Sunday, June 29, 2014

childhood memories





Childhood:




Barry Gibb: "My childhood is fairly vivid to me. I remember standing in Spring Valley... Being about 4 or 5, I remember standing on the loading dock at the back of the ice cream factory pretending to perform." (1997)
Barry Gibb: " We were street kids. Our parents had no control over us. I had a great fear of he law, but I also was very rebellious. Life on the street became more fun, and we wouldn't come home until 11 at night, 12 at night. We'd be on the streets every night." (Daily Express, 1997)
Robin Gibb: "I think it was the environment, especially in Manchester because there were a lot of restless kids on the street. But the fortunate thing with us is that we had something that we wanted to pursue even that early and that was our music... Our father couldn't quite understand where we were coming from at first because we weren't taught anything. We suddenly ended up in the bedroom just harmonising together... We started singing on street corners and cinemas before the film started - it was kind of a grass roots kind of thing, very natural. My parents were a bit worried at first because they didn't know where it was going to end or whether they should encourage it." (1997)
Barry Gibb: "I think a lot of our father's frustration for not quite making it goes into us. We carry on from him." (1997)
Robin Gibb: "We were like the Bronte sisters in that we created our own world and fed off our fantasies and ideas. Once we'd created this inner world we immersed ourselves in that. The Brontes wrote stories, we wrote songs. Outsiders thought we were mad, but once we discovered music we never doubted we would succeed. And it was never about money, it was about being recognised and being liked." (Daily Express, 1997)
Robin Gibb: "When we were little kids we had natural- three-part harmony. We started singing in local theaters around Manchester [England] when Maurice and I were 7 or 8, and we turned professional around 1959-60, after the family had emigrated to Australia. Our dad, who'd been a professional drummer and bandleader for 20 years, was struggling to make ends meet; our mom was ill, and there were five kids. Singing wasn't a question of having a career at that point. It was a question of survival. We started performing between the races at the Redcliffe Speedway in Brisbane, and then we put an act together for the Australian nightclub circuit. That's when we began to have career ambitions." (TV Guide, 1979)

Maurice Gibb: "At school we sang to the other kids. They didn't like us much, but we used to stand against the wall, tell jokes and sing. In fact, most choirs we were in at school, we were thrown out of so it is interesting that we ended up doing what we did. Most of the schools didn't like us harmonising to 'God Save The Queen'. We didn't mean to. It's just that we sang it that way, and naturally they said, 'What are you doing? Get out of my class!'" (1997)
"

Meaning of Songs

                                                
           
 
       
Clos

 
 
THE MEANING OF SONGSCollaborator: Stephan Koenig
ALONE (1997) BARRY GIBB: What the song's really about is that little child inside. It's that abstract feeling we all have that no matter how close or how many relatives we have or how many people around us we love, we still feel alone. There's an aloneness about all of us. That "How do I, why is it always end up alone?" Well, I'm not alone, but I might feel alone, that no one really thinks the way I do. I guess that's because everybody's unique in their own way. We all do feel the same way about most things, but why is it that nobody feels the same way I do about everything? So you're alone. You have that feeling sometimes.

 
BARKER OF THE UFO (1967)
MAURICE GIBB: Always with experimentation in mind, this was a fun time. The memories of this session will always be remembered. I loved the tuba and reverse cymbal effect.

 
BLUE ISLAND (1993)
BARRY GIBB: The other side, what we call heaven, in fact is blue and it's an island. And from there we are processed before we move on to our next reality. 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.
BOOGIE CHILD (1976)
MAURICE GIBB: From the CHILDREN OF THE WORLD album, recorded at Criteria Studios in North Miami. The days when we were discovering probably one of the finest studios in America. Thanks Mack
CHARADE (1974)
MAURICE GIBB: THE song for making love.
COUNTRY WOMAN (1971)
MAURICE GIBB: My country, or swamp music period. Really a warm up to much better songs. Johnny Cash, you have nothing to worry about. 
EDGE OF THE UNIVERSE (1976)
BARRY GIBB: A humorous flight of fancy about an alien and his pet dog. Baffling really.
ELISA (1972)
MAURICE GIBB: One of the rare tracks recorded in L.A., CA that was briefly available as a B-side
FANNY (BE TENDER WITH MY LOVE) (1975)
MAURICE GIBB: Without a doubt one of the best best R&B songs we ever wrote. I love Arif Mardin's production and his understanding from three brothers who love Rhythm 'n'Blues. This one's for you Arif
FIRST OF MAY (1969)
BARRY GIBB: 'First of May,' that was my dog's birthday. When Linda and I first moved into an apartment near St Paul's Cathedral, we got ourselves a Pyranian mountain dog and named him Barnaby. The idea came from then. Sad to say, Barnaby's gone but the song lives on.
HOW CAN YOU MEND A BROKEN HEART (1971)
BARRY GIBB: Fifteen months after we broke up, Robin dropped into my place in Kensington. It was a cold, wet day and this song was born. We finished it with Mo, and the Bee Gees were reborn.
HOW DEEP IS YOUR LOVE (1977)
ROBIN GIBB: Personalities are examined in this tune, but female or male aren't even mentioned. It has universal connotations and it clicks with everyone. Before we cut the song we knew we could fuse some of our own personalities into the track. Love is the anchor, it's a foundation.
I STARTED A JOKE (1968)
ROBIN GIBB: The idea for the song came when I was sitting on a plane over Germany, and I heard a melody in the droning of the engine. As soon as I got on the ground that night I completed the song with Barry and Maurice. To me, that was a very spiritual song, about faith and survival in life. It wasn't a love song, it was one of the first songs we wrote about struggling to survive emotionally alone in the world.
You can read an interpretation of this song at Pat Wong's site.
IF I CAN'T HAVE YOU (1977)
MAURICE GIBB: Would you believe originally written for ABBA (Sweden's famous group) on the steps of the Chateau d'Herouville Studios in France. 
I'M WEEPING (1970)
ROBIN GIBB: This is a song of mine I wrote on holiday in Madeira and as normal in my songs (I stick to a rule book!) I don’t mention the title I was thinking about my past.
IMMORTALITY (1998)
BARRY GIBB: It's about making your mark in life and doing something meaningful.
I.O.I.O. (1969)
MAURICE GIBB: Barry's African jaunt brought this song about; we finished it together in a small studio off Marble Arch in London. Fun times
IRRESISTIBLE FORCE (1997)
BARRY GIBB: An irresistible force meeting an immovable object. That is life, isn't it? That is really a way of saying that life just never really is a good, clear, luck-filled path. There's an obstacle at every turn. It's a like a fantastic video game. And there's always going to be an immovable object.
I'VE GOTTA GET A MESSAGE TO YOU (1968)
BARRY GIBB: It's about a person who is about to die. He's going to his death because he has committed a murder.
ROBIN GIBB: He is talking to a preacher and he wants to get a message to his girlfriend or wife that he is sorry and wants to apologise. He's killed a man who's been carrying on with his wife, and he wants to get a message to her before he dies.
I WILL (1997)
BARRY GIBB: This is a three-person song. A triangle is also a lot of fun to write about. 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 am, and I'll come back if he disappears. I can take it. You can have a two-person song, three or four personalities which maybe you don't want to write about.
JULIET (1983)
ROBIN GIBB: The story is about a man really having his fantasies. It's a love fantasy and she doesn't really exist in the song.

ROBIN GIBB: This song went through quite a few changes before arriving at Juliet, one of them being HOUSE OF SHAME which is, in fact, the name of a new song featured on ONE. Juliet was an enormous hit all over Europe, and particularly in Germany, a country that has always given the Bee Gees massive support. If we do have a guardian angel, he's probably German. 
JUMBO (1968)
BARRY GIBB: Mo playing the Beatles mellotron, a very experimental period. I think it's about a child's fantasy elephant, but when I listen again there are some very phallic overtones.
LONELY DAYS (1970)
MAURICE GIBB: I started playing the piano and the three of us began to create out first number one in America. The same night we recorded HOW CAN YOU MEND A BROKEN HEART, our second number one-thank you America.
MASSACHUSETTS (1967)
BARRY GIBB: It's basically antiflower power... Don't go to San Francisco, come home... We wanted to write the opposite of what it's like to lose somebody who went to San Francisco. The lights all went out in Massachusetts because everybody went to San Francisco, because they left.
ROBIN GIBB: It is not talking about people going back to Massachusetts. It represents all the people who want to go back to somewhere or something. It is all about people who want to escape.
MELODY FAIR (1971)
MAURICE GIBB: From the Motion Picture MELODY, or S.W.A.L.K., David Putnam's first film. He used a lot of our early singles. A lovely movie based on kids falling in love for the first time. This is, I think, one of our best productions in simplicity and warmth.
MORE THAN A WOMAN (1977)
MAURICE GIBB: This is a song we wrote with unimaginable results. Tavares had a big hit with it. One of the songs that made SNF such a success, and when the whole world was dancing.
MY THING (1969)
A song dedicated to Maurice's Pyrenean mountain dog Aston.
NEW YORK MINING DISASTER 1941 (1967)
BARRY GIBB: It's about some people trapped in a mine. The song itself was really about the Aberfan mining disaster in Wales, killing over two hundred children. Quite sad really.
ROBIN GIBB: It was written at Polydor Records on a staircase.
BARRY GIBB: We couldn't see each other. We were just sitting in the dark and that's where the idea sprang from. What would it be like trapped in a mine and you can't see each other.
ON TIME (1971)
MAURICE GIBB: A song I wrote in '71 in Maryland, US during my Swamp period, also used in a film score I did called A BREED APART
ORDINARY LIVES (1989)
BARRY GIBB: It's a reflection about ourselves before we became famous –our way of saying we're just ordinary people. The lines 'Say goodbye cruel world / No pity no gain tonight / Whatever the cost all is lost' is also a reflection on Andy... that's what he did.
ROBIN GIBB: Even if unintentionally.
MAURICE GIBB: He was just an ordinary guy, really.
BARRY GIBB: Losing a member of the family who was that close changes you spiritually. A lot of the album [One] results from this new insight. You can find sentences here and there throughout the album that apply to Andy. 'Goodbye cruel world,' again, can mean how cruel the world can be when you're not doing well, especially in this business. You go two years without a hit, and they can treat you like you never had one to begin with. No one wanted to talk about Orbison for ten years before his induction into the Hall of Fame and the Wilburys. Of course, the thing's happened to us -- three times.
PAYING THE PRICE OF LOVE (1993)
BARRY GIBB: It's about a wonderful relationship that's gone wrong, and the person singing the song is, as always, paying the price... the person who's most in love.
PORTRAIT OF LOUISE (1970)
BARRY GIBB: I wrote this one. It’s simply a song about love, but the title doesn’t come into the words at all. The idea of the words is that if you fall in love with a woman, you’re not interested in what she’s been. Musically it’s a slight tribute to the Searchers, not a take off, just a tribute. They had some beautiful sounds.
RAILROAD (1969)
MAURICE GIBB: My first and last attempt at going solo. Without my brothers, ANTICLIMATIC.
SAVED BY THE BELL (1969)
ROBIN GIBB: It was a song about sacrifice, about really giving yourself to somebody, almost completely. The relationship was about to come to an end and he was rescued by his own awareness on whether the relationship is working, or by the other person, and you hear that line, 'Saved by the bell'
SINCERE RELATION (1970)
ROBIN GIBB: This song includes harpsichord, and is my tribute to my late father in law George Hullis, who was 60 when he died unexpectedly a while ago. He spent the last three days of his life in my house, and he told me he was going to die.
SINKING SHIPS (1968)
MAURICE GIBB: Bill Shepherd (our arranger and master of the orchestra in the late '60s and early '70s) once said to me "Let's build it beautifully", and he did. Bill, we will never forget you.
SIR GEOFFREY SAVED THE WORLD (1967)
MAURICE GIBB: One of my favourite bass lines and obvious Beatles influences here; but, what the hell, they were great songwriters and we loved what they did.
SMOKE AND MIRRORS (1995)
BARRY GIBB: I think this is a really important statement. The world of illusion, the idea that none of us are really what we seem to be. All of these songs are not just songs as such. There's a lot of examination of yourself in these songs. We write from life observation. So, we'll go away and just observe the culture. And just for me, the one phrase that epitomizes the whole of last year [1995] is 'Smoke & Mirrors.' The way we sort of sit and around and talk about, 'What do we do about starvation in Zaire?' We all sit down and talk. And you see all these people around big tables talking about starvation in Zaire instead of actually doing something. And meanwhile, thousands more children have died within the last hour, and no one really gives it that kind of level of thought. To me, that's the way this last year has been on a world level. You observe the culture, you take it in and things ferment and ideas come from that. And I kept hearing this phrase all year, and that is really how life is today, it's all smoke and mirrors. That's what the song is.
STAYIN' ALIVE (1977)
BARRY GIBB: Everybody struggles against the world, fighting all the bullshit and things that can drag you down. And it really is a victory just to survive.
ROBIN GIBB: The lyrics state the scenario of survival in the city.
THE FIRST MISTAKE I MADE (1970)
BARRY GIBB: This is one I wrote and sung. It features a hook a lot of people play on, but it’s a natural commercial hook. It’s the story of somebody who’s gone through life and never knew his mother and father ... and how everything he did in his life was the first mistake he made.
THIS IS WHERE I CAME IN (2001)
BARRY GIBB: The title is a sardonic remark about ourselves. It's our way of saying that nothing ever really changes. It's very honest and it reflects our feelings about everything that's happened to us in the past 30 years.
MAURICE GIBB: It's just the simplicity of it that I love. The guitars were used on it are very old guitars - two of the guitars I used belonged to The Beatles. It just came out that way.
TOMORROW TOMORROW (1969)
MAURICE GIBB: As always thinking ahead, this was the first track that Barry and I recorded as a duet. Another great arrangement by Bill Shepherd
TOO MUCH HEAVEN (1978)
ROBIN GIBB: The starving children of the world was the genesis of this song. 1979, early in the evolution of music charity efforts, we donated this one to Unicef and its worldwide work which we felt strongly about.
'I can see a new tomorrow' does demonstrate a positive aspect about moving forward, even though bad things do happen.
TRAFALGAR (1971)
MAURICE GIBB: It's a song about a very lonely guy who lives in London and spends a lot of his time feeding the pigeons in Trafalgar Square.
WEDDING DAY (2001)
BARRY GIBB: That was one of our titles, and we thought, let's write a song about people getting married... Nobody really does that anymore, and I thought it would be nice to have a nice song on the album so that everyone may sing it or any couple may dance to it on their wedding day.
WISH YOU WERE HERE (1988)
BARRY GIBB: A song written for Andy, unconciously, a week after he died.
ROBIN GIBB: It happened naturally. We didn't want anything artificial with a title like 'Andy's Song'.
MAURICE GIBB: It's something that everybody can identify with. We came up with the title at a hotel, sort of like a belated postcard 'wishing you were here.' We realized we were writing about Andy without having thought about it.
WITH MY EYES CLOSED (1997)
BARRY GIBB: The song is basically about love at great distance. When you can't be with the person you love. And you want to tell them, and you want to send a message. When I was a kid, I would lie in bed at night, and I had a crush on this girl, and I would talk to her going to sleep. I would always make believe that she could hear what I was saying. And she used to say the same thing to me. So that little thing, that little relationship that I had when I was fourteen years old has always sort of stuck with me. I guess we all did that, you know, the first time you fall in love. But to me, that's what the song means. I can touch you. You don't have to be bad. Sex isn't just it. There's all kinds of feelings. [reciting the lyrics] 'I can touch you with my eyes closed. I can feel you when you're near me. I can see you with my eyes closed. I can touch you with my hands tied' And all of those feelings are really what goes through your head when you're really in love, and the person you love is very far away.
WORLD (1967)
BARRY GIBB: It goes 'Now I've found that the world is round and of course it rains everyday.' What we are saying is that you can't live in your own little world, because somewhere there's trouble -rain- and you must face up to it. It may be sun, flowers and beauty in England today, but it's rain and misery somewhere else. It's always raining somewhere in the world for somebody.

MAURICE GIBB: A song we recorded in '67. Vivid memories of Robin's great performance on the organ, and me playing a very compressed piano (which we also used on WORDS). A big thank you to Mike Clayton, our engineer, for helping us in the making of this epic
WORDS (1968)
ROBIN GIBB: It reflects a mood. It was written after an argument. Barry had been arguing with someone, I had been arguing with someone and happened to be in the same mood. The arguments were about absolutely nothing. They were just words. That is what the song is all about, words can make you happy or words can make you sad.
YOU SHOULD BE DANCING (1976)
BARRY GIBB: You can't take songs like this too seriously. It was actually a very exhilarating time, settling in Miami. We had a great band and this song came from that feeling.

Barry Gibb: Let It Rain Gala

Barry Gibb: Let It Rain Gala
january 23Th 2004
Barry Gibb was the guest artist at the Let It Rain Gala hosted by Lea and Roy Black to benefit the Bay Point School (Key Biscayne, Miami). Bay Point School is a boarding school program for students with behaviour problems.

He sang:

1. Memphis, Tennesse
2. Be Bop A Lula
3. Will You Love Me Tomorrow?
4. Words
5. I Can't Stop Loving You
6. To love somebody
7. Islands In The Stream
8. You'll Never Walk Alone
9. Stayin' Alive / You Should Be Dancing

Jon Warech wrote this review for the
Friday Night Fever

 
Criminal defense attorney Roy Black and wife Lea hosted a charity gala event at their gorgeous Coral Gables home last Friday to raise funds for Bay Point Schools, a boarding school for troubled teens. Named the “Let It Rain” Gala because of last years downpour during party hours, the evening brought out 450 of South Florida’s elite with ticket packages ranging from $500 to $10,000. All it was raining was money this year, as people splurged on auction items like a Madonna-autographed guitar and a night in the former Versace mansion. Some neighborhood names, like Eileen B.’s Eileen Burstyn and Ted Fine, principal of The Home of Fine Decorators, joined the South Beach movers and shakers in the upscale charity function that ultimately raised a half-million dollars.
The highlight of the night was a performance by Bee Gee, Barry Gibb. I was by no means a diehard Bee Gees fan before the night, as I used to equate the Bee Gees with turning sweathog John Travolta into a 70’s ballerina.  In fact, it wasn’t even long ago that I found out it was them and not Alvin and the Chipmunks who sang “Staying Alive.” But, standing in the Black’s home watching Gibb changed my outlook entirely.
Gibb belted out songs like “Memphis, Tennessee,” “Be-Bop-A-Lula,” and “To Love Somebody” and then tore into a medley beginning with “Staying Alive.” It was probably the most incredible live music experience of my life – topping both the Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney South Florida concerts. It wasn’t just the fact that he was singing to a small VIP crowd of 225 people or that I stood at an arm’s length from a musical talent that shaped a generation. What made the night special was the power of Gibb’s voice, which lifted the crowd and forced even the most plastic people (literally) in the room to escape high society momentarily and get lost in rock and roll.
 

Being banned from my children drove me to the brink of madness


Being banned from my children drove me to the brink of madness - and the truth about me and Gordon Brown"
(
Daily Mail, June 1 2008)

Any father enduring the anguish of an enforced estrangement from his children will know the grief felt by Robin Gibb.

Having been denied access to his daughter and elder son for six years after his first marriage ended in divorce, the Bee Gee compares the sense of loss to bereavement.

'I felt as if I was on the verge of madness,' he says.

It was distressing and very traumatic because I had no contact whatsoever. There was no response to my calls, no acknowledgement of my gifts, no letters. I felt dejected, rejected, worthless. Nobody was telling me anything about my kids.

'You can achieve great things in life professionally, but if your children are being kept away from you, you feel empty. Emotionally, mentally and spiritually I felt abandoned.

'I had some of my blackest moments during those lost years when my children became strangers to me. I think the bleakness I felt was matched only when my twin brother Maurice died.'

Maurice Gibb, one third of that stupendously successful pop trio the Bee Gees, died prematurely five years ago from complications caused by a burst intestine, leaving Robin and their elder brother Barry custodians of a catalogue of hit songs unrivalled in popularity, except by The Beatles.

But as Robin's musical career burgeoned, his personal life was crumbling. His divorce from first wife Molly Hullis, in 1980, was followed by the painful separation from his son, Spencer, and daughter, Melissa, who were then aged six and four respectively.

Now 58, Robin, is contentedly married to his second wife, Dwina, with whom he has a son, the composer and actor Robin-John.

But today, 18 years after he and his children were eventually reunited, he is exhuming his past grief to give solace and hope to others.

He is also doing so because he was approached directly by the Prime Minister, who has enlisted him to support a government-backed campaign, Parent Know How, aimed at encouraging fathers separated from their children to stay in touch.

'I've had a relationship with Gordon [Brown] for a number of years,' explains Robin. 'He's a big fan of my music and he listens to it every day.'

Is the PM fond of any particular song? 'He likes all our stuff. He says our music is timeless,' he discloses.

'He spoke to me directly about the campaign - we quite often have supper together - and I said as long as I could be positive and useful, I would be happy to use my own experience to help others.

'You don't really understand other people's problems until you've experienced them yourself.

'There is no replacement for a father, and there are so many of them out there in the world who love their children dearly but who are not able to spend the time they should with them.

'All I can say to those who are experiencing a life-changing divorce is: "I got through it."

'You have to think of the children in everything. Their needs are paramount. In the end, they will make everything right. Kids are nature's way of getting us all on the right path.'

Robin's personal trauma began when Molly - whom he met when she was a secretary with Brian Epstein's organisation - filed for divorce.

They had married in 1968 when he was 18 and she 21. In the ensuing years, the Bees Gees became a worldwide phenomenon; creators of the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever and pioneers of a new dance music called disco.

But global success had its downside: Robin's rock-star lifestyle and protracted absences from home irked his young wife so much that she began an affair. When she sought a divorce, she also acquired a court order forbidding Robin from seeing their children.

'I felt betrayed,' he says now. 'Molly was unfaithful to me, but it's not as important now as it was then. What is important is my relationship with the children.

'I was absent for six of their formative years. It was terrible. No one would tell me where they were.

'I learned later that they had been spirited off to relatives to Molly's brother's house in the north. My relationship with them just ended. I couldn't understand why Molly didn't want me in the parental loop.

'Twenty-five years ago, the law favoured mothers without question. As a father, I was at a disadvantage. I worked in the music industry; that was perceived as a further weakness because Molly said I was on the road all the time and never at home.

'My lifestyle was seen as rather bohemian. The courts didn't understand it and took a very Victorian view of it.

'I didn't have affairs. But perhaps Molly had too much time on her hands while I was away, because she did have a relationship - which I'm not condemning. What I fail to understand is why the children had to be taken out of my life.

'I went to great lengths to see Melissa and Spencer, but every attempt I made through the courts failed. As the years passed, my sense of urgency increased.

'I knew how important it was to get back with the kids so we could make up for lost time. Molly was, and is, a fine mother but they needed a father's influence, too.

There were black moments of pure misery when I felt I'd go mad, but I never gave up. I marked every Christmas. I sent bikes for their birthdays; letters and cards, but there was never a response. It was very distressing.'

After four years of fruitless applications through the courts, Robin abandoned his attempts to secure a legal rapprochement. He did not, however, relinquish hope.

'And I never stopped loving them,' he says simply.

Finally, Molly relented. 'Maybe my stopping the legal attempts was a factor in persuading her,' he says.

In any event, he prepared for his first meeting with his children, after what he calls 'those six years in the wilderness', with a potent mix of joy and trepidation. A family friend was recruited to act as mediator.

He drove Spencer, then 12, and ten-year-old Melissa, to a pantomime where Robin was waiting for them. He was under no illusion that re-creating a relationship would be easy. He did not indulge in mawkish displays of affection.

'I was too nervous for tears,' he recalls. 'Re-establishing myself as their father was very hard. It was like getting to know two kids who were little strangers to me.'

In time, however, Melissa (now 28) and Spencer (30) were ready to spend their first night with Robin, his second wife, Dwina, and their little half-brother, Robin-John, at their former monastery home in Thame, Oxfordshire.

The place is a child's fantasy; a sprawling medieval mini-village in the mode of Harry Potter's Hogwarts, with flag-stoned corridors, wending staircases and dimly-lit rooms adorned with oil paintings.

Two venerable stone griffins guard the heavy oak front door where Dwina, smiley, blonde and attended by two Irish wolfhounds, welcomes me with a hug.

Robin is less effusive. Thin to the point of gauntness, he speaks in flat, measured Northern tones. (He spent an impoverished boyhood in Manchester before the family decamped to Australia.)

His humour is dry. There is a sense he never exaggerates a point; never over-plays an emotion.

'I remember thinking when the kids first came to stay how incredible it was that they were with me again. It felt strange,' he says. 'To start with, I didn't know if they were accepting me or just play-acting.

'It took a huge investment in time, energy and devotion to become their father again. I think it took five or six years: a year of rebuilding for every one we spent apart.

'At the start, Melissa had a problem with calling me "Dad". She didn't refer to me by name at all, and it hurt a little. But I was much more concerned about how the kids felt than how I was.'

How did he know when Spencer - now a musician in Texas - and Melissa, a London-based translator of Arabic, had finally embraced him as their father?

'There was a landmark moment,' he recalls. 'They just rang out of the blue and said: "We're coming over." Then, as they got older, they just started to show up unannounced. That was when I knew I had them back.'

Around the sitting room, photos of all three children are displayed. Robin and Dwina, an artist, poet and famously, a Druid, have been married for 23 years and they present a picture of easy domestic contentment.

So it is hard to credit that Robin once teased a New York interviewer that Dwina was a 'lipstick lesbian' and that they enjoyed three-in-abed romps with her girlfriends.

He has since admitted that the remarks were a tantalising fiction. But I ask anyway, if he really did enjoy an open marriage?

'When it comes to the test, I don't think any marriage can be open,' he says. 'The suggestion does crop up and you have to quell it.'

So is his marriage monogamous? 'Yes,' he says. Life, he observes, is often far more prosaic than rumour.

'Every man likes an adventurous woman, and people in the film and music industry are often perceived as larger than life,' he says.

'But the reality is pretty boring. 'Most of the time, real life is just sitting at home, as I'm doing now, enjoying a cup of tea.'

Celebrity, fame, spectacular wealth and influential friends may be the products of Robin Gibb's professional success. But he values family and the duties and joys of parenthood beyond them all.

'All that matters now is that they remain close to their mother and me - and that they know I never stopped loving them

ROCKWIRED INTERVIEWS SAMANTHA GIBB




SHINE A LIGHT ON MESAMANTHA GIBB RELEASES THE DOCUMENTARY FILM
'
A NASHVILLE STATE OF MIND'

EXPOSING THE COUNTRY MUSIC CAPITOL'S
ALTERNATIVE MUSIC SCENE:

A ROCKWIRED EXCLUSIVE

http://www.rockwired.com/samanthagibb.jpg
INTERVIEWED BY BRIAN LUSH
There are a lot of reasons for people to damn the music industry. You can turn on the radio or maybe  catch a music video at six in the morning on VH-1 (the only time they ever play music videos) and come to the conclusion that it's all cookie-cutter music with tunes that sound vaguely similar to each other with a few sexy pouts thrown in for good measure. As a matter fact when anything music-related is newsworthy, it has something to do with MADONNA's divorce or BRITNEY shaving her head.  Singer SAMANTHA GIBB ( daughter of the late MAURICE GIBB of THE BEE GEES) had reason to believe that all music was created equal by that same cynical, chain-smoking music executive, rendering the whole creative process behind music making obsolete. However it was a fateful venture to Nashville, TN - a city exalted by red states everywhere as the home of country music - where GIBB and her band M.E.G. got the shot in the arm that they needed and from there on began churning out song after song. After meeting numerous fellow songwriters, GIBB called up some friends, got  a camera crew set up, and started filming everything that they saw. The end result is a documentary film entitled A NASHVILLE STATE OF MIND which shines a light on an exciting alternative music scene from a town that is better known for it's twang.

ROCKWIRED spoke with SAMANTHA GIBB Over the phone regarding the documentary. Here is how it went.

I understand that you're time is spent going back and forth between Los Angeles and Nashville. Where are you now?
I'm out here (in Los Angeles) for just a little bit. My fiancee and I are packing up and moving to Nashville on December 15th. I came out here to live with him for a while as he was working and now we're going back to Nashville.

You are the executive producer for the film. How hands-on were you in the production?
I had everything to do with it. I went Nashville with my band M.E.G. and saw what was going on. It needed to be captured on film and I thought that making a documentary was the best way to do that. From there, I called up my friends who have a multi-media company in Miami and they flew out and set up and they filmed it. My friend JOHN VOGEL was one of the directors on the film. He and I went back and forth on different points and how to focus and what ways to go around certain things, but otherwise, I was involved with both the post production and pre-production. So, it was my baby.

So the film documents your band specifically going through the whole Nashville experience?
It taps onto us just because it was when we moved there but it really focuses on all of the other artists and their performances and what they do and what they go through and about the songs and the community and juggling work with doing shows.

What prompted the move to Nashville in the first place?
My band is an alternative rock band so in the beginning we didn't think anything about going to Nashville. We had been working with the MCGHEEs (DOC and SCOTT MCGHEE of MCGHEE ENTERTAINMENT). They managed KISS and they've been friends of mine and my family for a while and my band. My partner and I would always go in and have meetings with them and just kind figure out what to do next with the band. They were kind of guiding us. I spoke with DOC about wanting to go and play out and he had mentioned Nashville. He had been going out there a lot and SCOTT had been living there and suggested that we check it out. So we decided to do a month, so we got there and after just a few days, we fell in love with it.

Other than the obvious, what drew you to music in the beginning?
I obviously grew up with it. I was lucky enough to be around music my whole life so it really set a high standard for what I wanted to do if I were to be in music and what I thought was good music because I would watch my dad and my uncles and my dad would be on the piano and the level of harmony and the level  of music; everything was just up to par. It was just the best. I knew that for myself going into music, I loved it no matter what and it just came naturally to me. My Dad helped guide me along in what I loved to do and put me in some good directions. Me and the band were actually working with him right before he passed away and that was probably about a year and a half before we decided to go to Nashville. Things kind of stopped, at least for me, because we were in the studio almost every day with my Dad. It was a very difficult thing for me to go through, and even for my partner because we were all very close to him. As far as music was concerned, we kept trying to write and come up with some songs. I was writing as much as possible, but I was feeling really uninspired. Nothing was pushing us. Then we went to Nashville for a month and we thought that we would do as many shows as possible and see what happens. When we went there, all of a sudden, I'm playing more guitar and the writing was just coming out of us. As soon as we arrived, the inspiration was instantaneous. It was amazing! Two days in, we sat around with a group of guys and girls who were all musicians, and everyone is passing a guitar around and passing a bottle around and sitting in a living room and harmonizing and singing songs. It was just unbelievable. With every single person, it was like 'Who are you? Where did you come from?" Their voices and the music that they were playing was unbelievable and they were writing it themselves. It was inspiring and that gave me and my band a huge burst of energy when it came to writing and to music and it got us back on track from where we were left.

In making this documentary, what was the biggest surprise for you?
I think that it came out exactly how I imagined. I remember talking with by business partner and my co-writer about these artists that we were meeting like JEREMY LISTER, RICKY YOUNG, and AARON WINTER and how they were just amazing artists and I remember thinking that they needed to be seen in the right light. As I was listening to them and watching them, I thought that they had this aura about them like they should be on VH-1 or something like that. These people looked like they had been in the music business for years yet they are young and so incredibly talented. The only thing is that when you see them at these clubs, people are talking or the lighting isn't right on them or the sound isn't good and with this documentary, the idea was to show them in that light that they should be seen in in order for your average MTV viewer to watch or else they'll change the channel. The fact that the documentary actually came out exactly as I had envisioned was surprising to me. I grew up with things like MTV, so before going to Nashville and before working on this project I didn't realize that there were still artists that lived and breathed music. I was watching this movie recently called 'THE FESTIVAL EXPRESS' and it's got JANIS JOPLIN, THE GRATEFUL DEAD, and BUDDY GUY and they are all on this train that was rented by this producer that wanted to put this tour together for two weeks and set up all of these dates. This was before these guys really became famous, and to watch them together in this little cabin on this train and just jamming and hanging out is phenomenal. That was exactly what I saw in Nashville. It's inspiring to know that this spirit still exists. You don't need your manufactured pop and rock bands that are out there right now. The real musicians are in there in Nashville and they are not getting any work. They are real and they are raw.

Are there any additional things you are working on in getting the film released?
At the moment, I'm working on getting all of my clearances together and making sure that everything is all in order. I'm also working on the distribution as well.

What's your reaction to critical acclaim that your film has received?
A lot of stuff was written following the first film festival that we had entered into. A lot of it was exactly what we wanted. What we captured was just a piece of those artists and musicians and just a couple of them. Our friend JEREMY in the film states that when people ask him to give them some artists and bands in Nashville that he thinks are good and he literally gives them a list of forty people. There is so much amazing talent there.

What is your hope for this film?
I would love someone to want to go and investigate the music of Nashville. Not just Nashville - I would like people to keep their eyes and their ears opened to so many amazing artists out there that are making really great music. All of these people coming together to make music is so significant and I think that it is important for people to want to investigate it and see more. I would like people to come away and say 'I've got to see more!' and become fans of real music and not just what they see on television.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Ossie Byrne and The Bee Gees

THE ONE-EYED FAN IN THE BUTCHER’S STOREROOM

The Bee Gees at Ossie Byrne’s St. Clair Recording Studio, 56 Queens Rd., Hurstville

The Bee Gees are now regarded as one of the great phenomena of popular music. The most successful group to ever come from Australia, they are reputed to have sold 110 million records, over 20 million copies of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack alone. However, the eight years that the English show-biz brothers spent in Australia weren’t nearly as profitable. They were once so broke they couldn’t even afford guitar strings. What follows is the story of how a one-eyed fan working in a butcher’s storeroom in suburban Hurstville helped change their fortunes.

It’s early 1966 and the Bee Gees are still serving a gruelling apprenticeship. There’s the occasional concert and TV appearance, and there’s the more usual treadmill of clubs, RSL’s and beer-barns. They’ve issued 9 failed singles. Hip fans give them no respect. They’re called Beatle imitators, young upstarts, whingeing Poms. Life could be better. Their Leedon Records contract has been taken over by Spin Records, a new independent label owned by Australian Consolidated Press, plus four directors of Everybody’s magazine, and Sydney entrepreneur, Harry M. Miller. Heading Spin Records is an American, Nat Kipner, songwriter, record and TV producer, and WW2 U.S. Airforce veteran. He’d worked in Aircorps Supply (81st Air Group) based in Finchaven, New Guinea.

Kipner takes the Bee Gees to the small St. Clair Recording Studio in Queens Road, Hurstville. The studio is a converted storeroom behind a butcher’s shop. The shop itself is used as the studio office. It’s been operating for less than a year, mainly recording Sydney beat groups and suburban R’n’B bands. Like Sam Phillips’ fabled Sun Studio in Memphis c.1954, St. Clair features two mono recorders. While hardly state of the art for 1966, St. Clair is serviceable and cheap. Even better, it is run by one of their biggest fans.

Soon the Bee Gees are given free run of the studio when it’s not booked. Twins Maurice and Robin Gibb begin composing songs, just like their big brother, Barry. Some of these songs will eventually provide singles or album tracks for other Australian artists. Meanwhile, the Bee Gees’ bad luck continues. Everybody’s reports on 20 July 1966 – "The Bee Gees’ new disc, "Monday’s Rain", has been barred by every radio station in Sydney on the grounds that the Bee Gees are not original enough. Surely they’re joking!…The Bee Gees for heavens’ sake write their own material." Make that 10 failed singles. Yes indeed, life could be better.

Despite the setbacks, the Bee Gees have staunch allies. First and foremost, the Gibb family itself works tirelessly for the group’s success. Secondly, fellow performers like Col Joye, Ronnie Burns and Jimmy Little record Gibb songs, and talk up their talents in interviews. Thirdly, Spin Records and Nat Kipner continue to nurture the precocious trio. And then there’s Ossie Byrne.

Ossie Byrne is their fan who runs the St. Clair studio. Ossie is 40 years old. His full name is Oswald Russell Byrne, and he was born in Queanbeyan, NSW, in 1926. He’s from a musical family, the youngest of nine children. His mother played concertina, his brother Geoff plays cornet and sings light opera. Ossie taught himself piano, and also played cornet in a municipal band. The Byrne family lived on the Oakes Estate in Canberra. The large Byrne family had it tough during the Depression, and like many others in Australia, received help from the Salvation Army. It was in a Salvo brass band that Ossie learned to play trumpet. Both he and Geoff attended Queanbeyan High. Ossie eventually relocated to Wollongong in the mid-1950s. Here he built his first small recording studio in his home in Tarrawanna. Ossie loves pop, jazz, rock’n’roll, all types of music, but mostly pop.

OssieByrne1956Ossie Byrne believes the Bee Gees are the most original band in Australia. He tells 18 year-old Barry and the 16 year-old twins to keep recording, keep writing songs. Persistence will bring more results than luck. Ossie knows about luck. When Ossie was 18, he’d been in the RAAF; like Nat Kipner, he’d been stationed in New Guinea. Ossie had been badly injured. He lost an eye. His war traumas are never mentioned. For a party trick, he’ll sometimes pop out the glass marble from his eye-socket and ghoulishly wink. Too right Ossie Byrne knows about luck. He knows he’s lucky to be alive. After the war he’d played piano with groups in Canberra and Sydney. Before moving to Wollongong, he’d worked as a finance officer in Rockdale, still playing in bands at night, sometimes with old service mates.

In late 1961, Ossie helps manage a local instrumental group called the Del-Fi’s. He records some of their material in his Wollongong home studio. The Del-Fi’s provide back-up for visiting vocalists, like Dig Richards, George Johnston and Averill Trotter. The Del-Fi's bass player, Jim Steedman, recalls, "In June 1965 Leedon Records issued a single of us backing Wollongong singer, Derek Lee. It was recorded at Festival studios. Later that year Ossie moved up to Sydney, and we didn't see him again."

Another of the visiting singers is the young British-born Trevor Gordon. He’d been a schoolmate of the Gibb brothers in Brisbane. By 1965, Trevor will have recorded several of Barry Gibb’s songs. In 1969, back in Britain, Trevor Gordon will team up with Graham Bonnett to form The Marbles. The Marbles will have an international hit with yet another Gibb composition, Only one woman.

Throughout June and July 1966, the Bee Gees virtually take up residence in Ossie Byrne’s St. Clair studio in Hurstville. Ossie produces most of these all night recording sessions, some are in tandem with Nat Kipner, while other sessions see the Bee Gees themselves take the controls. Ossie strikes up a friendship with Hughie Gibb, the boys’ father and manager. They discuss Ossie taking over the group’s co-manager role from Nat Kipner. Ossie looks the part – he’s a service veteran, a one-time JP, quiet and self-deprecating. The boys themselves treat Ossie something like a father-figure. The age difference between himself and the Gibb boys doesn’t bother him. If anything, it unites him with their ambitions. At 18 Ossie was old enough to be in uniform. Who’s to say these kids aren’t old enough to be in the charts?

June 1966 sees the emergence of the Down Under record company, believed to be Ossie’s own imprint label distributed through Festival records. Down Under operates from June to October 1966, and releases 13 singles, all recorded at the St. Clair Studio. Nat Kipner wrote many of the songs issued on Down Under; some of the other releases are written by Barry Gibb, or Maurice Gibb in collaboration with Nat. Ann Shelton’s delightful "I miss you" features the Bee Gees as backing band, and credits Nat Kipner and Ossie Byrne as the writers.

OssieByrne_BeeGees1966Three quarters of the way through 1966, the Bee Gees’ perseverance starts to pay off. Everybody’s magazine reports on the 10th of August that Barry Gibb & the Bee Gees have won the Adelaide radio station 5KA’s talent award for the best Australian composition for "I was a lover, a leader of men." It had been one of their failed singles from the previous year. Despite the award, Hughie Gibb continues preparations to take his family back to England.

Yet another Bee Gees single appears. It’s from those sessions held in June and July. Kiwi songstress, Dinah Lee, says, "At first the boys had been unsure whether the song suited them, so they offered it to me." She’d been prepared to record it but, after discussions with Nat and Ossie, the Bee Gees release it themselves. The new single is a ballad, paradoxically with a strong dance beat. It prominently features the St. Clair studio piano, a one-time pianola that’s had the roll ripped out. The piano riffs obsessively behind lyrics drenched in alienation, despair, heartbreak and loss, but as the song shifts up through its key changes, it allows Barry Gibb’s vocal to end with a triumphant rallying call. "Spicks and specks, Spicks and specks", he cries, soulfully but somewhat enigmatically. The song says yes, determination can defeat anguish, but that splendid and steely resolve just might increase your isolation. It’s a great record, one of the best Australian singles. Would it be their 11th dud in a row?

Spin Records release the latest Bee Gees single, "Spicks and Specks", in September 1966. On September 28th, it sneaks into the Sydney charts at number 38. It will go on to spend 19 weeks in the Sydney Top 40, and peak at number 3. Elsewhere in Australia it becomes a number one seller. The song’s impact is so great that the Melbourne based Go-Set magazine names it their "Best Record of the Year". It’s released internationally in late February 1967, and becomes their first European hit.


 

1967


Ossie travelled with the Gibb family to England on the SS Fairsky. Even before they arrived in Southampton in February 1967, Ossie’s skills with mono recorders were passe. The London scene had moved on to stereophonic mixes and multi-track recording facilities. Consider Abbey Road Studios, London, where the Beatles were creating their Sgt Peppers LP:

"Sgt. Peppers was recorded on 1 inch 4 tracks and it was 2 or 3 machines running at a time to make Sgt Peppers, and they had amazing outboard gear, like old tube compressors, and George Martin was at the helm, he was cutting acetates and lining things up, it was a BIG DEAL." - Benjamin Gibbard, from US band Death Cab for Cutie.

Ossie had no formal training in sound engineering, and no experience with the new multi-tracking technology. He had to learn as he went along. While he learned, so did the Bee Gees. For the ambitious Gibb brothers it must have been a strange situation. Ossie was a family friend, as well as the group’s mentor and guide. However, like the Beach Boys, the Bee Gees were aiming to produce themselves.

In the month after the Beatles unveiled Sgt Peppers, the Bee Gees released their First LP in England on 14 July 1967. Colin Peterson, then the Bee Gees’ drummer, said these were "fantastic sessions in the studio…very, very inventive". The LP showed the band experimenting extensively with orchestrated arrangements, and tackling a diverse range of song subjects. Ossie’s production showed little evidence of any technical inadequacy. The sound was warm, even lush on occasions. On some cuts the orchestration approaches symphonic, yet always the voices, the harmonies and melodies, are the central focus, beautifully framed by Bill Shepherd and Phil Dennys’ fine arrangements.

The Bee Gees’ First was a step forward in every facet of the Bee Gees’ development. As you’d expect, the London studio had resulted in a more polished sound than at Hurstville. As for the songs, most were as good as "Spicks and Specks", in some cases, such as "To love somebody", "I can’t see nobody" and "New York Mining Disaster 1941", they were even better. The harmonies were more intricate, the lead vocals more confident. It was a wonderful record, a triumph. By the end of the year it would be a Top 10 seller in the USA, England and Germany. In one delightful swoop they were no longer Beatles pretenders. They were peers. However, it would take them nearly a decade and their Main Course LP of 1975 before they would once again make an LP as consistently satisfying as their First.

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Andy Gibb and 'the Pirates of Penzance'


  • june 29 ,1981 people.com

  • Vol. 15

  • No. 25

  • Pam Dawber Casts Off from Mork to Crew with Andy Gibb and 'the Pirates of Penzance'



       In Gilbert and Sullivan's version, the Pirates of Penzance are a band of zany lapsed aristocrats who rescue a group of young girls from spinsterhood. In producer Joe Papp's latest U.S. revival, just opened at Los Angeles' Ahmanson Theatre, The Pirates of Penzance is a lifeboat for a pair of youthful stars who thought their careers were lost at sea. As Mork's Mindy, Pam Dawber has watched her once top-rated series nose-dive this season; likewise, teen throb Andy Gibb has languished of late in the professional doldrums. "My career's been going nowhere," the 23-year-old kid brother of the Bee Gees admitted before the operetta premiered. "Let's face it, I haven't had a hit for quite a while." Added a rueful Dawber: "No one seems to know I can do anything but be Mindy."

    If the critics are any indication, Pam and Andy can stop worrying. Los Angeles Times curmudgeon Dan Sullivan, who had reservations about Papp's earlier New York production and cast, declared that the L.A. rendition "blows you out of the water." Compared to Dawber and Gibb, he sniped, their Broadway counterparts, Linda Ronstadt and Rex Smith, "put you in mind of the high school play." That finally put at ease the apprehensive mind of Dawber, as she settled in for a three-month run in L.A. "It's going to be a pleasure," beams Dawber. "I love to sing more than anything—more than acting, even. And the magic of having an orchestra blaring out—it's a real experience."

    For Andy, also, Pirates represents a real coming of age. Although at age 22 he had released a "Greatest Hits" album, Gibb has led what he calls "a pretty aimless life," under the shadow of his Bee Gee big brothers. "I didn't have any goals," he admits. "I just got so pressured in by the teeny-bopper syndrome and I didn't think I was ever going to grow out of it. I went through a big ego thing for quite a while. I needed a big kick in the pants." Last November he left the family enclave in Miami and drove to L.A., where he leased a Malibu beach home and began a famous romance with Dallas' Victoria Principal, 31. "I was ruining my own career before I met this woman," Gibb says. "She's brought a whole new confidence into my life." Victoria was just the beginning of Andy's change of fortune. It was shortly after he met Principal that Papp and Pirates director Wilford Leach caught Gibb on ABC's Good Morning America and invited him to see the Broadway production of the show. He was enthralled. "I'd love to be involved in something like this," he told Leach, who was casting about for a singer to take the Smith role in the West Coast production. "Good," the director shot back. "When can you start?"

    Dawber, meantime, was wondering whether there was life after Mork & Mindy, which plummeted last year after being slotted against CBS' Archie Bunker's Place. The show is slated for a last-gasp resuscitation effort next season: Mindy and her otherworldly buddy will marry and Mork, not Mindy, will give birth to the child. But Dawber, 29, is not totally convinced that will help, noting, "They're only ordering 13 shows at the moment, so who knows what will happen?" In any case, she believes she could be happy out of the limelight, dividing her time between her causes (gun control and solar power) and between her Hollywood Hills bungalow and a 289-acre lakeside spread in the Catskills. She has shared quarters with actor-model Philip Coccioletti for 2½ years, but they don't plan marriage unless they decide to have children. Yet for all her professed other interests, Pam rehearsed so hard for her Pirates audition that she strained her vocal cords and developed nodules. Papp and Leach gave her a second try—and then the part. "It's the best thing that could have happened," she says.

    Pirates was no picnic for Andy, either. With no formal voice training, he quickly went hoarse tackling Arthur Sullivan's arias. "My voice was so worn out that when I went to blast, it came out like a croak. It scared the life out of me," he says. Three weeks of work with a New York singing coach put the baby Bee Gee back on key and extended his range six notes, but he was still worried about his dramatic abilities. "He's going through all the agonies of 'Oh, I can't act, I can't dance,' " a sympathetic Dawber explains. "In fact, he can." Now that the notices are in, Andy can at last relax. But for Pam, the trial is only beginning. In the late summer (if the TV strike is over) she faces a killing schedule, playing for the cameras in Mork & Mindy during the day, then hustling to the theater for her nightly stint onstage. She says she's up to the challenge. "I hope my voice holds out," she adds. "I'll be taking a lot of vitamins. With luck my vocal cords should be ironclad by then."



    Andy Gibb, center, visits backstage on Friday, July 24, 1982 in New York, with Maureen McGovern, right, and Patrick Cassidy, star of “The Pirates of Penzance” on Broadway. (AP Photo/Mario Suriani