Bee Gees singer Robin Gibb dies after cancer battle

[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]

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


or this



and this







and for me - their best song

[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]

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.

[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!

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.