Bee Gees singer Robin Gibb dies after cancer battle

[JamesHunt]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18140862

Bee Gees' singer Robin Gibb has died following a lengthy battle with cancer, his family have said.

British-born Gibb, 62, had been battling colon and liver cancer.

Gibb's musical career began when he formed the Bee Gees with his brothers Barry and Maurice in 1958.

The group is among the biggest-selling groups of all time with hits spanning six decades including Stayin' Alive, How Deep Is Your Love, Massachusetts and Night Fever.

[jamesedwards]

Rip,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

[Willie Escalade]

Donna Summer, Robin Gibb,...

[TSMichelleAustin]

So sad... cancer is taking everyone out!!! I had a very dear friend of mine pass away from a rare cancer last month! Its so sad!!! I grew up on listening to Bee Gees, my dad is a huge fan and played them all the time!!!

[stan.smith]

May your soul RIP Gibb!

[dakota87]

Andy, Maurice, Robin all gone before their time. My condolences to Barry and Robin's family. RIP.

[Ben]

Very sad....
Barry Gibb, sadly, has lost all his brothers. Andy at the tender age of 30. Maurice all but 53. And now Robin.
Very sad.
I remember this song as a kid.

BEE GEES ~ ONE ~. - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i71uFC32Jrw)

[dakota87]

One of their greatest ballads from the 60's:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRIUfOVSNF8&feature=youtu.be&t=1m4s

[Merkurie]

So sad
Rest in Peace.

[Cecil Rhodes]

3 Down, 1 To Go . Just think that there are now more Beatles still living .

[TSLoverIB]

Sad Loss, great music, he will be missed, but with his music he he will live on.
To Love somebody, still one of my all time songs, i remember my father playing it in the livingroom when i was 8, and elvis songs, haha, Good Times :)

[GroobySteven]

Bee Gees - I Started a Joke - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRNTQvXSsfA)

I Started a Joke - Bee Gees - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjhGQOpK57I)


:-( One of my fave bands and my "guilty pleasure"

[Prospero]

Very sad. Way too young. Cancer is a bastard.

I will confess myself no real fan of the group - aside from their brief glory days around Saturday Night Fever. But they certainly wrote a lot of great songs - best in cover versions IMHO.
Like this
To love somebody Nina Simone - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OaNzoqSo4g)

or this

Diana Ross - Chain Reaction - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaYHRx9-v2M)

and this

Janis Joplin - To love somebody - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkGUt4QYc08)

THE CHAMBERS BROTHERS - TO LOVE SOMEBODY - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wJR3v1o60E)

Dionne Warwick - Heartbreaker - 1982.wmv - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbDRiFzinNU&feature=fvwrel)

and for me - their best song

The Bee Gees " Stayin' Alive " ( Está Vivo ) Legendado Filme: Embalos de Sábado a Noite - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOw0IlZjo-Y&feature=related)

[Stavros]

The Bee Gees had a curious history, having scored a few hits in the 1960s before going into eclipse, breaking up, re-forming and then finally hitting the big time with Saturday Night Fever in 1977. In 1968 I was visiting a friend who worked in the RSO office in Mayfair (on the Cream account) when a van driver came in -he wanted to know what to do with the several thousand copies of the latest Bee Gees single he had been sent out to buy -it was at that time the only way Stigwood could get a Bee Gees single a guranteed place in the top 20. By the time Cream broke up in 1968, he had been using most of the handsome profits from their seemingly endless US tours to plough into the Bee Gees, at that time to no purpose.

I don't know enough about it, but I think that as musical tastes changed in the 1970s, the kind of music the Bee Gees were doing became more popular, they certainly got into the disco scene which was not so hot in the 1960s when seeing live bands in clubs and pubs was more popular than it is now. My fondest recollection is the only time I can recall my father watching Top of the Pops -Manhattan was in the charts and he looked at Robin Gibb, and remarked: who is this boy, is he ill? He always was so thin, like an insect. The music was and is complete rubbish, but cancer is a grim reaper and I woudn't wish it on anyone.

Stigwood is rather like the Rupert Murdoch or the Kerry Packer of the pop music business, his biography will make interesting reading as he was involved in a lot of bands and eventually films, making money, losing it, making stars, falling out with them and so on.

[robertlouis]

Bee Gees - I Started a Joke - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRNTQvXSsfA)

I Started a Joke - Bee Gees - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjhGQOpK57I)


:-( One of my fave bands and my "guilty pleasure"

Thanks for posting that, Seanchai - it would have been my choice too. I guess that most people only know the Bee Gees from their disco heyday, but prior to that they made some fantastic records in the late 60s and early 70s. Like a lot of bands at that time it could swing towards the experimental and pretentious, but most of it was pretty good.

Did anyone know that they wrote "To Love Somebody", later covered successfully by Nina Simone and others?

Here's the one that started it for them in the UK, with Robin's haunting voice at its best. And he had just turned 17. Great song and very unusual for the time.

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z6_Ik7WrYY&ob=av2n

[Prospero]

Well I hate to speak ill of the dead, but for me the adenoidal bleat and warbles that characterised the Bee Gees music before they discovered disco was enough to curdle milk in my household. And as for their early song writing gifts - the guys even thought Massachusetts was a town, for god's sake! Sorry the faux symphonic pretensions of such things like Odessa was the sort of music likely to appeal to loon pant wearing afficiandos a such monstrosities as The Six Wives of Henry the VIII by Rick Wakeman and Yes. Duh....

End of sneer. I am sure that Robin was a very nice guy though. The obits certainly suggest that.

[GroobySteven]

Well I hate to speak ill of the dead, but for me the adenoidal bleat and warbles that characterised the Bee Gees music before they discovered disco was enough to curdle milk in my household. And as for their early song writing gifts - the guys even thought Massachusetts was a town, for god's sake! Sorry the faux symphonic pretensions of such things like Odessa was the sort of music likely to appeal to loon pant wearing afficiandos a such monstrosities as The Six Wives of Henry the VIII by Rick Wakeman and Yes. Duh....

End of sneer. I am sure that Robin was a very nice guy though. The obits certainly suggest that.


Partially why I've stated they're one of my guilty pleasures as were The Monkees. Yes their songs can be pulpy and trite ... yet they're so listenable also. I think music should be taken at a gut level of how it makes you feel, yes you can get more from listening to the lyrics of Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen - or the operatic music of Queen, the beats of the Rolling Stones etc. The Bee Gees (for me) sound great and when that's all you want, they deliver.

[Prospero]

Can't argue with that SeanChai - just letting my prejudices hang out in an area where being totally subjective is allowable. For the same reason Lou Rwls has me leap for the off switch whenever he comes on and that blasted Slade Christmas song gives me the heebie jeebies. it's a mind worm. My guilty pleasures musically - some overly sentimental Country and Western.

[GroobySteven]

Can't argue with that SeanChai - just letting my prejudices hang out in an area where being totally subjective is allowable. For the same reason Lou Rwls has me leap for the off switch whenever he comes on and that blasted Slade Christmas song gives me the heebie jeebies. it's a mind worm. My guilty pleasures musically - some overly sentimental Country and Western.

Love the Country and Western stuff with a story.

[robertlouis]

Love the Country and Western stuff with a story.

Ever play C&W backwards? Your wife comes back, your truck starts running again and your dawg comes back to life. Yee Haw! :dancing::dancing:

Prospero, I presume you're talking about mainstream/rhinestone country when you call it a guilty pleasure, and that the likes of Gillian Welch, Steve Earle, Townes van Zandt, Guy Clark, Emmylou etc are exempt.

[Prospero]

Exempt? They are not even on the same page. These people re real artists. But then are some of those who present taste disdains - and I enjoy. Dolly Parton for instance. Great songwriter. Superb entertainer and a very smart businesswoman. I saw her in concert two times - in Nashville and in London. Superb. But I also enjoy Roy Rogers, the sons of the pioneers, hank snow, Johnny Cash and June Carter and a lot of others.
Mind you Cash was a brilliant artist as well.

[dakota87]

Exempt? They are not even on the same page. These people re real artists. But then are some of those who present taste disdains - and I enjoy. Dolly Parton for instance. Great songwriter. Superb entertainer and a very smart businesswoman. I saw her in concert two times - in Nashville and in London. Superb. But I also enjoy Roy Rogers, the sons of the pioneers, hank snow, Johnny Cash and June Carter and a lot of others.
Mind you Cash was a brilliant artist as well.

The Bee Gees wrote Dolly Parton's hit Islands in the Stream FYI.

[robertlouis]

Exempt? They are not even on the same page. These people re real artists. But then are some of those who present taste disdains - and I enjoy. Dolly Parton for instance. Great songwriter. Superb entertainer and a very smart businesswoman. I saw her in concert two times - in Nashville and in London. Superb. But I also enjoy Roy Rogers, the sons of the pioneers, hank snow, Johnny Cash and June Carter and a lot of others.
Mind you Cash was a brilliant artist as well.

Soft spot for Gene Autry, truth be told. I also have every single one of Johnny Cash's truly monumental American series. For an increasingly frail and lonely man, they are an astounding achievement and a wonderful legacy.

Back on topic. DJs in the UK seem to have had a universally 540shared lapse of memory and taste when, almost to a man and woman, the first Bee Gees song they played on hearing of Robin Gibb's passing was "Stayin' Alive". Oh well....

[hard4janira]

The Bee Gees wrote Dolly Parton's hit Islands in the Stream FYI.

Yes and I actually prefer the Bee Gees version (although the Dolly/KR version was good).

Bee Gees (8/32) - Islands in the stream - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3vJUuOCpAs&feature=related)

I also like the single 'Alone' they came out with in 97

Bee Gees - Alone (Official Video) (1997) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6eaCpRs3gw)

[Prospero]

Bee Gees - Tragedy - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSVTOMkJdqs)