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

the DVD of This Is Where I Came In is a real treat to watch!

 

The Bee Gees were great ! I love the early stuff the best. "Lonely Days" and "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart" being my favorite songs of theirs. The harmonies of those Gibbs brothers blended well.

 

Hi,

Back in 1968/9 The Bee Gees around here were claimed as the heirs of The Beatles. I started a joke, First of may (I wonder how/why this song was not included in their recently released Number Ones cd) , Tomorrow, tomorrow, Words, Don't forget to remember were huge hits. A funny thing is that Cherry Red of their early Australian period was also a big hit. I agree with many people that their pre-disco stuff is their best, even Life in Tin Can has some nice acoustic/country songs like Saw a new morning, South Dakota Morning, Come Home Johnny Bridie. IMO, Robin's Reign is a nice album, pity it wasn't officially released on cd format (although I recall it was released by Karoussel, a German label but I never saw the cd) . I listened last night to Trafalgar (someone posted about When Do I and Dearest, two very nice songs), after listening the MFSL cd just thought how good they were! Maurice's It's just the way is a nice Beatlesque tune.



Regards,
Helio

 

I really enjoy all of their music. How many bands made it out of the 60's to reinvent themselves with disco and actually made it work? I'm sure many tried but none succeeded like the Bee Gees.
I was a 13 year old Rock & Roller when Saturday Night Fever came out. But that music was amazing to me. Of coarse I couldn't admit it to any of my friends back then.

 

Some thoughts:

1. I love the 1960s hits AND the disco stuff. I still find it amazing how they just about dominated the music world from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, in the first part as singers and songwriters, and in the latter part as songwriters (Barbra Streisand's Guilty is one of her best albums, Dionne Warwick, Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, etc.).

2. I also really miss Maurice, and he was the only one who showed some comedic promise in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

3. Like any other genre, each has its good and bad. The Bee Gees' disco songs were among the best.

 

Bypassing for now, their Oz material:

• Turn of the century
• Holiday
• Red chair, fade away
• One minute woman
• In my own time
• Every christian lion hearted man will show you
• Craise Finton Kirk Royal Academy of Arts
• New York mining disaster 1941
• Cucumber castle
• To love somebody
• I close my eyes
• I can't see nobody
• Please read me
• Close another door

Bought this one sometime in the fall of 1967, along with the Young Rascals' GROOVIN'.....mono pressings, both, though at the time, probably because my parents were still buying some of my Lp's for me and the mono's were a buck cheaper.... No matter, made up for that later by having both pressings. With this one I can go either way, no real preference, though the mono does have the corrected 45 mix of "NY Mining Disaster" with the last "Jones" properly enunciated. Both editions are essential to fans, as the dedicated mono mixes are well worth having, and the mono pressing isn't all that uncommon.

A quirky album, the Beatles influence blatantly obvious, but good for creative spark, and I would argue the Gibbs did more with that inspiration than just about anybody else. The tone is set right away with "Turn Of The Century": this is prettified pop with a little teeth, baroque in a fashion but far more creative than the lads got credit for at the time. "Holiday" is, IMO, their first pop masterpiece and the flip, "Every Christian Lion-Hearted Man" uses the Gregorian chant motif a lot better than Enigma or others who came little did. "I Can't See Nobody" was a Bubbled-Under entry, and like "To Love Somebody"--the 2nd Atco single--covered nicely by Nina Simone the following year.

I'd rate this one A-, a few slices of filler, but 14 songs, most very solid.

 

Still would love to see a legit release of a rarities package for the Gibbs along with A Kick In The Head Is Worth Eight In The Pants. Stuff like "Castles In The Air" and "Harry's Gate" deserve to be heard in "better than bootleg" quality. FYI- Percy Sledge does a nice job on "A Lonely Violin" on his latest.

 

I first learned who the Bee Gees were in 1971 with "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart," one of the songs I'll always remember from that summer; it was the only time I ever went to summer camp, and it was on the radio a LOT. There were times I thought they were singing "How Can You Mend a Broken Arm"! When I was 10, I knew what broken arms were, but broken hearts were not yet part of my life.

When I started listening to radio more intently in 1973, I realized I'd heard more of their stuff than I'd realized. I knew "Run to Me," for example, from 1972; and when I started buying any 45 of theirs I could get my hands on, I soon realized I'd heard "First of May" back in 1969, though I had no idea what it was or who it was at the time...

In the 1970s, I used to have an "Oldies Top 20," which worked much like a pop Top 20 would. When I got a song on record, and it was at least two years old, it was able to make that chart. Every time I got a Bee Gees 45, it was usually on a straight shot to #1. "New York Mining Disaster 1941" spent a lot of time on my turntable in those days.

In 1975, the Bee Gees returned to the Top 40 airwaves with "Jive Talkin'." I did not like the song at the time, and even today, though I can now tolerate it, it's not among my favorites. It was a new direction I wasn't quite ready for. But the followup single, "Nights on Broadway," was, in my eyes, a spectacular return to form.

Unlike most of my male peers, I loved the "Helium Years," though I'll admit the constant falsetto finally got tiresome around "Love You Inside Out." They needed to take a break. But I'll always love the Saturday Night Fever stuff.

They finally came back in 1981 with "He's a Liar." I liked that they were trying something a bit different, but the song never really grabbed me. Relatively speaking, it was a stiff. The next single was the title song from the new album, "Living Eyes." This SHOULD have been their comeback single, as even today it sounds wonderful.

Six years later came one of the biggest mysteries to me. "You Win Again." A great record; the first time I ever heard it, I was in the car, and before it was over I was already rockin' to the beat. I thought it had "hit" written all over it. But damned if it wasn't a stiff in the States, though it was a hit just about everywhere else in the world. Warner Bros. knew it had a goodie, as it tried again in 1989 to make it a hit after "One" finally brought the Gibbs back to the top 10 in the U.S. But again it failed.

Every time the Bee Gees returned to the radio, it was a pleasure, as most of the time their stuff was both timeless and of the era... It was cool hearing "Alone" in '97, and then "This Is Where I Came In" from 2001, another unjustified stiff.

Around this time, I re-discovered the Australia material by accident. I was in a record store in the Minneapolis area when I found myself enchanted by the music on the sound system. It sounded like a lost British Invasion band, or a good modern imitation thereof. When I finally heard "I Was a Lover, a Leader of Men," a song I was familiar with, I realized I was listening to the Bee Gees! I went to the counter to find out what the CD was, because I wanted to buy it then and there, because the sound was a vast improvement over the fake stereo we Americans have always had to endure with that stuff. But the clerk said that they didn't have any in stock, and not only that, but I was about the third or fourth person to ask about it that day! She was kind enough to show me the CD cover. It was called Brilliant from Birth, an Australian import, and it had more than 60 songs the Gibbs recorded in Australia from 1963 through 1966. I finally got a copy of it a couple months later, and I found it to be a revelation. These guys were good even when they were in their mid-teens! With only a few exceptions, the Bee Gees rarely revisited this material once they returned to England in 1967. Yeah, there's some fluff on it, but the ratio of hits to misses is definitely in favor of the hits.

I tried for a while to get some American reissue label to license the Bee Gees' Australia material, to get it back in print here for the first time in more than 20 years, and not only that, but to put it in historical perspective (which Brilliant from Birth does to some extent, but not as much as I'd like). I even created a CD-R called Lost in Australia, which included something like 30 songs from BFB that, to this day, have NEVER been released in the United States, and I dubbed it and sent it to a reissue label after talking about it with them. I was told that they checked into licensing the material, but Festival in Australia wanted too much money for doing so.

My Bee Gees CD-R collections so far:
Lost in Australia
2 LPs on One CD including both their Australian albums in the original running order
Singles A and B: The Australia Years 1963-1966 from "The Battle of the Blue and the Grey" to "Big Chance"
Singles A and B: The Atco/Polydor Years Part I, 1967-1969 from "New York Mining Disaster 1941" to "Lamplight"
Singles A and B: The Atco/Polydor Years Part II, 1969-1972 from "Don't Forget to Remember" to "Paper Mache, Cabbages and Kings"

And I want to continue the Singles A and B collection, but I'm missing one of the singles from Mr. Natural that contained an edit of the LP track.

 

Bee Gees fan all the way through. Unlike some, I have no ambivalence about the disco years. Used to play the hell out of the first Greatest Hits LP--"Massachusetts," "Gotta Get a Message To You," "To Love Somebody," "Words"...just one after another. Main Course is a great album. "Nights on Broadway" warmed up the winter of '75 on the radio. I though "Alone" was an excellent comeback single. Sadly, I never saw them play live, either.

"Just my dog and I, at the edge of the universe..."

 

Nice reminiscences, Ted. Another LIVING EYES fan, too! It's a crime this has been out of print on CD for years and years...you can't find one for under $50.

 

Hi,

Just wondering if someone has a complete list of the Bee Gees' singles/EPs . J. Brennan's very informative site probably has this info, but it doesn't have just a plain list of singles/EPs.

Regards,
Helio

 

Yeah, I'm crazy about that album, too. I recently scored a very clean mono pressing of it, and it really sounds awesome.

I'm also a sucker for later Bee Gees. They were all over the airwaves when I began listening to the radio, and hearing anything from the SNL soundtrack brings me back to when I was 11 and 12 years old.

 

I wish Steve would master a Bee Gees comp.

I'm going to pump a couple Bee Gees tunes in tribute to this thread.

 

I believe that Odessa is one of the great double albums in pop history.

 

LIVING EYES! On eof the BEST tunes EVER and a title track of one of the most criminally underrated records ever. Isn't it time all the Bee Gees catalogue gets a SACD re-release with tons of bonus tracks?

 

It's certainly a beauty, and certainly underrated.....


Aside from having one of the saddest songs in pop history("First Of May"), it's a tribute to how prolific the lads were that we only got one 45 out of the album; I've no doubt at all that "Melody Fair," "I Laugh In Your Face," "Lamplight" and "Never Say Never Again" could have easily been hits on their own.

As noted previously, never been sure of just what the 'concept' was going to be here...seems that somewhere along the line, whatever it was going to be was abandoned. With the exception of "Odessa(City On The Black Sea)," "Seven Seas Symphony," "With All Nations"(which was left off the original CD edition) and "The British Opera," really can't make out anything that adds up to any real plan....even so, as a collection of fine songs, this one holds up nicely, and many seem of a piece(not really true of previous albums), and it all works very nicely, IMO...though I'd gladly switch "Give Your Best" for "Tomorrow, Tomorrow"......

The original US Atco 'felt' cover:




[font=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica][size=-1][/size][/font]

 

Bee Gees 1st certainly deserves status as a classic 1960s album. Released in 1967, it contains songs written on the boat from Australia to England or while in England - in other words, the Bee Gees completely ignored their existing repatoire of songs.

The best known songs are the hits: New York Mining Disaster 1941, Holiday and To Love Somebody. But looking at the track lineup, there's not a clunker in the 14 songs. Personal favourites - other than the singles - include the opener, Turn of the Century, Every Christian Lion Hearted Man will show you and I can't see nobody.

The current CD (reisued after the Bee Gees were inducted into the R&R Hall of Fame) sounds very good. Used vinyl seems plentiful, both stereo and mono (the mono LP has some slightly different mixes). It's still possible to pick up very good condition examples of this 37 year old LP.

This is a very strong album from a time when LPs were ony just starting to come into their own in the pop world.

 

The first song I ever recall hearing from them was "Run To Me" on the radio back in 1974, but I didn't yet know who they were.

Then, my first real experience of hearing the brothers was in the late summer of 1975 when "Jive Talkin'" burned up the charts. I liked all the singles that followed. So, yeah, I much prefer their R&B/disco" period. "Jive Talkin'" was one of the funkiest things on the radio at that time.

Later, in the early 90s, I got their 70s hits on various CD comps.

When their boxed set came out, I became familiar with their 60s output, a few of which I like.

Some of my favorite Bee Gee songs are:

1. You Should Be Dancing
Brilliant mix of R&B and salsa tinged disco. The song has a killer groove and an energy level that won't stop. It was one of the best songs of 1976.

2. Fanny
Perhaps, one of the best R&B ballads of the 70s decade! Silky smooth soul! Produced by the legendary Arif Mardin, who also produced The Average White Band, Chaka Khan, and Aretha Franklin.

3. Tragedy
The beauty in this song is in it's musical subtelty and the tense buildup. I've always been a fan of long ad-libs near the end of a song, where the groove is so good that it won't let up. The Bee Gees were especially good at this.

I once saw a small documentary of the recording of this classic song, and how Barry Gibb and the engineer came up with the thunder sound at the climax of the song. They were looking for something to go in that breakdown wben Barry came up with an idea to make a noise into the mic. The engineer just added massive distortion to it.

 

You're right on the money, Gammaspace!

Good idea for a new thread...but, i'll let that idea go...

 

Right, I believe the Bee Gees remaster program was about to get started a few years ago. "Main course", "Mr. Natural" and many other titles are in great need of a (good) remastering. SACD versions of the titles would be a great way to go now, of course. Strangely, it seems that the whole Bee Gees catalogue was completely ignored by Polydor. They did however deal with some compilations, like the HDCD Bob Ludwig remastered "The record" collection a few years ago.
Ironically, Bee Gees have released quite a few DVD's over the last couple of years.

 

It seems that the Bee Gees will gain the rights over their music (not sure about Festival) by 2006. That means we'll probably (hopefully) have their main catalog (again I'm not sure about their WB years) re-released, on a wishful mode, properly remastered.

regards,
Helio

 

The Polydor years are the ones I'm most interested in. Thank you very much for the info!

 

Title track is a very good song.

Just listening to Bee Gees' 1st, mono. The "psychedelic" tunes such as "Every Christian Lionhearted Man Will Show You" and "Red Chair, Fade Away" are great. The band also rocks pretty good on "In My Own Time", a song that has always reminded me of "Taxman".

The mono LP I have is on the yellow ATCO label. This LP was an odd cutout. They punched the hole through the lower centre of the jacket, which in turn put a hole through the label, as you can see.

Come to think of it, I've never heard this album in stereo, except for the hits on comp albums. Is there a good CD pressing available? I suspect for vinyl, I'd be looking for an original U.K. copy.

 

Ah, my question was already answered. (It's still early, sun's not up yet). Thanks Michael. Great review of this classic album.

It would be nice someday to see a mono/stereo twofer CD. Wishful thinking.

 

Chris,

There's the old CD release of 1st(RSO 825 220-2)and a budget reissue, sound is fine and shouldn't be hard to find at all.

BTW, the hole punched through the LP label was unusual for most US labels, but not all: many Amy/Mala/Bell Lp's were cutout in that fashion, and I'm sure other labels did it, too....kinda risky, and I've come across albums where the hole was a bit too far out and wound up in the trail-out groove, making them essentially worthless.

Also, interesting how licensing deals worked back then. The Bee Gees' deal was apparently for the US & Canada, since their stuff was on Atco in both countries; their Polydor/Reaction labelmates Cream, on the other hand, were Atco stateside but up north, Polydor.