SEGMENT 3
NARRATOR: There was a crisis when the two non-Gibb band members, Vince and Colin, were almost forced out of the country. Being native Australians, their temporary visas had run out and they were about to be deported. Once again, master mediamind Robert Stigwood stepped in. He staged an assault on the immigration office. Bee Gees fans chained themselves to Buckingham Palace and picketed the Prime Minister’s home. Eventually the musicians were allowed to stay. Stigwood was the Bee Gees’ godfather.
NARRATOR: The story of the Bee Gees is one of the most unusual in the history of pop music. Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb have written more hit songs, sold more records and achieved greater heights than almost anyone else in rock and roll. They have been counted out and come back again and again. And yet the Bee Gees have never been given a free ride. They are, as Barry Gibb said, ‘the enigma with a stigma’. They have been loved passionately and forgotten, celebrated and reviled, won every honor and then seen their records publicly burned. Yet the Bee Gees have outlasted all of their detractors. On the surface the Gibb brothers seem like three of the most easy-going guys in the world. But no one in pop music has ever been more driven. The Bee Gees are legends. This is their story.
CLIP OF “JIVE TALKIN'”, SUNG BY THE BEE GEES PLAYS: “JIVE TALKIN'”, YOU’RE TELLIN’ ME LIES YEAH, GOOD LOVIN’, STILL GETS IN MY EYES.”
SEGMENT 3
NARRATOR: There was a crisis when the two non-Gibb band members, Vince and Colin, were almost forced out of the country. Being native Australians, their temporary visas had run out and they were about to be deported. Once again, master mediamind Robert Stigwood stepped in. He staged an assault on the immigration office. Bee Gees fans chained themselves to Buckingham Palace and picketed the Prime Minister’s home. Eventually the musicians were allowed to stay. Stigwood was the Bee Gees’ godfather.
ROBIN: He was the first one to champion us when we got to the UK. And remember in those days there were thousands and thousands of groups, artists trying to make it when we arrived in England. It was overwhelming. We met the right man at the right time, he believed in us and he was a very powerful man.
CLIP OF “WORLD”, SUNG BY THE BEE GEES
NARRATOR: As their popularity grew, the Bee Gees set out on a successful world tour and continued to release a steady stream of hits.
CLIP OF “I’VE GOT TO GET A MESSAGE TO YOU”, SUNG BY THE BEE GEES.
NARRATOR: In 16 months, the Bee Gees’ lives changed completely. They made three albums and had nine hit singles. They got famous, they got money, they got girls, and they got crazy.
CLIP OF “IDEA”, PERFORMED BY THE BEE GEES
NARRATOR: It was all great, but it was all too much. After the third Bee Gees’ album was released in the summer of 1968, guitarist Vince Melouney left the band. As the group entered the studio to begin work on their fourth album, tensions rose. Problems between the brothers emerged.
BARRY: ( off camera ) We were not friends anymore. We were still brothers but we couldn’t get along with each other.
NARRATOR: The three brothers, who had been inseparable all of their lives, were now living on their own with money to burn.
BARRY: Everybody suddenly developed an ego, which hadn’t happened before.
Clip of “Indian Gin And Whiskey Dry” performed by The Bee Gees.
BARRY: Success sort of took its toll. It was too much money too soon.
MAURICE: ( laughs ) I had six Astin Martins’ and seven Rolls Royces before I was 21. That’s how quickly I went through that period. So it gives you an idea of what it was like getting instant fame.
NARRATOR: Drug experimentation only added to their problems. ‘Everyone was popping pills in the business,’ Barry said. It became a normal at that point.
BARRY: ( 1981 ) It was the flower-power period. There wasn’t anybody you knew that wasn’t on some form of drugs.
MAURICE: ( 1981 ): Actually what it was at one time was Barry’d be smoking pot, Robin was on pills, and I’d be drinking. So it was pilly, potty, and pussy throughout the business.
NARRATOR: Each brother had his own group of hangers-on, telling them he was the real star of the Bee Gees and the British press got involved in the squabbling.
MAURICE: Oh, that was like an argument really between really Barry and Robin. I was sort of stuck in the middle. And instead of talking to each other on the phone, they would talk to each other via the reporters, you know. So I would go back and say this about one, one week, the next week the other would answer him whether he knew if it was true or not.
BARRY: I believe the first time you become famous I think is a very dangerous time. You believe what people say about you, you believe your press.
ROBIN: Too much happened so fast that we lost kind of communication between the three of us. We found ourselves, going on doing a show, and there’d be a show booked in Los Angeles, two of us would show up, the other one wouldn’t, or one of us would leave on the plane and go home. It was just madness really.
CLIP OF “LAMPLIGHT”, PERFORMED BY THE BEE GEES
NARRATOR: The arguments reached a head in March of 1969. Robin wanted the group’s next single to be a song called “Lamplight”. Barry wanted “First of May”.
CLIP OF “FIRST OF MAY”, PERFORMED BY THE BEE GEES
NARRATOR: Barry won the argument. Robin quit the band. Although the group was still committed to their five-year contract with Robert Stigwood, Robin was released and allowed to go solo.
CLIP OF “SAVED BY THE BELL”, PERFORMED BY ROBIN GIBB
NARRATOR: The Gibb family said Robin was out of control, indulging in drugs and spending too much money. Father Hugh Gibb took drastic measures and set out to make his 20-year old son a ward of the court.
ROBIN: ( 1969 ) Not that you can ever do it. He cannot have. You know I’m a married man, I’ve got my own life, and carrying my own career.
NARRATOR: With their money stopped, Robin and his new wife Molly became even more isolated from the rest of the Gibb family.
OFF-CAMERA REPORTER: ( 1969 ): Is Robin in any sense a prisoner in his own home?
MOLLY GIBB: ( 1969 ) No, it’s ridiculous. He’s perfectly free to go out and come in whenever he likes.
OFF-CAMERA REPORTER: ( 1969 ) Now his father, Mr. Gibb, is said to be concerned Robin’s welfare and his finances. Are you satisfied that everything’s all right?
MOLLY GIBB: ( 1969 ) Of course I am. Otherwise you know I wouldn’t be behind Robin.
NARRATOR: The Gibb family had splintered into fractions. The brothers had stopped communicating. Robin was estranged from everyone.
MAURICE: I mean, it wasn’t a good feeling. It was, it was, I can’t explain it, I know, it was, it was like half of me was gone. Well, he’s my twin. But there was that feeling I never had before that the other half of me was gone. Something was missing.
CLIP OF “TOMORROW TOMORROW”, SUNG BY THE BEE GEES
NARRATOR: Barry, Maurice and Colin continued as the Bee Gees with sister Leslie filling in for Robin’s vocal at one performance. The scaled down version of the group appeared in Robert Stigwood’s slapstick comedy movie, “Cucumber Castle”.
BARRY ( FROM “CUCUMBER CASTLE” ): My friends, my cucumber and I, welcome you.
CLIP OF “NEW YORK MINING DISASTER 1941”, SUNG BY THE BEE GEES
NARRATOR: While filming the movie Colin had a falling out with Barry and Maurice and was fired. By the end of 1969, Barry and Maurice had called it quits as well.
CLIP OF “I STARTED A JOKE”, SUNG BY THE BEE GEES
NARRATOR: The 60’s were over, and so everyone thought, were the Bee Gees.
CLIP OF “I STARTED A JOKE”, SUNG BY THE BEE GEES
CILPS OF SOME OLD SONGS LIKE: “ALEXANDERS RAGTIME BAND”
NARRATOR: The Bee Gees performed a program of songs by their father’s favorites, The Mills Brothers, along with comedy routines and novelty songs.
NARRATOR: While the Gibbs were singing standards, Barry Gibb was writing his own songs. In 1962, the brothers were signed to Festival Records, a local label. Their first single, “The Battle of the Blue & Gray”, was written by Barry. It didn’t do very well.
CLIP OF “THE BATTLE OF THE BLUE & GRAY”, SUNG BY THE BEE GEES PLAYS: “MANY HEARTS WERE BROKEN AND A LOT OF TEARS WERE SHED, THE SKY WAS BLACK AND THE BATTLEFIELD WAS RED”
NARRATOR: By 1963, all three brothers had dropped out of school to focus on their music. They continued to release singles, and the singles continued to fail.
BARRY: I think we made about seven, from seven to eleven singles that all flopped in a row. So we really found out what failure was all about before we even started. So there just didn’t seem to be, it seemed to be a track record. This is really good. I wonder how many flops in a row we can actually get. (( laughs ))
NARRATOR: In 1964, pop music was drastically changed by the Beatles. Barry, Robin, and Maurice were deeply affected.
CLIP OF “PLEASE, PLEASE ME”, SUNG BY THE BEE GEES PLAYS: “COME ON, COME ON. PLEASE ME, OH YEAH, PLEASE ME, LIKE I PLEASE YOU.”
ROBIN: When the Beatles came along they were writers. It was the first group writing and making records. They were doing everything we wanted to do, and always thought about doing. But we were very young even when the Beatles came along to exercise that kind of ambition.
NARRATOR: At a time when teenagers were taking over pop music, the Bee Gees were still performing to nightclub audiences of grownups.
CLIP OF “WINE AND WOMEN”, SUNG BY THE BEE GEES PLAYS: “WINE AND WOMEN AND SONG WILL ONLY MAKE ME SAD.”
ROBIN: It was kind of kids looking at adult type of things, but we were still too young to be accepted by teenagers even at that point.
NARRATOR: At the end of 1966, the brothers decided it was time to go home to England and try to invade the British pop scene. Letters were sent to London managers and even though they had no firm offers, the Gibb Family made preparations for their long ocean voyage.
BARRY: And Dad wasn’t very keen on coming back to England because he remembered how cold it was. And we were reaching that age where we wanted to leave the nest anyway. There was a sense of wanting to leave home, even though you didn’t want to leave home.
NARRATOR: Just as the Bee Gees were about to set sail, their last Festival single, “Spicks and Specks”, began to climb the Australian charts. By the time the Gibbs boarded their ship for England, they had the number one record in Australia. They never looked back.
CLIP OF “SPICKS AND SPECKS”, SUNG BY THE BEE GEES PLAYS: “WHERE ARE THE GIRLS I LEFT FAR BEHIND? THE SPICKS AND THE SPECKS OF THE GIRLS ON MY MIND.”
MAURICE: We wanted to be a part of that world, of the Beatles, the Mercy Boom because I think that’s where we, we’d get appreciated, you know, ’cause we’d really gone as far as we could in Australia.
BARRY: We were driven, we were kids. We knew no fear. (( laughs )) We had to go, we had to be a part of that thing in London.
NARRATOR: The Bee Gees arrived in England on February 7, 1967. A few weeks later they scored an audition with music mogul Robert Stigwood.
ROBIN: When we arrived in London we were flat broke and we remembered that we’d sent some tapes to him a few months before we left. Somehow, we got a phone call, four weeks after we arrived in London, three weeks perhaps. And um, which is quite fortunate because you know we were hungry. And um this phone call says ‘there’s a Mr. Stigwood on the line.’ And he was really interested in signing us.
NARRATOR: Stigwood liked what he heard. He signed the Gibbs to a five-year contract. The Bee Gees were about to become a part of the British pop scene they had fantasized about from the other side of the world.
CLIP OF “I CAN’T SEE NOBODY”, SUNG BY THE BEE GEES PLAYS: “I CAN’T SEE NOBODY, NOW I CAN’T SEE NOBODY, MY EYES CAN ONLY LOOK AT YOU.”
SEGMENT 4
“MY WORLD” PERFORMED BY THE BEE GEES
NARRATOR: The Bee Gees began the 1970’s divided. The group had disbanded and Barry, Maurice and Robin weren’t speaking to each other.
ROBIN: I think Maurice suffered it most, because he never left anyone. I left, then Barry left, then suddenly Maurice was on his own, you know, Maurice was left without a group. He hadn’t gone anywhere. He’d shown up at the recording studio but he was the only one.
NARRATOR: Maurice had married Scottish pop singer Lulu and they were busy negotiating the demands of managing two musical careers with a personal life.
MAURICE: We were the couple of the year, we had it filmed on TV, thousands of fans were outside the church, and it was all beautiful. We were married six years and it lasted five. The last year I can say was hell. It was basically, well, we were so young looking back at it. But the whole thing was just a party.
NARRATOR: At a time when both their careers were in limbo, Maurice and Lulu lived impetuously.
MAURICE: It was just clubbing into Tramps in London, staying there until four in the morning, go to the Common Hotel for breakfast, going home, next day get up, meet at the pub at 12 and drink until 6, that was what you did everyday. And I became a full-blown alcoholic through it. ( laughs )
NARRATOR: The brothers weren’t communicating. But they had to see each other at business meetings. They missed being together. But someone had to have the nerve to say it out loud.
ROBIN: I actually made the first move. I called Barry who was on holiday in Spain and said ‘let’s get together’. But it was not easy, it was more like quickly, it was easy when it happened. Three months after I first called him ‘let’s go into Dean Street where the studios were and make some more songs.’
CLIP OF “LONELY DAYS”, SUNG BY THE BEE GEES
End of part 2
CLIP OF ” IN MY OWN TIME” AND “NEW YORK MINING DISASTER 1941”, SUNG BY THE BEE GEES PLAYS: “IN THE EVENT OF SOMETHING HAPPENING TO ME. THERE IS SOMETHING I WOULD LIKE YOU ALL TO SEE.”
NARRATOR: Stigwood wanted to promote the Bee Gees’ debut as the next Beatles. Their first single was sent to American radio stations without their name on it.
CLIP OF “NEW YORK MINING DISASTER 1941”, SUNG BY THE BEE GEES PLAYS: “HAVE YOU SEEN MY WIFE, MR. JONES? DO YOU KNOW WHAT ITS LIKE ON THE OUTSIDE?”
MAURICE: It begins with a ‘B’ and finishes with an ‘S’. Who is it? is was “New York Mining Disaster” And they kept playing it and playing it. Everyone thought it was the Beatles under a different name.
NARRATOR: The trick worked. But it also led to the impression that the Bee Gees were Beatles imitators.
CLIP OF OLD BEATLES SONG SUNG BY THE BEE GEES.
MAURICE: And then “To Love Somebody” came out and they went, ‘there must be a real Bee Gees’.
CLIP OF “TO LOVE SOMEBODY”, PERFORMED BY THE BEE GEES PLAYS “OH YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE, BABY YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE. TO LOVE SOMEBODY, TO LOVE SOMEBODY.”
NARRATOR: To Love Somebody, a song written for Otis Redding, showed a more soulful side of the Bee Gees. The brothers’ strength as R & B songwriters wasn’t much needed in swinging London. But it would blossom in later years. Still teenagers, the Gibbs found themselves thrust into the height of London’s jet set, sitting face to face with the biggest stars of pop music.
MAURICE: I was going to a party at this club called the Speakeasy. And I’d never heard of it before but it was the club to be at. And the first person I met actually when I walked in was, Otis Redding, and then it was Pete Townsend, and went ‘whoa, this is getting heavy.’ And I remember looking at the stage and I heard, ‘scotch and Coke, isn’t it?’ And I turned around, it was John. (( gasps in shock )) But it was a great period for me because only two months earlier I was walking down Pitt Street in Sydney buying Beatle fan club books.
NARRATOR: In the fall of 1967, the Bee Gees had their first English number one single with “Massachusetts”.
CLIP OF “MASSACHUSETTS”, PERFORMED BY THE BEE GEES PLAYS: “FEEL I’M GOING BACK TO MASSACHUSETTS. SOMETHING’S TELLING ME I MUST GO HOME.”
End of part 1