{"blocks":[{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"

(
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"}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"The Bee Gees:
"}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"The Biography
"}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"by David N. Meyer"}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Da Capo Press"}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Barry Gibb, he of multiple No. 1 hits, the iconic “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack and glorious feathered hair, still needed a little something extra to entice women to bed."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"“Barry told his potential one-night stands that he had fallen in love with them at first sight and wanted to marry them,” Barry’s manager and longtime friend Dick Ashby said, according to biographer David N. Meyer. Gibb even carried a collection of cheap engagement rings."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"“Ashby tells of multiple German girls showing up backstage, each wearing a ring and trying desperately to see Barry,” Meyer writes. “It was up to Ashby to put them off.”"}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Even pop stars, it seems, need a little help. Or maybe it’s just the Bee Gees, who, despite the fact that they dominated popular music for an era, never seemed to achieve the mythic status of other groups. The Gibb brothers always appeared a little smaller than life."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"As Meyer writes: “The Bee Gees made hits for 40 years, they sold a quarter of a billion albums, everyone on earth knows their music and yet they still seem like they don’t really belong.”"}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Brothers Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb first came to fame in 1960, becoming regulars on TV and radio shows throughout Brisbane, Australia."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"The Bee Gees had some early pop success, including Barry’s song “To Love Somebody,” which was originally meant to be recorded by Otis Redding until his death in a 1967 plane crash."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"“If Barry Gibb never wrote another number . . . ‘To Love Somebody’ should be enough to cement his reputation as one of pop’s most important songwriters and perhaps the one with the most underappreciated range and breadth,” Meyer writes."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"But the Bee Gees became a phenomenon in the United States when their sound switched to disco."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"To hear Meyer tell it, though, some of the hits almost didn’t happen — at least not the way we know them."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"During the filming of “Saturday Night Fever,” the Bee Gees manager Robert Stigwood fired the first director of the film, John Avildsen. Among other disputes, Avildsen wanted the Bee Gees to add a slow bridge to the song “Stayin’ Alive” to allow John Travolta to romance his costar. The extra addition would make the song about eight minutes long, squelching the Bee Gees chance at putting the track out as a single."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Karl Richardson, a producer on the track, said, “There is a version of “Stayin’ Alive” where the song changes key and turns into a slow ballad for 16 or 32 bars . . . We turned to Barry and said, ‘We can’t use this. We’ve screwed up a number one record,’ and Barry said ‘Yeah, we have.’ So, we put the tape back together without the new bridge and called Stigwood to say ‘This is bogus. We’re not doing it.’ And that’s when Stigwood fired the director.”"}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Even with the success of “Fever” — the album is certified platinum 15 times — the Bee Gees stayed relatively, well, geeky."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"On the 1979 tour, rather than hitting the bars and nightclubs, the brother stayed in the cocoon of the hotel. “For all intents and purposes,” Robin said, “this tour is like being in prison. To go out and buy a shirt would require two hours planning for logistics and security.” They had to get a movie-theater manager to agree to close off a balcony so the band could see “Alien.”"}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Not that they didn’t succumb to the typical rock-star excesses. All three of the brothers experimented with drugs and/or alcohol at one point or another. “We were known affectionately throughout the music business as Pilly, Potty and Pissy,” Maurice says. “I was the piss artist [alcoholic], Barry was the pothead, and Robin was the pill-head.”"}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Twin brothers Maurice and Robin let their addictions get the best of them and succumbed from complications of their bad habits. Maurice Gibb died in 2003, originally diagnosed with a mild heart attack and an intestinal blockage. Robin Gibb died in 2012 from kidney failure. Meyer also dedicates an entire chapter to Andy Gibb, the younger brother to the Bee Gees triad, who dies at 30 years young from myocarditis, a fatal cardiac inflammation strongly linked with habitual cocaine use."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"The last Bee Gee, Barry, continues to perform at the age of 66. In a poignant moment he revealed, “My greatest regret is that every brother I’ve lost was in a moment when we were not getting on, and so I have to live with that. I’m the last man standing.”"}}]}

Christina Kolokathis

NypChristinaKolokathis@RoundtableIO

Bee Geeks