal his net worth, several people close to him put the value of his real estate and investments at $30 million to $50 million, of which $20 million is invested in homes that include his Miami property, a 90-acre estate near London and homes he has bought for his mother and two of his five children. FOR roughly the last decade, his advisers have kept a large chunk of assets in very conservative currency funds that invested in British pounds and in dollars. Some assets were invested in Britain and some were handled by Goldman, Sachs in the United States. But during the last several years, Barry Gibb has consolidated all his holdings at Sanford C. Bernstein, the New York investment firm, in part because he grew unhappy with Goldman, Sachs. Much of the investment, he said, is in fixed-income securities.

 ''Goldman, Sachs put my kids' trusts in the stock market when I specifically asked them not to,'' he said. ''That broke the bond of trust. I decided I had to get my stuff out of there.'' He has never been much of a fan of the stock market, he said, believing that real estate and bonds gave him more security

. A Goldman, Sachs spokeswoman said that the firm had no records to suggest that Mr. Gibb did not want equities in his children's accounts or that he had ever been unhappy with the asset allocation. As for why he chose Sanford C. Bernstein, ''I thought they were bold, and they handled high-profile people,'' he said. ''I felt that Goldman, Sachs was handling 10,000 people.''

The Gibb brothers' real source of wealth is their publishing catalog, which experts say could fetch up to $150 million. Barry Gibb would get $60 million; he has a 40 percent stake in the catalog because he wrote more songs than his brothers did. The catalog reflects the ownership value of songs they have written and generates fees every time recordings of those songs are sold or played

By the end of 2005, Barry and Robin Gibb and Maurice's estate will also own the copyrights to almost all their recordings. Most of those copyrights are currently held by Universal Music, their record label and a unit of Vivendi Universal. A sale of the rights to their records could bring each Gibb $15 million to $20 million, several music industry experts estimate. Whether or not they sell the rights, Barry Gibb receives substantial income from publishing and record sales.
 One person who has seen the financial details of the catalogs said the music publishing revenue alone generates about $8 million a year, of which Barry Gibb keeps $3.2 million. Sales of older albums, along with the five new ones the brothers have released since 1993, run at about 2.4 million albums a year, according to Universal Music. Those sales could give Mr. Gibb about $1.5 million a year, a person close to Mr. Gibb said.

There have been a handful of tours, too. In 1998, Allen Kovac, the chief executive of 10th Street Entertainment, a firm in Los Angeles that manages the group, arranged six concerts, a tour that netted each brother about $2 million, according to another person close to the group.

The Bee Gees have their roots on the Isle of Man, where Barry was born in 1946. When he was 9, his father, Hugh Gibb, a dance band leader, moved the family to Brisbane, Australia. By then, Barry and his younger brothers, Robin and Maurice, were singing. ''Our parents came home one day and heard us, and they thought it was the radio, but our grandfather told them it was us,'' Barry recalled. The three started performing on local radio shows and by 1967 had their first hit. Hugh Gibb decided that he had to take them to London if they were to become world stars. Almost immediately, Robert Stigwood, an entertainment entrepreneur, signed them and the group took off. In 1975, Mr. Stigwood asked to borrow several songs the trio had written so he could use them for a new film, ''Saturday Night Fever.'' When the disco fever broke, the Bee Gees were pulled down with it.

 But Barry Gibb's songwriting and producing talent was still in demand and the family continued to record best-selling albums. Since the early 1960's, the brothers have had 14 that ranked among the 20 best-selling albums in the United States, according to the online music reference site allmusic.com. Their youngest brother, Andy, who died of a heart disorder in 1988 at the age of 30, was a solo pop music performer but collaborated with his brothers on some of his songs. The brothers have practically lived together throughout their careers.

The home of Barry Gibb and his wife, Linda, on Biscayne Bay is two doors down from Robin's home; Jennifer Lopez recently paid $9.5 million for the property in between. Maurice's family lives nearby. THE clannishness, however, has belied tension that began before Barry Gibb reached his midlife reassessment. Just as the Bee Gees' voices seem to meld so effortlessly, their creative efforts were supposed to be a blur, so no one would get more credit than anyone else, he said. But he had come to feel that his own role was not properly acknowledged. ''I made an album with Barbra Streisand that sold 15 million copies,'' he said, referring to ''Guilty,'' in 1980. ''We won a Grammy for best duet, but I was not allowed to mention that Grammy during interviews.

Over a long period of time, those things make you distraught. 'When you are in your 20's and 30's, you just want a hit record and you don't really care how it happens,'' he said. ''But when you are in your 50's, you want a hit record, and you want to be recognized as the person who came up with it.'' Whatever the reason, Barry Gibb began focusing on the Bee Gees' businesses, in part, several associates said, because he was not happy with how they were being handled.

 In a telephone interview, Mr. Eaton said he made good deals for the Gibbs. ''People in the industry know what I did for the family,'' he said.Barry Gibb's goal in hiring Mr. Branca, the Hollywood lawyer, was to have him represent all the Gibbs in a new publishing deal. Mr. Branca recalled that in his first meetings with Warner/Chappell, ''I thought I was representing the whole family, but at the last minute, the other two brothers would not go along.''

The chairman of BMG Music Publishing, Nicholas Firth, defended the decision of Robin and Maurice Gibb, asserting that BMG is the fastest-growing company in the industry.Barry Gibb also had issues with a contract that his lawyers had negotiated with Universal. He found that the records were ''cross collateralized,'' a common industry practice in which Universal could recover, from the sale of other albums, the advance it paid the group for an album that did not do well. ''It lit me up,'' Barry Gibb recalled. ''I had never agreed to it, and it was in the contract. That was when the trouble started.'' He said Robin, however, was less concerned about the business issues at the record label than with making another recording. He said his brothers were not upset because ''they didn't understand.'

Today, Barry Gibb seems convinced that focusing on business issues has paid off. He said he had made progress with Universal. The family struck a deal that lets it out of its contract by enabling it to compile another album of ''greatest hits'' rather than make a new recording. Now that he has streamlined his business affairs, and resolved the turmoil with his family, Mr. Gibb may well feel that his midlife crisis was worth it