BEE GEES - PERFECT HARMONIES

Yes I admit another Bee Gees Fan. I definately love the old stuff - I must have all their albums (yes even Saturday Night Fever and Sargert Peppers Lonely Hearts Band remake). Although I prefer their older stuff - I also loved the disco (when disco was cool - I mean I was like 12 or 13 or something).

I still have the albums and my husband always wants to throw them out - I mean we have nothing to play them on - but I won't let him.

Barry was always my favorite.

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This brought back memories. Never going to be the same without all 3.

I hear you about Queen - I saw them here in Vancouver yonks ago... it was the best concert I'd ever been to. What a performer Freddy Mercury was. Did you know he also painted gorgeous paintings? A multi-talented man, he certainly was.

You are lucky. I did not know he painted. I would have liked to have seen them in concert. He did have a voice.

I like everything Bee Gees. All the songs, at least the ones I know of, and there are so many.

Their DVD "One Night Only" is just magical. All the songs are hits, and they did not have time to sing the full length version of some, just gave us a medley. I have watched that one probably 100 times.

Anyone has it too?

The funny thing is that they wrote hits for other singers, and when they sang the songs themselves, the songs even sounded better. Like:

Islands in the Stream - Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton
Guilty - Barbra Streisand
Heartbreaker - Dionne Warwick
Immortality - Celine Dion

I adore, adore, adore the Bee Gees. Yes, I agree, there is nothing like the three of them singing together.

But Robin does have some nice solo songs like Juliet and Love Hurts. He sings A Lover's Prayer (a Bee Gees song) very nicely too. Got his DVD Live in Frankfurt.

Loooved the Beegees, especially Saturday Night Fever.
Yes. I am a child of disco and I twirl to them to this very day.

But they weren't from your country, Gustav, so they don't figure in that count!

The Bee Gees are an incredibly talented songwriting group but Barry's grossly over use of the falsetto made them merely annoying

Hey Gus, I LOVE the BeeGees and Earth Wind an Fire.

and the BeeGees grew up where I did in Chorlton, Manchester so don't diss.

Don1, I guess the falsetto fit with the voices of his brothers, somehow the whole thing was quite harmonious. I am not sure how many songs out of all the songs they sang had the falsetto, but there were many without falsetto too.

Here is a video of Robin that I really like. It is the song "Please" from his solo album "Magnet". Robin is said to have trouble singing the song when he decided to carry on with promoting his then new album as a tribute to Maurice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puqgdOhyxcA

I think Robin was by far the best voice of the Bee Gees but his older brother's falsetto over use got on my fecking nerves

In 1958, the Gibb family, including infant brother Andy (born 5 March 1958 in Manchester, England), emigrated to Redcliffe in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The still very young brothers began performing where they could to raise pocket change. First called the Rattlesnakes, later Wee Johnny Hayes & the Bluecats, they were introduced to radio DJ Bill Gates (not to be confused with the founder of Microsoft) by racetrack promoter Bill Goode (who saw them perform at Brisbane's Speedway Circus). Gates renamed them after his and Goode's initials - thus the name was not simply a reference to the brothers Gibb.[2][3]

By 1960, the Bee Gees were featured on television shows, and in the next few years began working regularly at resorts on the Queensland coast. Barry drew the attention of Australian star Col Joye for his songwriting, and Joye helped the boys get a record deal with Festival Records in 1963 under the name "Bee Gees." The three released two or three singles a year, while Barry supplied additional songs to other Australian artists.

A minor hit in 1965, "Wine and Women," led to the group's first LP Barry Gibb and the Bee Gees Sing and Play 14 Barry Gibb Songs. By late 1966, the family decided to return to England, and seek their musical fortunes there. Whilst at sea in January, 1967, they heard that "Spicks and Specks", a song they had recorded in 1966, had gone to #1 in Australia.
(Wikpedia)

Spics and Specs remains an all time favourite generally listing in the top 2 or 3 Australian all time hits.

Early Bee Gees

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65x6mFtCQMc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF-rT5Q5Yok

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0NvyG0dtqA

This is swell, thanks, dadpad. Their early songs are pretty good too. One I like is called "World".

Don1, I agree with you that Robin has the best voice, but it is just personal taste. Barry's natural voice is very good also. Nobody can sing "Words" like him. Elvis is close, but not quite.

That was fun going through all the very early as well as pre-disco stuff of BeeGees. Their song-writing and melodic abilities are astounding, if you want to isolate something about their talent. they were amazingly tight in harmony. Also their melodic "hooks" were the best second to The Beatles, perhaps.

Thinking back about it...just how can a human male sing that high a falsetto without taking in helium? Always wondered about that. and..another odd thought, how many plumbers must have been on-call to clean their drains. They collectively could have been the hairiest (facial and otherwise) group of all time (from about 1970-1990).

I get very sentimental about some of their well-written Love songs. They weren't the best singing group (overuse of vibrato and falsetto) but they STILL often got to me. Some of their songs were my favorite of the era from 1970-1980. 'Massachusetts', 'New York Mining Disaster 1941', 'Words', 'How Deep is Your Love', 'Island in the Stream', 'Too Much Heaven' 'Tragedy". Whenever I picture myself singing a song to my lover, it's usually one of theirs (just not in a superhi-falsetto that only dogs can hear).

Cello, words was a great track and I hate to take anything from him I just didn't like the falsetto

Why did you mention Elvis? lets face it Elvis wasn't even a decent pub turn, had he been born at any other time than he was (I.E. no competition whatsoever) he wouldn't have made a dollar a day

That's pretty revisionist thinking. He had lots of competition -- Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ricky Nelson (who outsold him for a few years), Little Richard, Fats Domino, Pat Boone just to name a few of the top of my head.

Ask (surviving) Beatles how much they were influenced by him. He had a great voice and his style would have sold in any era with any competition. Please explain how after his death how he sold millions around the world. Was that mass hypnosis?

What I find special to the Bee Gees as opposed to the Beatles is that a lot of the Bee Gees songs still sound contemporary, while a lot of the Beatles songs sound outdated and somehow childish. Just to mention the Saturday Night Fever collection of songs, well it is still the best selling soundtrack after 30 years. Mind you, there were also other songs that are very good in there that I like, such as The Fifth of Beethoven and Disco Inferno. Some of the other songs that sound contemporary have been listed throughout this thread. Two I particularly like also are "I Started A Joke" and "Your Lover's Prayer".

Why Elvis? You probably did not know that he also sang "Words"? He did a very good interpretation that I really like. By the way, Elvis is my ultimate idol. There is no singer I like the way I like Elvis. Other singers whom I like, including Springsteen, Rod Stewart, Elton John, etc., said, more or less, that Elvis was a great influence in their youth. I like The Beatles (but not as much as the others), and they idolized Elvis.

Don1, you are talking to one of the 50 million Elvis fans can't be wrong here.

Claps hands over ears....

this place is a veritable nest of Bee Gee people.

Gustav, Gustav, where can we run to? Between the Bee Gees and the Eagles, I got my start away from, er, pap radio..