Robin Gibb R.I.P.

[john poole]

Robin Gibb has passed away aged 62.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18140862

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daEfLfoBKjM

[Dayna]

Oh man. I just now saw that on Facebook. There's another taken away by cancer. This is too sad.

[AndyM]

I know the Bee Gees are widely disdained in these here parts, and many other parts for that matter, and the disco falsetto is easily mocked, but they were great pop craftsmen and (speaking personally) made some brilliant records. Two favourites from different eras:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCRqAzCevsY
(Martin Carthy covered this, which says something)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWBFpoErDCM
(warning: includes The Falsetto, but if you can cope with that, it's a glorious piece of corporate pop worthy of being on 'Rumours').

[uiwangmike]

I know the Bee Gees are widely disdained in these here parts.

Not universally perhaps, but . . .
viewtopic.php?f=42&t=4995&p=25003&hilit=Bee+gees#p25003

[garth cartwright]

I bought a Best Of Bee Gees a few years back so I could listen to the hits I like - there are several - and having seen Candi Staton recently I wanted to listen to their version of Nights On Broadway. But I cannot find the damn disc. My fault for being so messy and not filing things properly. They were huge in NZ - and everywhere else - and my early teen years had a soundtrack of Bee Gees disco hits. The Guardian once sent me to review them at Wembley in the late-90s and they were dreadful - the qualities that made them so mockable were all on display and they seemingly had no idea who their audience was or how to pace the show: everyone would get up to boogie when a disco hit was played then they would immediately follow with several limp 60s or new songs. They were playing the Stadium but had given no thought to how to hold the audience's attention - just 3 blokes in leather jackets standing their singing in high voices - and only employed a four or five piece band so a lot of the backing music was from tapes. I didn't listen to them for a long time after that.

[AndyM]

That why records are better than live music! (Inserts smiley face that we don't have on this site.)

[Gordon Neill]

Always sad to see anyone go before their full term, but purely on a musical level I alays found myself completely unmoved by any Bee Gees track. Maybe I missed something, as I see on the BBC site that 'Sir' Tim Rice thinks they were on a par with the Beatles when it came to songwriting. Of course, I allow for the possibility that 'Sir' Tim is talking bollocks.

Oddly, though, while I could never cope with the Bee Gee falsetto, I did like a couple of cover versions of their stuff. Al Green's 'What Does it Take To Mend A Broken Heart' is quite lovely. Even better is James Carr's version of To Love Somebody.

[Rob Hall]

I fell much the same Gordon. I don't think that, as songwriters, they had anything like the range of Lennon & McCartney, and I'm no expert, but I don't think they had the melodic invention either. Don't get me wrong: they were clearly good at what they did, and they sold a lot of records. It's just that I didn't much like what they did after their first few hits here in the UK. I think it was "Saved By The Bell" that did it for me - I hated that record. Reading up on the Bee Gees earlier today, I found myself following the Robert Stigwood connection, and I wonder how much his early guidance and then later, that of Arif Mardin, had to do with their success.

[john poole]

Well I would never compare them to Lennon & McCartney, but I think I'd now rather hear their 1969 double album "Odessa", than I would "Abbey Road". I did always like the "Bee Gees' First" LP and 'To Love Somebody', but thought at the time that they had sold out horribly with 'Massachusetts'; now I pretty much like all their 60s output (and a little of their later work)

via Nile Rodgers' Facebook wall and Dangerous Minds - the pre-Chic Big Apple Band playing 'You Should Be Dancing' (Nile's tribute)
http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/ ... be_dancing

[AndyM]

Reading up on the Bee Gees earlier today, I found myself following the Robert Stigwood connection, and I wonder how much his early guidance and then later, that of Arif Mardin, had to do with their success.

Probably a great deal, like Epstein/Beatles, Martin/Beatles and Loog Oldham/Stones.

[john poole]

I think their arranger, Bill Shepherd, would have been more important than Robert Stigwood.

[AndyM]

I allow for the possibility that 'Sir' Tim is talking bollocks.

I think one usually should. His lyrics might be adduced as evidence in support.

[Rob Hall]

I think their arranger, Bill Shepherd, would have been more important than Robert Stigwood.

Good point. I had in mind musical direction ratherthan career development.

[Jamie Renton]

I thought I heard the ghost of Robin Gibb in my herb garden...but it was just the chives talking

[NormanD]

Oy a broch.