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

I heard from the local salesguy (who mostly specialises in japanese CDs) that 15 or something Bee Gees titles are reissued in Japan in the same series (Universal) as Living Eyes! Now since Living Eyes (I still don't know if it's a remaster or simply a reissue) sounds great I have high hopes for these!

 

By the way - can anybody confirm (or not) the ancient rumour I heard since childhood that heavy metal legend Graham Bonnet (Rainbow/MSG/Alcatrazz) is brothers Gibb cousin? Or is it simply based on the fact that Graham's first band Marbles (their only LP from 1969 was finally released on CD last year by Repertoire) featured plenty of Gibb brothers' songs including To love somebody and the classic Only one woman? Bonnet also had a hit single in 1978 with Gibb's Warm Ride (a cool and groovy disco tune) before being asked by Ritchie Blackmore to replace Dio in Rainbow and record the classic Down to Earth LP.

 

The next album was TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN. Its lack of sales, despite two Top 40 hits, suggests it didn't concern nearly enough listeners. That's probably because, by this time, there was some wheel-spinning going on: a few memorable tracks, but too many not so memorable, and a certain listlessness was setting in. "Run To Me" was the best of the lot, but in '68, this would have remained an Lp cut. I like the album, but can't say that with a ton of enthusiasm:

[font=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]1. Run To Me
2. We Lost The Road
3. Never Been Alone
4. Paper Mache, Cabbages And Kings
5. I Can Bring Love
6. I Held A Party
7. Please Don't Turn Out The Light
8. Sea Of Smiling Faces
9. Bad Bad Dreams
10. You Know It's For You
11. Alive
12. Road To Alaska
13. Sweet Song Of Summer


[/font]

 

I think the rumor stems from the same one that had Tin Tin(temporarily)the Bee Gees under a nom de plume, as they wrote and produced the Marbles' first 45(the only connection I ever made out was that Stigwood signed the band, and he was connected to the Bee Gees, of course). Bonnet's own website doesn't make any mention of any family connections, though one of Bonnet's cousins was a member of the Marbles. One would think if they were cousins, Bonnet would say so on his own site!

 

I find To Whom It May Concern to be all over the place. "Run to Me" is a classic ballad, and "Paper Mache, Cabbages and Kings" is out there somewhere. "Alive" probably wouldn't have been issued as a single in another time. But some of the songs reflect other influences; for example, "Road to Alaska" -- the B-side of "Run to Me" -- is a nice rollicking number, not what one would have expected from the Gibbs.

More interesting was the single that preceded this album, "My World" and "On Time." "My World" seems to go on forever, though I like it; it might have been better at 3 minutes rather than 4. But "On Time" sounds nothing like the Bee Gees ever did before or would ever again; this would be a prime song to play "guess the band" with. You could tell that the Gibbs were listening to some of the sounds from FM radio in the era, even if they weren't ever to fully embrace those sounds. Not to get ahead of ourselves here, but this was a group searching for a direction, and it would take several years to find one that worked both artistically and commercially.

Back in the 1970s, when I built most of my Bee Gees LP collection, To Whom It May Concern was frequently in the cut-out bins along with Mr. Natural. (Though less frequently seen, I also managed to rescue Cucumber Castle and Trafalgar from the bargain bins in that era.) All were brand-new copies with a cut-out slash through the spine as the only flaw. Ah, those were the days!

 

You know i made myself a list of Bee Gees/Bee Gees related releases to buy before japanese reissues arrive in Moscow. This includes SNF OST (the remaster),Staying Alive OST, Sgt Pepper OST, Streisand - Guilty, Warwick - Heartbreaker and this early pre 67 como. None of these are included in the japanese reissue series. So far I got Staying Alive OST and I must say:
- Bee Gees tunes on this one are really , really good. Like a poppier Living Eyes material. Woman in you of course outstanding. And, please don't laugh, but I kinda enjoyed Frank Stallone's tune Far from Over - a nice early 80's piece covered with some tasty cheese!
- The CD sounds pretty good.

Now can anybody explain to me the difference between Brilliant from Birth and Birth of Brilliance? Are they different or is it a same comp?

 

Brilliant from Birth=Buy!
Birth of Brilliance=Goodbye!

 

Pdenny, can you please explain?

 

Sorry Anton. Brilliant from Birth is the "killer comp" of Australian recordings, from original tapes and very comprehensive. These tracks won't ever sound better than they do here. The other CD is a mish-mash and the sound quality varies wildly.

 

The album cover didn't help - surely the worst album cover in the Bee Gees career!

I can't rememer too much about this album - I haven't had a copy for years - but I do remember being unimpressed with it. Run to me (and the previous single, My World) are pretty insipid.

My favourite track would be Alive. I was amazed to read in the box set that Barry Gibb could not remember writing it!

 

FYI- Bee Gees Live At Last is OOP.

 

I dunno. It's been at least 5 years since I've listened to "To Whom it May Concern" and the first verse of "I Held a Party" still seems to play in my head almost daily. No idea why, but it's surely kinda catchy.

Kwad

 

Very different.

Echoing what pdenny said, Brilliant from Birth (released in 1998) is the definitive one. It includes 63 tracks the Bee Gees recorded in Australia from 1963-1966, including all the singles and album cuts, studio goofing around, a complete unreleased album, and studio talk before "Spicks and Specks" -- and even includes four covers they did for an Australian TV variety show in 1964! The catalog number is Spin/Festival D46066. Everything is in true mono on this set. Accept no substitutes!

Birth of Brilliance is a 1-CD reissue of a 1978 2-LP set that, when it was issued back then, was the definitive compilation of the Australia years. But it's not any more.

Festival couldn't have been more confusing in naming the 1998 compilation if it had tried!

 

Thanx! Another question: apart then the sound quality - is there another reason to buy Tales from the brothers Gibb box set? Any rarities you know?

 

it has a number of b-sides, plus "first time" stereo mixes of otherwise mono material.

 

The Bee Gees is in my Top 10 list of favorite artists of all time.
Idea (1969) is my favourite early Bee Gees album while "Children Of The World" (1976) is my favourite 70's Bee Gees album.
"Let There Be Love" (from Idea), "Charade" (from Mr. Natural) and "Fanny Be Tender With My Love" (from Main Course) are some of my favourite Bee Gees' songs.
People who don't know anything about their whole career and who simply hates disco music in general just dismiss them as a disco act which is unfair to the "real" talents the brothers have.
During the 60's, they were more popularly known as a 60's pop group (like the Beatles, the Moody Blues and the Mindbenders, etc) with the inclusion of drummer Collin Peterson and guitarist Vince Melouney. In the later years they became known as a vocal group fronted by the three brothers, Barry, Robin & the late Maurice.
The best sounding Bee Gees compilation on CD is the box set "Tales from the Brothers Gibb", remastered by Dennis Drake.

 

Oh yeah. All the 45 rpm B-sides that weren't on LPs; stereo remixes of some single hits that closely match the single versions; the single version (not the radio edit but slightly sped-up with a later fade-out) of "Nights on Broadway" ... lots of things you won't find on any other Bee Gees CD. Plus the liner notes, where the Gibb brothers talk about the songs, are anywhere from informative to funny (sometimes both).

 

Next up: LIFE IN A TIN CAN(January 1973). Maybe THIS is their worst album cover.... Not their worst album, however: a pleasing collection, and if they were still spinning their wheels, a shift was in the works. "Saw A New Morning" is the obvious highlight here, and if it seems strange to hear a Mellotron and electric piano on a Bee Gees recording, it was obvious the brothers felt the need to move beyond Bill Shepherd's lush arrangements and toward something else. But this was not what they needed to move forward.

1. Saw A New Morning
2. I Don't Wanna Be The One
3. South Dakota Morning
4. Living In Chicago

5. While I Play
6. My Life Has Been A Song
7. Come home Johnny Bridie
8. Method To My Madness

 

Saw a new morning is argubly (in other words, I'll argue it) their best song between 1970 and the Min Course album. It's been a favourite sine I first heard it on the Australia/New Zealand only LP Best of Volume 3.

 

I've always been a BIG fan of "Life in a Tin Can", mostly for side one, which I think is one of the very strongest album sides in the Bee Gees canon. For my money, Life in a Tin Can is tied with Living Eyes for most underrated Bee Gees album.

Kwad

 

MR. NATURAL was the group's Lp for 1974, and a shift in direction and approach. The Bill Shepherd period(as we could call it, as he arranged most of the Gibbs' music, and his lush orchestral work was a major component)was over.

Despite the quality of the music here--which is fairly solid--this one died a commercial death. Must have been a low ebb for them, but working with Arif Mardin was soon going to pay off huge, reinvigorating their career, but despite some good songs, their fan base was not interested.

[font=Book Antiqua, Times New Roman, Times]1. Charade
2. Throw A Penny
3. Down The Road
4. Voices
5. Give A Hand, Take A Hand
6. Dogs
7. Mr. Natural
8. Lost In Your Love
9. I Can't Let You Go
10. Heavy Breathing
11. Had A Lot Of Love Last Night[/font]

 

To me the Mr Natural album was a bit half-hearted as a change of direction. For example, Down the Road comes across much better as a R&B track on the Here at last... live album from 1976. Some of the other tracks aren't that inspired - I played the album yesterday and can't remember several tracks.

Still, the combination of Arif Martin and the Brothers Gibb was shortly to prove to be a good one.

 

It wasn't for lack of trying that Mr. Natural was a stiff; in the US, RSO released three different songs as singles -- "Mr. Natural," "Throw a Penny" and "Charade" -- only one of which charted (the title song, and it might have eked into the 90s). But to use a sports analogy, the Gibbs were rebuilding at this point. Basically the same team, the same producer, and many of the same musicians would be around for the next one....with much better songs, too.

Just before this album, the Bee Gees recorded an entire LP that was shelved, known as A Kick in the Head Is Worth Eight in the Pants. Only three of the songs intended for this album have seen the light of day officially; one of them was the leadoff single "Wouldn't I Be Someone," which once again stiffed as a single and led the Gibbs to shelve the album. The others were the single's B-side "Elisa" and a song called "King and Country," which was used as a B-side in Germany. Many Bee Gees fans pine over this "lost album" the way Chicago fans pine over Stone of Sisyphus, but not quite at the level that the Beach Boys fans mourn the loss of the original Smile. Of course, the myth is usually greater than the reality with stuff like this. All three of the ...Pants songs are on the Tales box, for the curious. "Wouldn't I Be Someone" was relegated to the compilation Best of Bee Gees, Volume 2, which was the album released between Life in a Tin Can and Mr. Natural in the States in place of the shelved ...Pants.

 

The Mr Natural single reached the dizzying heights of #93 in the USA (didn't chart in the UK or Germany), while none of the other singles charted. The album reached #78 in the USA. Bas as that may seem, the Best of volume 2 compilation ony managed to get to #98!

The A kick in the head album has been out on bootleg, but I've never heard a copy.

 

That song, of all the tracks on the LP, pointed the way towards MAIN COURSE. Always dug the vocal work on that song.