The next week Barry and Maurice went on Top of the Pops as the Bee Gees and performed “Don’t Forget to Remember.” Colin’s attorney demanded an apology from the BBC, telling it that Colin was a partner in the Bee Gees’ name and that Barry and Maurice had no right to perform as such without him. The BBC shunted his complaint into legal limbo, and the Stigwood office basically told Colin to piss off. Their statement read: “The Bee Gees will go on performing as the Bee Gees, and if Mr. Petersen instructs any proceedings they will be turned over to their lawyers. If Mr. Petersen wishes to try and form a group known as the Bee Gees, that matter will be dealt with in due course.”{194}
“When Colin Petersen joined the Bee Gees in 1967, the brothers Gibb had been appearing under the name of the Bee Gees—which are Barry Gibb’s initials—for many years. The brothers Gibb have no objection to Colin Petersen performing under his own initials, or any other name. The Bee Gees name predated him by years.”
“Colin lost interest in the group,” Barry said. “During the first week of the last recording session he didn’t turn up once. He said, ‘Call me if you need me.’ A dedicated Bee Gee doesn’t do that. He also told some press people that he was only interested in the money. He said the Bee Gees wouldn’t survive when Robin left—I was never under the impression that Colin Petersen was a fortune teller!”{195} The NME, in reporting the contretemps, wrote: “By Christmas it will be THE Bee Gee.”{196}
While Barry and Maurice were dealing with Colin, Robin was savoring the rewards of going solo. In late August 1969, Robin received a £30,000 payment from Polydor as part of his £200,000 recording contract. Robin sold his shares in a song-publishing concern to RSO for £40,000. He also wrote six songs for Tom Jones. “I put it straight in the bank,” Robin said. “I’m not going to spend it just because it’s there. When I see something I want then I will go out and buy it. I don’t drink, but I might go out and buy a few thousand records. I’m quite a record collector.”{197}
Robin may well not have been drinking, but his amphetamine consumption continued unabated. In September, his parents tried to have Robin designated a ward of the court. Since Robin had not yet come of age, Molly had been signing his contracts. Robin was “surrounded by a lot of bad influences,” Barbara said, “and started taking all those pills. We didn’t see Robin for 18 months. I think it was something he had to get out of his system—but he worried us sick.”{198}
“I am very concerned,” Hugh said, “with my son’s welfare and finances. I think he is being pushed around by the wrong people. My wife Barbara and I are being kept away from our son Robin. We believe he is almost a prisoner in his own home, and we are consulting with our lawyers to have him made a ward of court as soon as possible for his own good and protection. I believe today my son is penniless. I’d like to know where all the money has gone.” Stigwood had apparently given Robin a check for £5,000 just before he quit the group. “I want to know,” Hugh said, “where that £$5,000 has gone. I don’t want anything. And making him a ward of court is the last thing I want to do.” Demonstrating his usual flair for understatement, Hugh Gibb finished by saying: “I have never been a stern father.”
“I was told,” Stigwood said, “that he had gone through an extraordinary sum of money.” “I feel sorry for my father,” Robin said. “He is making something out of nothing for himself. I have made my own career, and my own family. For a father to interfere is ridiculous—he is making a fool of himself.”{199} Robin further claimed that Hugh had been receiving a 2 percent royalty from Robin’s songs since Stigwood signed the Bee Gees.
In September, Robin signed a management deal with Vic Lewis, a former jazz drummer. Molly had to countersign; Robin was still a minor. Stigwood and Lewis went back and forth in the press. “We always take [legal] advice about all our contracts,” Lewis said. “And I am satisfied that the one I signed with Robin is completely valid.” “I don’t think Robin is at all well at the moment,” Stigwood replied. “He is not capable of making decisions.”{200}
Barry and Maurice began filming the disastrous Cucumber Castle. “We have got to have twenty or thirty screen tests in Los Angeles,” Barry said of his ambition to be in pictures. “You always have to do them because if your nose isn’t the right shape, they’ll throw you out. They have to decide what part you’re going to play, you can’t decide to be a hero. It’s a far bigger rat race, dog eat dog. Especially in Los Angeles you have to keep looking round to see if there’s a knife coming! I’d like to do a musical film and I would like to do drama, but I feel I need a lot more experience and you can only get that by doing what you know first.”{201}
It’s difficult to describe the plot or substance of Cucumber Castle because no one has ever been able to sit through more than five minutes of it. The brothers cavort in head-to-toe armor; there are comedy skits and songs by Blind Faith and Lulu. Barry and Maurice perform several numbers from their album of the same name.
On September 27, the courts thwarted Colin Petersen by allowing Maurice and Barry to perform as the Bee Gees. “It seems you are asking the court,” the judge said, “to destroy something of value for the sake of the wounded pride of a litigant who enjoyed some personal fame under this name.” The judge, no stranger to cliché, also said that Petersen was “cutting off his nose to spite his face.”{202}
“It’s given us a lot of freedom both musically and personally,” Barry said. “Maurice and I will become a complete partnership in business and in everything else we do. Out of the whole mess comes the new true Bee Gees. We intend to stick together like glue. There are only two of us now, we don’t [want to] be fighting each other. We’ve [always] been the closest, he’s always talked about the personal things with me, he discussed his marriage with me. Maurice and I love ballads, you can’t make us do rock and roll. We listen to rock and roll, we like it, as we like all forms of music, especially Chopin and Beethoven, but we’ll stick to what we can do with our hearts, not our heads. I write the lyrics and Maurice comes up with beautiful chords. Robin is a strong songwriter and a strong singer, but Maurice is the backbone musically of the group. He always has been. Robin’s leaving the group hurt me a lot. It’s a shame he’s not feeling the same ambitions now that we held together as three brothers. He’s left me bewildered but I think his success is fantastic and I hope Colin succeeds.”{203}
“Maurice and I could be the Bee Gees for the next five years,” Barry told another interviewer. “Though we’ve given the public a confusing time, we should have the chance to prove that we are the Bee Gees. The Bee Gees are not dead and don’t intend to be. I just ask the critics to back off a bit and give us a chance, we want a little leeway. Most of the dee jays and critics crucified the record. They didn’t give it a chance. We’re still capable of making the same records we did before. They forget Maurice is capable of playing about seven instruments, most of the backing tracks on the records were all him, and I sang lead on four or five of the hit singles. So how can the Bee Gees’ sound be finished? Robin has a more heartbreaking sound in his voice, it’s more emotional. Whatever he does now is his business. The critics may say we can’t do it with the next records. They will, you watch. They’ve had their fun, but now it’s a bit of fun for me. They obviously still don’t know who writes the songs. They will realise that we both write songs.”{204}
Robin’s increasing dependence on speed began to show. He gave interviews that were not exactly public relations gold; they were flat-out hostile. “You should not try to mix too much with your record buying public,” he said. “You should talk to them only from stage, through television, radio or the papers because fans want it that way. Familiarity breeds contempt. Once they know you get tired like them, eat and drink like them, get ill like them and breath the same air as them, then you are no better than Harry Blogsworth.” He also talked paranoid nonsense. “Britain is making her own nuclear warheads at a secret and very well-guarded establishment near Bath,” he said. “They’re turning them out like mad, and M.I.5 a
re behind every tree.”{205} Another interviewer commented on Robin “stringing his words together in a bewilderingly rapid flow.”{206}
November saw the release of “One Million Years,” the lead-in single to Robin’s solo album, Robin’s Reign. “One Million Years” failed to chart in the US or the UK. “Years” is worked to death and structured like Barry’s most indulgent numbers. It’s incongruous to hear Robin singing what sounds so like a Barry song. Maurice began working on his solo album, Loner, in early December and continued through January. He played most of the instruments himself. Maurice’s main songwriting collaborator was his brother-in-law, Billy Lawrie, Lulu’s younger brother.
In December, Barry sounded weary from the whole sorry saga. “I’m fed up to the teeth,” he said. “I’m miserable, disappointed, and completely disillusioned. I’m heading for a breakdown because I have simply had enough from everyone. I don’t want any more family arguments. I have taken all I will take and that’s it. I started the group when I was nine years old. Would I want to break up something I started? It happened, but it wasn’t me. As from today, I’m solo. Whatever Maurice does is his business.”{207}
At this point, the NME joke appeared to be true: Maurice was the only Bee Gee left.
“I have never been pushing or jealous,” Maurice said. “My biggest asset, I suppose, is that I get on with people. I keep my mouth shut and stay in the background.”{208}
“I couldn’t see them carrying on as a duo,” Colin told the press. “I think the public will more readily accept Barry as a solo artist than they would two Gibb brothers who are nothing more than remnants of the Bee Gees.”
Barry said he was leaving Britain for America, and that he had nothing left in his bank account, only shares in RSO: “I am reluctant to leave Britain,” he said, “but I can’t sit here any longer.”{209}
“We’ve always been together up until now,” Robin said. “When we found that we had natural harmonies at an early age, we became almost desperate to achieve stardom. We were always enthusiastic and faced with the same situations. There are certain feelings that you can convey only to brothers and relatives. There might have come a time when we’d all have been having a good time together. But that certainly wasn’t the situation when I left, and I’m much happier now. At last I’ve got to make my own decisions, and can attract individual attention, rather than being part of the Bee Gees. There’s much more scope, and the horizons are far wider. By leaving, I didn’t do anything to jolt the cog of the working harmony. It was for the benefit of all, really.”{210}
Robin’s solo album, Robin’s Reign, came out on December 16, 1969.
“I’m completely happy with the album,” Robin said. “The only regret is that it couldn’t have been longer. The album contains all my own material, including a kind of carol with a Christmas flavour, entitled ‘Lord Bless All.’ It’s not religious really, but simply about winter life, with a lot of pathos in it. It’s got a forty piece choir behind it, consisting of forty Robin Gibbs.”
“Lamplight” on Odessa prefigures much of the material on Reign, which showcases Robin’s tropes: unchanging beats, exquisite voice, self-harmonies, lots of room sound in the production, orchestral strings, laments for absent love, for absent friends and for missed opportunities. Themes of abandonment run through every song. “Give Me a Smile,” peppered with Tijuana Brass horn choruses, includes the lyric, clearly aimed at his brothers, “You may not know, but I miss you earnestly.” “Most of a Life” features a quieter arrangement with a lovely melody. For once, Robin directly addresses his wretchedness by citing an event: a woman walking away. “One Million Years” offers a switcheroo—Robin singing a lead that seems tailor made for Barry. The lyrics express bottomless yearning, desires that will never be fulfilled, even if the singer waits a million years for the unnamed object of the song.
In song construction, vocal performance, arrangement and production, Robin joined Scott Walker and Syd Barrett in the avant-garde of pop. Reign also evokes the little-remembered work of Curt Boettcher, a producer and writer for the Association (“Along Comes Mary”) and Tommy (“Sweet Pea”) Roe. Boettcher’s grand opus, Begin, was released in 1967 and presents heartbroken lyrics over ornate strings and complex arrangements. Begin and Reign also suggest the lush strings of Brian Wilson’s Pet Sounds.
Robin’s Reign is a heartbreaking collection, overflowing with orchestration. Robin lacks Barry’s gifts for melody, hooks and climax. But he surrenders to and owns his feelings as Barry never could or would. Robin hits crazy high notes throughout, belting out at full strength cut after cut. The record feels conspicuously effortful, as if Robin feared this was his one chance to get all his ideas out just the way he wanted. The overproduction seems intended to camouflage Robin’s insecurity about any weakness in the material, as if piling on orchestral effects might hide a lack of melody. The massed strings provide an incongruously soft bed for Robin’s suffering, and give his emotions great power. They also might be a product of his methamphetamine use. Those on speed love embellishment, get lost in detail and never leave well enough alone. Every square inch of aural space on Robin’s Reign is packed with horns, woodwinds, strings, guitars, keyboards and endless tracks of Robin’s voice.
Even the best the songs seem to lack something, an unidentifiable element, a uniting factor. In one song it might be melody, in another a relief from overproduction, in another the need for a new voice to harmonize with Robin’s. This sense of something missing pervades the record, and suggests how Robin’s brothers strengthened his work. To make up for what’s missing, Robin bombards the listener with more, when so much of the material cries out for less.
Despite all this, the influence of Robin’s singular vocals and arrangements on Reign can be heard clearly in the future work of many English singer-songwriters, in particular, surprisingly, Cat Stevens’s Tea for the Tillerman.
Robin put out “August October” as a single in February to bolster album sales.
In late January, the pathos of going solo was made plain to Robin. During New Zealand’s first rock festival, Robin performed with a small orchestra in Auckland. He looks so alone, unsure and tiny in the center of a huge, curved outdoor stage. As Robin begins “Massachusetts,” vegetables fly from the audience. One strikes Robin in the chest, others whizz past his head. Robin backs up a step, looking deeply wounded, and keeps on singing.
This moment perfectly encapsulates the beating Robin took during the breakup. The ego tradeoffs he faced were brutal: stay solo and get pelted with food, or rejoin Barry and likely never sing lead on a new song again.
“After his triumph with ‘Saved By The Bell,’ the failure of Robin Gibb’s follow-up came as something of a shock,” wrote the NME. “It also accounts for this, his third solo single, being rushed out so quickly. This casts aside the cloak of quality which has previously surrounded his work, and resorts to sheer unashamed sweet corn. Set to lilting waltz-time, with mandolin effects providing a continental flavour, it erupts into a hummable sing-along chorus. Extremely well scored, it’s the sort of disc that strikes me as a logical hit—even though it’s a bit out of character for Robin, and his last release was a flop. I think it’ll do it!”{211}
It didn’t. “August October” fared no better than #45. In April, Maurice released the one song from Loner that would see the light of day. “Railroad,” an eccentric mashup of Bee Gees strings and loping country waltz, reflects Maurice’s continued interest in Nashville country and the Band—though in performance it’s most reminiscent of folksinger-actor Burl Ives. RSO put out an early music video, a promo clip to accompany the song. A lyric goes: “’Cause I’m walking by the railroad till I’m home,” so, of course, the clip consists of Maurice walking by railroad tracks. The song did not chart, which is a shame. Maurice, with his expressive, earnest voice, doesn’t imitate the emotion of a song like Barry, or wallow in angst like Robin. Maurice inhabits his material; he has a wonderful timbre. He was never heard enough.
; Robin almost finished a second solo album, Sing Slowly Sisters; it was never released during his time with the Bee Gees. Treasured by Robin aficionados for its frank expression of desolation amid lilting melodies, Sisters’ production echoes Robin’s Reign, only with more oboes. “Everything Is How You See Me,” with its western-movie, theme-song chorus arrangement, is a rare Robin moment, a song of pure romantic adulation. Robin describes himself as existing only in his lover’s eyes. “See Me” has a stronger, more commercial and memorable hook than anything on Reign.
Sisters’ most unforgettable and wrenching track is “Avalanche.” Robin sings—in an uncharacteristically high octave—a naked, unrelenting expression of misery and isolation. The production is brutally simple, possibly because this version is only a demo, and Robin intended to add orchestration later. Over a primal drumbeat—which sounds like someone playing an empty suitcase—and strummed guitar, Robin sings multiple harmonies with himself, begging someone to “cure my broken heart” and “free my lonely life.” He chants mournfully of change and of things “locked apart.” The construction and sound of the song—while possibly a nod to the White Album—are simply deranged. Robin never sounded so grief-stricken and unhinged, or stood so exposed. It’s a daring, courageous and even frightening piece of writing, production and performance.
The placement and treatment of voices prefigures production methods that gained praise for their forward thinking years later. Robin sings in the foreground as his voice shouts out the chorus and another of his voices speaks under the shouting in the background. This was a signature of, most notably, David Bowie’s “Heroes,” which didn’t come out until 1977. Robin’s torment, and his commitment to expressing his internal agony, is almost more than the listener can bear. He evokes and matches other singers of unbearable wretchedness, like, incongruously, the Louvin Brothers (“Satan Is Real”) or Gram (“Hickory Wind”) Parsons. “Avalanche” is Robin’s least pop, most moving composition.
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