Poem's stories and comments
Luis G., a friend
Luis G, a recovered alcoholic, attended Maurice’s funeral service to say goodbye to a man he credited with helping his own battle against alcoholism. Luis said he met Maurice at a local sobriety support centre, the Little River Club. “He was really involved in helping people change their lives, helping people better their lives and enhancing people’s lives. He was like an angel here on Earth,” said Luis, who now works as a substance abuse counsellor. “It hurts me so much to see him pass.”
David Most, friend and collaborator for 16 years
It’s a shock, because we thought he was getting better. He did twiddle his toes, he held his daughter’s hand, and squeezed it, his organs were all functioning, we thought, ‘it’s the turning point’, and then suddenly he went into a coma. “It’s terrible, absolutely terrible.”
The Bee Gees were “absolutely brilliant writers”, he said. “We’ve lost a treasured member of the writing family of the world.”
Louis Walsh, Lulu’s manager
“There was so much more to the Bee Gees than just Saturday Night Fever. People don’t realise they wrote songs for the likes of Diana Ross and Barbra Streisand. To me Maurice Gibb was a more important songwriter than Burt Bacharach or Hal David, As songwriters, they are up there with the Beatles”
Pete Basset, Robin Gibb’s spokesman
Said: Maurice was part of one of the most influential families in music history. “It’s a huge shock to us all and completely unexpected. Robin and his family have flown out to Miami and everyone is just devastated. They have literally woken up to this and it’s the worst possible news anyone could have expected from the day’s events. There’s just complete and utter shock. This is an unbelievable blow. On Friday Robin felt that there was an improvement and that Maurice had started to regain consciousness and he was reported to be responding to his family but obviously that was only a temporary thing. It’s just too shocking at this stage to think about. Everyone was just believing that Maurice was coming round and we woke up to this awful news. The past few days since Robin heard the initial news of Maurice have been just so emotional for him and our thoughts go out to him as Maurice’s twin and obviously to his family.