Ed's Bee Gees Appreciation Thread Part 1: 1963-1974

Well now we know you have the box set (unless you collect 45's)! When they were inducted into the Rock and Roll HOF I had a fantasy that they would do this song and Eric Clapton would reproduce that fabulous solo.

 

I don't know if anyone has heard of/saw the infamous Clive Anderson show, where the Bee Gees were guests. It was a BBC show(i think), Clive basically pokes fun at his guests, but in a good natured way. Since they only spend a certain amount of time in the UK, they probably were not aware of this and did not get it.
Anyway, Clive commented on the fact that they had once used the name 'Les tosseurs' or something like that . He then said 'well, you have always been tossers to me', at which point Barry Gibb walked off with the parting shot 'you are the tosser mate'.
Poor Clive, his face drained, he was really surprised.

 

Lesson learned: never be sarcastic to a Bee Gee....

 

The Bee Gees are amazing. Great songwriters, producers, and sound the best together.

 

Idea might be my fave early Bee Gees LP.

 

Nice thread. I remember seeing these guys on Ed Sullivan doing "Words". Favorites of mine include:

"Lonely Days" - one of the most Beatlesque songs ever.

"Tomorrow, Tomorrow"

"Melody Fair" - another Fab Four dead ringer

"Mr. Natural"

"Charade"

"Nights On Broadway"

"Edge of the Universe"

"Children of the World"

"Spirits Having Flown"

"This Is Where I Came In"


Incredibly hard to believe Maurice isn't still here.

 

I've always enjoyed their stuff. Such extreme styles done so well. Love to hear better re masterings by you know who.

Hearing Robin doing 'I started a joke', even on AM radio back then was like, wow.

 

Yep!. Here's a piece from www.beegees-world.com

 

I love the Bee Gees. I grew up with their late 70s material. Jive Talkin' has to be one my all time favorite Bee Gees songs.

I've been recently getting into their older albums. Oddessa & Trafalgar are both excellent!

 

...been a fan since day one. I do appreciate the early stuff best! My wife loves the later stuff...likes to dance. After revisiting the 4 disc box set, what I thought was great now seems harsh?...still agreat place to have it all together.

 

I used to play their first HITS album a lot, the one with the yellow cover. This was long before the disco stuff. Tunes like Holiday, Massachusetts, etc are classics.

The disco stuff was actually quite good for the time, catchy tunes that tended to burn out quickly due to huge airplay and the anti-disco movement. However, going back one can see the "right songs at the right time" syndrome at work.

They actually may have lost perceived hipness by being hip at a time most would like to forget! This affected their popularity in the 80s and forward.

Great songwriters, great singers with their own style, I like 'em!

 

This is true. As soon as disco faded(or morphed with pop, really, the brits took big advantage of 'the beat'), a lot of people got off the bandwagon...that, and solo projects, curtailed their group activities for many years, and commercially they never quite recovered, though were hardly forgotten.

Artistically, I thought they did fine, on the main, through TRAFALGAR, after which there was a drop in quality, a certain repetitiveness set in....until MAIN COURSE, but I wasn't as enamored of the slick sound as others were, and I remain ambivalent about the 'disco period'...they certainly were in the right place at the right time, and adapted to the genre better than anyone beyond perhaps Donna Summer, but it also put a monkey on their back they never did shake off, unfortunately.

Still, gotta say I miss them.....

 

I've come to appreciate the Disco era material more as an adult now than I did back when it originally came out. These guys have always stayed within my radar though. When I first heard "Lonely Days" in 1970, I knew they were a band I was always going to have room to care for. My God! I was in 3rd Grade when I first got exposed to them.

 

Not a fan of the disco stuff.

But I love the early stuff! I'm surprised nobody's mentioned "I've Gotta Get A Message To You"

 

The Bee Gees are INCREDIBLE. Nothing short of absolute genius.

 

I love the Bee Gees!

My dad had an eight track called IIRC "Bee Gees Gold". He got on a kick and listened to it constantly while driving around. It just kept playing over and over and over... I remember one day he couldn't find the eight track... My sister and I looked at each other and SMILED. We secretly hoped that it was gone forever. Later that same day, dad drove to Kmart, took us inside, and bought a brand spanking new eight track of "Bee Gees Gold". I can still remember seeing him tear off the shrink wrap and pop it into his dashboard eight track player!! ...THE PAIN!!!!

Strangely, the music grew on me over time.

An unrelated story: When I was around twenty-five years old, my younger sister and I took a road trip from home in Arkansas to see my other sister (the one who shared the Bee Gees "moment" with me) who lived in Alabama. I brought along my cassette case which held about thirty tapes. Most of the tapes were Maxell XLII 90 minute tapes that I had recorded my LPs on, you remember... one LP per side. Sometimes I made compilations with odd titles like "High Heels, Handcuffs, and Herpes" or "Tick Fever!". After a few hours on the road, I told her to pick something to listen to. She was looking through the tapes and came across one called "The Best of the Bee Gees". She began laughing and asked me what was REALLY on the tape. I still listened to mostly hard rock back then, so she simply didn't believe me when I told her that it was really the Bee Gees. I made a deal with her. I told her that we would pop in the tape, and if it really was the Bee Gees, we had to listen to it ALL THE WAY THROUGH! She laughingly agreed. Much to her surprise the first song began "In the event of something happening to me..." She was then required to listen to a 90 minute compilation that I had taken from my "Tales from the Brothers Gibb" box set!!

She was introduced to favorites of mine such as:
NY Mining Disaster, I Can't See Nobody, To Love Somebody, Holiday, Massachusetts, Words, I've Got to Get a Message to You, I Started a Joke, Lonely Days, How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, My World, Run to Me... right on through to my favorite "Disco" songs.

Her silence was only occasionally interupted by laughter, and "please stop" as I sang along in my very best "Barry Gibb" falsetto to all the songs on the tape. Ninety minutes with Tony and the Bee Gees! It must have been quite an experience.

After all, what are big brother's for??

Tony

 

Ed, I'm with you, the earlier recordings are the ones I prefer. Great songwriting and harmonies that match the best.

 

They used to be a guilty pleasure but, what's to feel guilty about? Good stuff.
I think "How Deep Is Your Love" is one of the greatest songs ever.

 

BIG fan of the Bee Gees from the 60's (To Love Somebody, Every Christian Lion-Hearted Man, etc. are among my all-time faves) right through the early 70's with Life in a Tin Can, Trafalgar and To Whom It May Concern. They lost me with the disco stuff, however.

 

The disco stuff is my favorite era but I love all of it. The first I ever heard them was "Wouldn't I Be Someone" on my mom's Bee Gees Greatest Hits vol 2 album. Shortly after hearing this, they released Children of the World and I've been hooked ever since. Pure genius until the end.

 

When I was a mere infant drooling all over myself in my high chair in 1968, my father used to have this Sunday morning ritual where he would get me up early and we'd hang out listening to various albums while my mother slept in. According to him, the Bee Gee's 1st got more airplay than anything else on those mornings as it was his favorite album at the time (and also because my mother hated it). I was obviously too young to know what was going on, but it has remained a favorite to this day. I'm not sure how much stock I put into forced exposure having any bearing on one's subsequent tastes, but this is the one example where I wonder about it. I really can't remember ever not loving it.
A side note: I ended up with his original pressing some time back (they haven't had a turntable for years) and played it in it's entirety for him on a recent visit as we were poking a few cocktails to us. He hadn't heard it for years and it brought us back to a time that he remembered very well. (Me... not so much, but it was great to share it with him.) It was an extremely cool evening with the old man.

Aaron

 

"Nights On Broadway" gets me every time. I just love that song.

It can never be played enough.

If they had only had a hit with that one song, they'd be a legend to me.

 

I'm surprised none of you mentioned their early australian hits...like Wine, Women and Song, and Spicks and Specks....to name a few. Overlooked and some of their best stuff.
Birth of Brilliance is the one to get:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...99665/sr=11-1/ref=sr_11_1/103-4902496-7482212

 

My favorite albums are probably "Mr. Natural", "Main Course" and "This is where I came in". Mr. Natural is a very underrated album but has some real gems like the fantastic, almost lounge style opener "Charade". "Main Course" is a classic, of course, but their last album "This is where I came in" was a true return to form; Great songs, great arrangements and a descent production. Nobody seemed to notice though, because not a single soul (except me) bought the album here in Sweden . I also think that a greatest hits collection by the Bee Gees is absolutely essential, since many songs are spread over various soundtracks and stuff.