Bee Gees [antikvár]

¦ .^-VJ 1 .,;. 1 il.'.'i ' 'i ' . ' "I ¦ i wih . 'ri ''y'Aji*', 'I. in^nu liiii'i-i.tjii Tales from the Brothers Gibb: A History in Song 1967-1990, the first comprehensive overview of Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb's extraordinary body of work, is a powerful testament to the singular achievements of the Bee Gees. As this compilation reaffirms, the Brothers Gibb have managed to make vital, contemporary popular music for a period of more than two decades. Few groups in the rock era have worked together for so long with such consistently memorable, impressive results. The Bee Gees are indisputably one of the most popular recording acts of all time.Their records which have sold more than 100 million copies around the world, speak for themselves. As recording artists and concert performers, the Bee Gees have long been global superstars. As songwriters, they have created dozens of hits for themselves and for other acts. They've been paid the supreme compliment of having their material covered by everyone from Elvis Presley to Al Green, from Nina Simone to )anis Joplin.To put things in perspective, only John Lennon and Paul McCartney have written more Number One singles on the American charts than Barry Gibb. But the Bee Gees success has by no means been merely a matter of commercial impact. Although the brothers startpd their hit-making days heavily influenced by the Beatles, they have since become influential in their own right. George Michael is just one recording artist that has acknowledged the musical debt owed to them. Still, for a variety of smpid reasons, it has not always been considered hip to appreciate the Bee Gees. Victims of overexposure, a subtle sort of musical racism and a rather bizarre case of collective amnesia, the group unfairly became the whipping boys of the "Disco Sucks" brigade at the end of the late Seventies.The irony of course is that today the likes of Fine Young Cannibals, Madonna, Depeche Mode, among others, win critical praise for making dance music not unlike that of the Saturday Night Fever-era Bee Gees. The truth is the five-time Grammy Award winners were making great records a decade before Saturday Night Fever and they have gone right on making them for more than a decade since. Yet through all the stylistic leaps, and more than a few rough times when a lesser outfit might have packed it in entirely there has always been one strong thread that ties all the music together That thread is the exquisite vocal blend of the Brothers Gibb, the complex but always totally natural three part harmony, with Barry generally taking the melody Robin the bottom, and Maurice on the top. In terms of vocal harmonies, the only groups in the same league as the Bee Gees are a couple of outfits that also featured families that played together: the Everly Brothers and the Beach Boys. As Maurice Gibb said in 1989, "One of us is O.K. Two of us is pretty good. But three of us together is magic" The sons of bandleader and drummer Hugh and singer Barbara, the brothers were born on the Isle of Man, in the Irish Sea.The three Gibbs first performed together professionally in 1955.They called themselves the Rattlesnakes; Barry was nine, and the twin brothers Robin and Maurice were seven. Later they would be known as Johnny Hays and the Bluecats, the Brothers Gibb, and the B.G.'s before settling on their present name. In 1958, the Gibb family emigrated to Australia, where they released many singles and one album on the Festival label. By the time their eleventh single, "Spicks and Specks" made it to the top of the charts Down Under in 1967, the family was on a five week boat cruise to England in search of greener pastures. Within weeks of arriving in London, the Bee Gees