The Bee Gees

by David N. Meyer

  In July of 1970, RSO went public. The pre-tax profits for RSO had been estimated at $1.2 million, so those owning a piece of the company anticipated a hearty windfall. Just prior to the sale, RSO freed Barry from his recording and management contract with the company. Barry and Maurice remained contracted as songwriters for RSO under a deal that lasted until 1975. That deal paid RSO publishing royalties from anything Maurice and Barry wrote.

  The initial share price was $00.90 but quickly dropped to $00.72. Three-quarters of the available shares remained unsold. The offering was a disaster for Barry—who was reputed to be near destitute at the time—and for Maurice. The brothers were the two largest stockholders in RSO among the artists who held shares. It’s never been clear what the various RSO artists gave up for their stock, but supposedly Barry had all his cash in the company. He lost £36,000, Maurice lost £24,000 and Robin, who had cashed out before the sale, was also bust.{212} Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce—Cream—were also shareholders.

  By August of 1970, the corporate financial implications of the split were weighing heavily on all three brothers. Rancorous negotiations between NEMS and RSO seemed destined for the courts. There were rumblings about physical threats being made against Robin, and hoodlums turning up who were somehow connected to monies flowing to the Bee Gees. These rumors could be dismissed as early symptoms of the paranoia that slowly overtook Robin, but hoodlums threatened the other brothers, too.

  The Gibbs were learning that without each other they could not express themselves. Nobody was happy with his solo output, or performing without all his brothers. Even Barry, the ultimate unstoppable professional, never got his solo career going as an actor or a singer. The irony is that all their solo work created during the breakup, however it fared in the market, has proven over the decades to be arresting and worthwhile. Too bad neither the brothers nor their audience realized it at the time.

  In the brothers’ view, their solo careers had failed. The RSO stock sale had tanked. Thugs appeared after the sale failed to meet expectations. The brothers were broke. Maurice was living above a fish and chips shop.

  Those unfamiliar with rock economics might wonder how a band that sold so many records in such a short time could be destitute. The answers are simple, and lie in the pitiless contractual practices of pre-Napster rock and roll. (Post-Napster, the financial prospects for 99 percent of working musicians are even worse.) Bands signed with managers. Managers took 25 percent of everything the band made, off the top, prior to taxes or expenses. Bands signed with record labels. Record labels gave bands advances—sometimes enormous signing bonuses—from which the manager, of course, took 25 percent.

  Monies paid on signing are advances against royalties—against future earnings. Every penny of an advance must be repaid—or, as the terminology has it, recouped—before the artist sees another payment from a label. A band receives only 75 percent of their advance money, but they have to pay back 100 percent. Taxes took whatever percentage taxes in England took in 1967–69.

  Labels have perfected the practice of ensuring that few albums are ever profitable—that few albums earn more than they cost to record, manufacture, package, ship and promote. Any parties the label throws for the band, any promotional expenses they incur, all touring costs, any lunches the label buys for a DJ or music writer: it all gets charged to the band. That’s why many best-selling bands are in deficit to their record labels while their managers thrive. And that’s why, with few exceptions, the richest people in rock and roll are managers and not musicians.

  A musician’s strongest source of income is his or her publishing or songwriting copyrights. But from the earliest days of record labels, musicians had to surrender to their label a hefty percentage of their publishing as part of getting signed. For decades, the publishing and copyrights of successful bands funded the speculative signing of all the other bands that would never earn a dime.

  The Bee Gees signed away 51 percent of their publishing at the start of their relationship with Stigwood. The most—and it’s likely that they signed away other percentages of their songwriting, too—they could possibly earn was 49 percent of their own songwriting royalties. Add to this disheartening formula that the brothers spent like what they were—newly rich teenagers—and it’s easy to see where the money went: into thin air.

  It was time for a reunion. Part of the thinking was that a reunion would give new life to RSO’s stock. “This is a real challenge,” Barry said. “One hit from us could change the whole situation. Shareholders and speculators apparently need some confidence. Well, they are going to get it.” “All that matters is that we’re back together,” Maurice said, “and with the same objective—to get the good vibrations into the company.” “For some reason best known to itself,” Stigwood said, “the City (England’s financial market) looks upon the show business world as a poor relation. But we are going to show how wrong the pundits can be and make them eat their words.”{213}

  Before Barry could fully embrace his brothers, however, he had old business to attend to: Barry’s divorce to Maureen Bates was finalized on August 27.

  The Bee Gees’ reunion was consummated on August 21, 1970. It was announced to the public on August 28. “We had all been together the night before—but with our lawyers, arguing about the same things that we had been arguing about for months,” Robin said. “The next day we met in Robert Stigwood’s office to carry on the argument, and suddenly it was all over. We threw it all out the window and decided to go into the studio that afternoon. But before we did we had a bit of a thrash with champagne on the roof garden.”

  “We know that there are people in the business who have to be convinced that we mean what we say,” Barry said. “Over the next few months we will be able to convince them that we haven’t lost any of the old spark.” “Everything had been too emotional,” Maurice said. “It had been almost two years since the first signs of a split, but it seemed that afternoon in the studio it had been yesterday. Everyone asks about the rows, but I have honestly forgotten what most of them were about. We reached the stage where we believed what we read before we believed what we said to each other. Now I think we all have more stability, and are more mature. Before we were so wrapped in the Bee Gees that even minor arguments seemed to fill our whole world.”{214}

  “If you had to find a reason for the reunion,” Robin said, “all I can say is that I’ve been Robin Gibb since I was born, and a Bee Gee since I was six. When I was an ex-Bee Gee all my records sounded like the Bee Gees, because that’s what I am. Now it’s like being back at school with no worries.” In keeping with his role as peacekeeping middle brother, Maurice said: “We discussed it and reformed. We want to apologise publicly to Robin for the things that have been said. We want to stop boring the public with our squabbles and do the music. We intend carrying on with our solo careers but we want to start things as a group again. There will be the three of us and we will use a session drummer. We will go into the studio to record a new single and an album in the near future.”{215} “There were some misunderstandings between us,” Robin said. “But that’s all in the past now.” “Individually they are creative people,” Stigwood said. “Collectively they are, for my money, the best pop group in the world.” {216}

  “I think we re-formed because we were tired of being on our own,” Barry said. “We didn’t split because we wanted to be solo acts; we wanted to be alone for a while because we had been together for ten years. Robin rang me in Spain where I was on holiday and he gave me his views on being alone. When I got back we had two meetings and we realised we had forgotten our original arguments.”{217} “We hope we haven’t lost the public’s confidence,” Robin said. “I think we were afraid of losing each other as brothers. When brothers fight it’s worse than friends fighting and we were making mountains out of molehills.”{218} “Robin and I were the people who really fought,” Barry said. “Maurice was always on the outside getting the flak. We two were at loggerheads cause he was a s
ongwriter and I’m a songwriter, and his voice and my voice are different. It was too much for us: who was getting credit on the songs, who was getting voice credit, who should be singing what song. Nowadays we don’t care, we discuss and then do. But our problems were very destructive.”{219}

  “There would be a reporter at my door every morning,” Robin said, “telling me what Barry had said. The phone would ring at midnight and it would be Barry telling me he’d never said such things. And I wouldn’t believe him cause I’d read it in print.”{220}

  “The 15 months we were split up was the best thing that could have happened,” Maurice said. “We were okay separately, but together we’re something else. In the old days, when the publishing credit said, ‘B., R. & M. Gibb,’ and I had nothing to do with it, they would say, ‘What’s Maurice’s name doing on it? Why’s he getting paid?’ We went through all the little stupid crap. ‘Who sings lead?’ Who cares as long as it’s a hit? I don’t care if I don’t have a solo track on the entire album. It’s still a Bee Gees record. All the bullshit is past; now we can handle it. After almost a year and a half apart, we wrote ‘Lonely Days’ and ‘How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,’ in the studio and cut both right away. The roadies were clapping; it was happening again.”{221}

  “You become famous for the first time,” Barry said, showing a new maturity. “You’re about 20 years old. You suddenly have more money than you’ve ever known. You suddenly believe everything you read about yourself. You suddenly believe that maybe you’ve been sent on a special mission by God, that you have a philosophy for the world, ’cos you write songs, so there must be some great mystical purpose in your being. All of these things are quickly dashed when you’ve had about half a dozen hit records and you realise that everyone’s a bit fed up with you.”{222}

  “They all learned their lesson,” Barbara Gibb said. “Those days frightened the life out of Robin. Now he hardly even takes an ­aspirin.”{223}

  “We had a lot of ego problems, and we were green,” Robin said. “And the press were saying that maybe Barry should be going into films or maybe Robin should be doing this. We were being isolated by different people who said: you’re better doing things on your own. And it goes to your head.”{224}

  “It was a dreadful time seeing the children you’d brought up not even talking to each other,” Barbara said. “Barry kept most of the bad things from us. Even today we don’t know half the things that went on.” “People talk to me about the strain of the rock world,” Hugh said, “and I say ‘rubbish.’ I tell the boys how we used to play the Mecca circuit twice a night six days a week and all we ever had was a couple of pints in the interval. So don’t talk to me about the pressures of the rock world. There’s more strain involved in driving a double-decker bus round London.”{225}

  “We were nervous wrecks at the end of the Sixties: touring, recording, promotion,” Barry said. “I was living in Eaton Square and my neighbours must have thought I was a bit freaky. I can remember a time when I walked out my front door and there were six cars and they all belonged to me. That’s madness. The break up was a traumatic experience. Long after we fought, the press had us fighting and reopened wounds.”{226} “We are best friends with rivalries. We accept that within each other, because that is what brothers are. Now we reached the age when we can see each other clearly, understand each other rather than fight.”{227}

  “The speed (methamphetamine) took Robin hard and he was seriously ill for a time,” Barry told Mitch Glazer of Playboy. “The pressure and fame got to Robin. He’s a deep thinker with a serious, sensitive side. He gets in moods that last quite a while. I couldn’t go as the big brother and tell everyone to calm down. It was impossible with that speed going around. We were too green to see the dangers, the paranoia and illness. Maybe I was guilty. They all said I was responsible. Maybe I could have kept us in line. Maybe.”{228}

  On September 1, 1970—Barry’s twenty-fourth birthday—he married his dream girl, Lynda Gray. Robin had wed his boss’s receptionist; their marriage and divorce would become public and desperately rancorous. Maurice had married a pop star; their marriage lasted about as long as a union between million-selling celebrity teenagers might. As the Alpha brother, Barry secured an Alpha wife while his brothers struggled through starter marriages. Barry and Lynda lived happily ever after. No hint of scandal or serious discord ever attached to their union. Lynda usually toured with Barry; they don’t like being apart and they’re still together. They have five children.

  On September 2, the newlywed Gibb bailed on his planned honeymoon and went into the studio with his brothers. As per their prior work habits, they recorded six songs in the first session.

  One of the tracks cut the day after Barry’s wedding was “Lonely Days.” Stigwood wasted no time getting it to market. It’s the Bee Gees’ strongest, most exuberant song in years. Maybe shedding Colin was good for them—“Lonely Days” has a true rock beat. Opening over a Beatles-esque piano and the brothers singing a Beatles-esque intro over Beatles-esque strings, “Days” breaks wide open into a passionate, joyous sound. A driving piano, handclaps and on-the-one drums support the repeated chorus. Though referencing the loneliness of being without one’s woman, the song is obviously brothers telling each other how glad they are to be back together.

  Released in October, “Lonely Days” was a smash in the US, reaching Billboard’s #3. Worldwide, it went #1.

  ”It was a lot nastier in the press than it was in actuality.”

  —Barry Gibb{229}

  “please pretend it’s not them”

  The Bee Gees were busy. They started recording Trafalgar in January. As they worked on “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,” guitarist Alan Kendall joined the band as lead guitarist. In February, they commenced their Two Years On tour in Albany, New York. In March, drummer Geoff Bridgeford came aboard. After a June appearance on Top of the Pops, the band set off for a July tour of Australia. In August, they came back to the states to tour in support of Trafalgar, which came out in September.

  A measure of their joy at reuniting is that in two days the brothers wrote and recorded two of their most storied songs: “Lonely Days” and “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart.” Each now understood that he did not have the voice or material to make hits alone. They cherished their collaboration as they had not in years.

  Trafalgar opens with “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,” their first #1 in the US. Demonstrating how estranged the Bee Gees were from their UK audience, “Heart,” did not chart in their home country. After “Heart,” Trafalgar is slow paced, orchestral, straining for majesty and mournful. The single “Trafalgar” takes much from the Kinks, which is good news. It’s a grand, plodding affair; Trafalgar reached #34 in the US and failed to chart in the UK. “They had American hits for a while,” Stigwood said, “but the British public was cheesed off. I think the public’s attitude was that they were lucky to be so successful.”{230}

  Barry played guitar on the album and, setting the course for their future records, Robin provided only vocals. Maurice played bass, piano and guitar; he also helped build the arrangements and taught them to the new players and studio musicians. Bee Gees scholar Joe Brennan wrote of this period: “The Gibb brothers’ abstract and indirect lyrics deliberately avoided telling specific personal stories. The Bee Gees continued to be much more interested in the sheer sound of a record and the feeling it conveyed as music.”{231}

  Lulu discovered Maurice’s disturbing penchant for fantasy. “I don’t know why he felt the need to embellish or exaggerate incidents. Maybe it had something to do with the influence of Robert Stigwood, who never let the truth stand in the way of a publicity coup for the Bee Gees. If you do this often enough you start forgetting what’s real and what’s invented.”{232} In interviews and in conversation Maurice would make up events, pass them off as the truth and defend them staunchly. His refusal to own up infuriated Lulu, who would end up slapping and shaking Maurice, to no avail. He never struck back. Their life was
a whirlwind of social encounters and drink. “It wasn’t a marriage,” Lulu wrote, “it was party planning.”{233} Their constant boozing and fighting upset Lulu, but Maurice took it as normal married life. Maurice and Lulu, both performers since they were children, had been deprived of childhood. As the family breadwinners, they never saw adulthood modeled in a functional way. At nineteen and twenty respectively, they had to invent what a marriage might look like. It ended up looking a lot like life on the road.

  The Bee Gees spent 1972 touring and wrestling with songwriting. In September, recording began on both Life in a Tin Can and A Kick in the Head Is Worth Eight in the Pants. These were intended to be the first releases on Stigwood’s new RSO—Robert Stigwood Organization—label. To finish Tin Can, the band moved to Los Angeles. The record came out in January of 1973. It did not chart in the UK and reached only #69 in the US. There were no singles on the album. But there are two country-­influenced songs, “South Dakota Morning” and “Come Home Johnny Bridie.” The latter mimics early 1970s LA soft country-rock and showcases superb pedal steel guitar by steel savant and visionary Sneaky Pete Kleinow. Kleinow played with Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman in the pioneering Flying Burrito Brothers.

  Tin Can finds the band reaching for genres in which to hide and writing shorter, more lyrically direct songs. Though it never sold, and was despised by Atlantic, Tin Can offers several worthy cuts. Barry’s in good voice, and embraces the straightforward material. Maurice plays his usual bass, guitars and keyboards, but does not sing. The fervor of Barry’s country rock makes his upcoming forays into modern funk seem all the more unlikely.