by Hector Cook
“It seems to me that if they can argue halfway round the world, there can’t be much of a romance going in the first place,” he added. “If there was, surely they would wait and talk it out together when she got home?”
Although Barry insisted he had fully recovered, Maurice professed to be devastated by the end of the relationship. “I was so much in love with her that I didn’t give a damn for myself,” he said. “I didn’t wash my hair for weeks. I drank rather too much …”
Eventually, Maurice turned to man’s best friend for company. After seeing Dave Dee’s Pyrenean mountain dog, he bought one of his own: a fluffy, white giant of a puppy which he named Aston de Maurice de Beaudier. “I used to sit and watch TV with him asleep on my lap … Aston was the only friend I had,” he added plaintively.
Barry was so taken with Aston that a few days later, he became the second Pyrenean mountain dog owner in the Gibb family when he bought one he christened Barnaby.
Maurice was soon seen around town with a Hungarian pop singer, Sarolta Zalatnay, in what appeared to be a rebound romance, but he later insisted, “I’m not a Casanova and it’s all most unfortunate. I’ve never been publicised to be available. Because of the stories of my affairs with Lulu and Sarolta, the fans feel, ‘Oh, we won’t bother about Maurice because he’s always got a steady girl.’
“So I seem to be the Gibb brother who gets left out in the cold. The teenyboppers come to see Barry because he’s pretty and got the sex image, while Robin’s got the voice and all I do is stand there and play my guitar. I’ll have to change all that. I’ll have to learn to keep my mouth shut. That supposed affair with Sarolta, for instance. It was a publicity idea for her and I agreed to play along.” Good thing then that the press were unable to substantiate rumours that linked Maurice with “Tiger” Mathis.
Maurice claimed to have little time for romance anyway, adding, “So many groups fail because, having got quite well known, they decide to spend all their time in the clubs. Work pours in and they can’t handle it because of late-night drinking. I went to bed at 11.30 p.m. the other night, which is incredible for me. But we worked for 11 years to get where we are today, and I want to take our work seriously so that, later on, I’ll be able to appreciate the money we’ve made.”
* * *
On March 27, 1968, The Bee Gees began their 26-date UK tour with a concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall which, according to Robin, “had everything on there except The Bee Gees. It was like a Roman spectacular, a bit overdone. But it was exciting … Robert’s usual flair for putting on a show.”
“It was a particular stage of their career, and I wanted to create a big event,” Stigwood explained. “These boys are brilliantly talented and their music shows this. Big things are happening for them, and therefore there is no reason why their affairs shouldn’t be treated with a certain amount of flamboyance.”
With Robin’s introduction, “We’ll now sing for you something we have never recorded,” the group went into the opening strains of ‘I’ve Decided To Join The Air Force.’
“They did that once through,” Stigwood continued, “and then I had the doors of the hall open in all different directions, and this Air Force band marched through the audience playing a reprise of the song. I had a choir of 40 or 50 planted in the audience for a song called ‘Birdie Told Me’. They looked like the audience because there was no equipment around them. When it got to the reprise of the song, I had sound booms produced and this section of the audience stood up and performed the chorus. Quite a night.”
Adding to the festival atmosphere, The Bee Gees employed a 30-piece orchestra, conducted by their musical director, Bill Shepherd.
Robin’s then girlfriend Molly said, “It was such a display of showmanship, one of the first stage-managed pop shows. It was the first group ever to have an orchestra on stage … very impressive to see the group standing there, sort of young and nervous, because it was the biggest concert they’d ever done at that stage. It was really an incredible show.”
Bob Farmer wrote in Disc & Music Echo: “Sixty-seven dinner-jacketed gentlemen file in from behind the stage and sit down, row upon row of them, in a semi-circle around a deserted stage. Musicians to a man. With violins and cellos, harpsichords and big bass drums, you name it – the instruments are there … Bill Shepherd, The Bee Gees’ arranger and conductor, has come to control the horde of penguin-like figures, preparing to provide the most costly accompaniment any pop group – sorry, quintet – has had the nerve to hire.
“Down go the lights and on stage slip five furtive figures who need no introduction … Suddenly up come the lights and there they are! Maurice in mauve shirt and trousers. Robin in wine-red velvet jacket. Barry decked from head to bell-bottom toe in blue shot silk. Vince in inevitable black shirt. Colin crouched over his drums with fawn sweater and white trousers.
“That night five boys, 67 musicians, 45 RAF bandsmen and 40 mixed voices fed the 5,000 the most sumptuous meal of music any British pop show has produced. But was it really worth it? It would be absurd to say 67 musicians were necessary to enable The Bee Gees to recapture exactly their sound on record. Half the number would have been adequate, and in any case the screams often swamped those violins. And The Bee Gees themselves, smartly turned out and singing finely, did little more than merely stand and sing.
“But it was worth it. For this was a spectacular, an occasion of prestige, a concert which will not be forgotten.”
Not everyone was completely bowled over by the event. The supporting acts for the show were The Beatles-backed Apple band Grapefruit, The Foundations and Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Titch, with the latter planning a walk-out less than five minutes before the concert was scheduled to begin. Dave Dee & Co were known for their elaborate stage routines, and were expecting time to rehearse their act, but because of the extensive rehearsal time taken up by The Bee Gees and their orchestra, were unable to do a lights rehearsal until 15 minutes before the public were admitted. As the lighting was an integral part of their performance, the results could have been disastrous.
“I was seething,” Dave Dee recalled. “When the audience started filing in, we just had to pack up rehearsals. There was a storming row backstage, and we were ready to quit there and then. We cooled enough to realise we would be letting down the public, and in the end our act went off all right.
“There were actually no problems at all on the tour [itself],” Dave admits. “We always got on very well with the boys, but this Albert Hall gig, it was important for both of us, because there we were, young bands starting off – the Albert Hall was the pinnacle in those days.
“We got wind of the fact that they’d got this great big military band in, so we thought, ‘Well, we’ve got to do something.’ Our show was good anyway, because we used to use UV lights and all sorts of stuff which was way ahead of its time for those days, but of course we needed to rehearse it, or at least to set it up to see if it would work, and of course we didn’t get the time … We got six [soldiers of our own in] and right in the middle of ‘Bend It’, they all marched on stage with their guns, pointed them up, shot, turned around and walked off the stage. That was like the total opposite to what The Bee Gees were doing, and we just thought that was subtle and a bit funny, and it was just our way of at least doing something.”
Immediately after the show, he told reporters, “We don’t need a huge orchestra and choir to get across.” Despite his acerbic tone, Dave now claims, “There were never any problems, it was really a question of one-upmanship I think. Are they going to do that – well we’ve got to do something, and then of course you get your road crew winding you up, and you get your managers winding you up, and you get everybody else winding you up. [Robert Stigwood] wanted to go one better than everybody, and he did, and to be quite honest, he was doing the right thing for his band.”
Much of the rumpus was down to DDDBMT’s publicist, Brian Sommerville, a former Beatles publicity man. Recognising an opportunity when he saw
one, Sommerville created the impression that here were two groups about to go on the road for two months together, but who hated each other. Dave likens it to modern day sports hype. “It’s a bit like boxing isn’t it? It creates interest.”
Barry was quick to have his say after the show too, and defended The Bee Gees’ use of the orchestra. He also used the event to take another shot at The Beatles, saying, “We hear so much about The Beatles being unable to appear on stage anymore because they could not reproduce their record sound on stage. But what we’re doing now completely defeats the argument, and they should follow suit.
“We didn’t hire this huge orchestra simply to be flash. We did it to provide audiences with as near as possible [a] reproduction of our sound on record. If we can do it, then I see no reason why The Beatles shouldn’t take up our challenge and hire themselves an orchestra and do a few concerts. It’s not as if they can’t afford it!”
With such a spectacular start, it was perhaps inevitable that the tour itself was anticlimactic. Ticket sales were disappointing, and Robert Stigwood shouldered the blame himself. “I accept full responsibility for the fact that it wasn’t a sell-out tour,” he announced. “I did overestimate their drawing power in Britain. While The Bee Gees were playing all over the world, I neglected their appearances on British TV. Apart from things like Top Of The Pops, they were never seen. I now accept they should have done far more TV shows before going out on a British tour.”
The use of the orchestra was still a sensitive issue for Barry. “In Germany, then at the Albert Hall and later on tour, we carried a large orchestra with us. Okay, at the Albert Hall we gave the cynics a certain amount of ammunition,” he admitted. “An RAF band, a choir, a near-symphony orchestra … it was obvious that some knockers would say we overdid it – and worse that we got ourselves outnumbered, simply because we couldn’t depend on our own music to get us through.
“But this is surely unfair thinking. My feeling is that it is the song, not the group, that sells records nowadays. If a really established group came out with a very bad song, their disc sales would slump. With us, we’ve been on the big ballad scene … But to present those big rather sad songs on record, you have to have a full-scale arrangement. And we think it is only fair to go as far as possible to present those same sounds on stage.
“We’re spending the money, remember. We could go on, just guitar and drums, and do the same dreary old thing and make much more. Thinking big must produce, in the end, big results. Taking a big orchestra round the country causes problems, especially with small stages, but problems can always be overcome.
“We built our reputation on the Continent … and our tours have been ambitious, whether you like what we do on stage or not … it’s not a question of trying to show anybody else up. We’re not the flash-Harry types … But we do feel we have this debt to people who buy our records … and are determined to give them the best possible sound.”
Frederic Tanner was present at the fourth concert of the tour at the Manchester Palace Theatre on March 31. “I was in the stalls, and the girls in the circle were screaming their heads off. In between the songs, various items were thrown down from the circle onto the stage, mostly flowers, but also rings, bras and knickers. It was an amazing atmosphere.”
Nearly 20 years later in 1985, while on honeymoon, Frederic was amazed to learn from new bride Christine, that she too had been to that same concert, accompanied by her best friend Marilyn.
Impatient as they were for The Bee Gees to come on stage, both appreciated Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch. However, Christine conceded that they were not even an appetiser for what they had come to see. “For us, The Bee Gees were the starters, main course, dessert and creme de la creme all rolled into one. The roses which we were each clutching looked worse for wear, and as they walked on, we went mad. I loved Barry while Marilyn was crazy about Robin, so we each had our quiet swooning sessions as they sang their own songs like ‘Words’ or ‘I Started A Joke’. Otherwise we just screamed along with everybody else whenever possible.
“I vaguely remember objects flying past us and landing on the stage,” Christine continued, “but funnily enough cannot remember throwing my own rose at Barry. I do remember one landing in front of him, and like to think it was mine. We were on cloud nine throughout their performance and lived on it for months afterwards … what a night. Little did I realise that a total stranger, who was also in the stalls, would one day become my husband.”
As the tour continued, so did the pranks. Ian “Tich” Amey still chuckles at the memory of one little jape in particular. “They used to all take a little solo spot, and Robin was due to go on stage and do his bit. They used to frequent our dressing room a lot, go in and out, and he said, ‘Oh, I must go now, I’m [due] on stage,’ and we said, ‘No, you’re not going,’ and we literally closed the door on him. ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ we repeated. ‘Ahhhh!’ he cried followed by a loud ‘Bang, bang, bang, bang.’ ‘I must go on!’ he said, ‘I must go – you have to let me go!’ ‘No, no, sorry, stay there!’ We did let him go in the end but the band were playing away like good ’uns, waiting for the ‘singist’ to come on stage.”
As Trevor “Dozy” Davies recalls, the fraternising between the two groups was in spite of Stigwood’s attempts to keep the bands apart, concerned that over-mingling would diminish The Bee Gees’ top billing status. “There was this thing at that time, where the powers that be wanted them just to stay in their dressing room and be the stars of the show! But they didn’t want that – half the time they were in our dressing room. Even though their management still wanted them to stay away and just be the superstars. It didn’t happen.”
Their socialising wasn’t just confined to show time either. Maurice has long been associated with Aston Martins from those days of heady excess and Tich accepts some responsibility for Mo’s infatuations with that particular make of car. “I had an [Aston Martin] DB5, and we were actually on tour with them at the time, and we happened to be in Salisbury, which is our home town. We had some time off and [Maurice] saw my car, and he says, ‘Ooh! I’d like to have a little spin in that.’ So I took him out to a place called the Amesbury Flats and got him up to about 120mph. He quite liked it, and decided that he would have one. I was driving, because he was still a learner, and I didn’t have any L-plates! And no, I wasn’t going to let him drive it.
“So, he quite enjoyed the ride,” Tich narrated, “and next minute he went out and bought a DB6, which was the next one up. I can remember seeing him, with one of the roadies sat next to him, and it seemed quite strange, somebody learning to drive in an Aston Martin DB6, going down the Bays-water Road!”
The tour concluded at the Belfast Ritz on May 3, with The Bee Gees staying at the Grand Central Hotel before taking a well-earned holiday.
While the boys had been out on the road, Polydor had released the first in a series of three compilation albums. Roland Rennie had acquired from Festival the licensing rights to 35 of the Australian recordings from 1967, under a five-year deal. Concerned about the damage that the release might have on the group’s trendy image, Robert Stigwood argued vociferously with Roland against the wisdom of doing so. “He was against putting them out because, of course, he didn’t want any energy wasted on something that he didn’t have a part of, and of course, they had moved on since then, as well,” said Alan Bates.
“You shouldn’t be doing this,” Stigwood protested. “I mean, they’re rare, they’re precious, they’re beautiful!”
Both Roland and Alan thanked Stigwood for airing his concerns and promised to consider his comments carefully. That April, Rare Precious & Beautiful was released in the UK, followed in November by Volume 2, and in February 1969 by Volume 3. Each of the albums’ covers had a different coloured background, but each featured the same large butterfly. In the USA, the releases were staggered so that the first volume appeared in November 1968 and Volume 2 in February 1969. Atco never released the third collection.
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13
SUCH A SHAME
THE GROUP BEGAN work on their next album almost as soon as the tracks for Horizontal were completed. With tour dates the only break from recording, holidays were long overdue. The Gibb brothers therefore took time off in the early summer to travel to different parts of the globe and, according to Robin, “met up again, unfortunately, in different parts of the globe.”
Barry picked up the story, adding, “Strangely enough, none of us knew where the others were going. I went to Los Angeles and got a bit fed up with the scene there. A few people I knew there, I found to be phoney, and I wasn’t enjoying myself. So I came home and then went to Rome, and when I got to the airport, Robin was standing there. And it was a strange thing because I had just decided to go there on the spur of the moment. It was very weird because I could have gone anywhere.
“I thought Robin was in India, but apparently he got fed up with it and decided to go to Rome as well. It’s the telepathy thing again. It crops up all the time between us.”
Vince Melouney and Colin Petersen headed for the Bahamas, where Colin married Joanne Newfield in a ceremony in Nassau, with Vince acting as best man. The couple managed to keep the press unsure as to whether the wedding would actually take place.
Robert Stigwood gave his approval to the match, saying, “Colin is a very level-headed person, despite being a racing car enthusiast. I was very happy to see my personal assistant, Joanne, whom I’m very fond of, marry Colin because I knew that she was in good hands. He’s a very sophisticated person. He has a good appreciation of good food and wines … He’s 100 per cent professional in everything he does and he’s an old professional like the Gibbs because he’s been in entertainment as a child as they were, too.”
After the wedding, Colin and Joanne jetted off for a honeymoon in Majorca, which was spoiled somewhat when Joanne fell ill with German measles.
