The Ultimate Biography of The Bee Gees Read online

  Andy Gibb also deserves to have his own story told. Once condescendingly thought of solely as “The Bee Gees’ baby brother,” he went on to prove that he too had inherited the same musical and composing gifts of the more celebrated members of his family. By 1977, he had embarked on his own meteoric rise in the music industry. His career paralleled his older brothers’ for a few short years, when Gibb compositions dominated the charts. As Maurice put it, “We were so saturated at the time. We weren’t on the charts; we were the charts!”

  After a period when Top 40 radio belonged to the Brothers Gibb, the phenomenal success brought with it problems of its own.

  Andy’s first three American singles all went to number one there, and platinum albums and sell-out tours followed. But the golden boy image was merely a façade that disguised a personality dominated by self-doubt and a huge lack of confidence. His insecurity manifested itself in bouts of depression and substance abuse, before the final irony. With his recording career a casualty of his growing addiction, he moved to musical theatre and then to television, but in each case, personal problems destroyed a bright start. Having bottomed out, bankrupt and his professional reputation in tatters following a whole series of missed engagements, he had slowly regained his health and had begun to rebuild his career. He had achieved a long-held ambition by gaining his pilot’s licence, and had also signed a new recording contract. Just when it looked as if his star was in its ascendancy again, his past caught up with him and it flickered briefly before being extinguished forever, although his memory will always linger.

  The public that couldn’t get enough of The Bee Gees rejected them suddenly and absolutely at the beginning of the next decade, but by the late Eighties, most of the world was ready for their return. Andy’s unexpected and tragic death spurred on his older brothers to prove themselves once again.

  The Nineties saw them finally gain the recognition and acclaim they had always sought, with accolades from their peers and the public arriving in rapid-fire succession. The Bee Gees had finally achieved that longed-for time when “we can feel comfortable as human beings, that our music is accepted, not jeered at because it’s been played a lot,” Barry said wistfully. “We’ll be striving for credibility after 10 more albums if I know anything about us. Every record we put out is still like the first record. It never ceases to be exciting for us if it makes the charts, and it never ceases to be a great disappointment to us if it doesn’t.”

  Their ability to change with the times has rewarded them with an ever widening circle of admirers that defies any attempt to stereotype a “typical Bee Gees fan”. It encompasses every age, sex, race, nationality and walk of life. As Barry noted, “Language doesn’t seem to be a barrier. Even people who speak no English sing along with us and seem to understand perfectly what is going on.”

  For Robin, the most important thing is that the brothers continue to play their part in the music world. “Anyone that writes music is contributing,” he explained. “I don’t think it’s necessary to want to change anything, but just to be a part of it. As long as we are part of it and people can appreciate it, that’s all I care about; you know, as long as people will say, ‘That’s a significant item,’ or, ‘That’s a significant group.’ If you can always maintain that … The Bee Gees want to create a form of music that is always there to be reckoned with. I think that’s equally important as trying to change everything.”

  Barry, Robin and Maurice may be brothers, but they are all very different individuals. As their friend, David English, pointed out, “Maurice is a wonderful comedian, very good soul, very good heart, very funny and very witty. Robin is extremely sensitive … zany … eccentric … He’s got this most wonderful off-the-wall sense of humour. Barry kind of harnesses these qualities, he’s the steady captain of the ship. That’s why I always call him ‘the skipper’. He’s an immensely creative person. If you are his friend, then he would do anything for you … Then you put all those qualities together, in the three of them, and it’s unbelievable, but the humour is the thing that I’ve always thought has been exceptional. They make me laugh and laugh and laugh.”

  Few would argue that there is strength in the trinity. Their father, Hugh Gibb, once said, “I always sum up by saying individually they’re good; together they’re brilliant – they’re a team.” In recent conversation, the group’s former drummer, Colin Petersen, agreed, “The Bee Gees are like a tripod; they need all three.”

  * * *

  When we were first given the opportunity to tell The Bee Gees’ story, it was, by necessity, only in the briefest of forms for the official tour programme for the One Night Only series of concerts and for the Isle of Man Post Office’s commemorative Bee Gees stamps presentation packs issued in 1999. In both cases, the challenge was to condense a musical legacy which has spanned four decades into fewer than four pages of text. While it was possible to detail the career highlights in such a fashion, we were frustrated that there was little scope for the bigger picture: the stories behind the music, the characters who make the tales come to life. It was, however, an even greater challenge which awaited us when we were approached by Chris Charlesworth with a view to writing this book. Chris echoed our own thoughts that the time was right for a serious, in-depth biography of the Brothers Gibb. For him to entrust such a project to a most unusual team of would-be authors required a gigantic leap of faith on his part, and for that we are all grateful to him.

  The writing of a book by a team has been a unique experience, made possible by e-mail. Apart from the initial meeting of Melinda, Hector and Andrew with Chris in London exactly one year ago to discuss the possibility of the biography, only Hector and Melinda have actually seen each other during the 12 months of research and writing, although they have remained in constant contact with Andrew by means of many hours of telephone conversations, in addition to the e-mails which connected all five of us. Neither Joe nor Mark have ever met any of the other participants, but their individual areas of expertise made them a vital part of the operation. The truly global nature of the team, with Brits Hector and Andrew, Melinda an expatriate American living in Scotland, Joe in the USA and Mark in Australia, sparked many fascinating discussions as we worked together towards mutual agreement on international vernacular. Bearing in mind that the Gibbs have lived on three separate continents, it was also important that we were able to call on local knowledge whenever the need arose.

  All five members of the research and writing team are unashamed fans of the group and, between us, have accumulated 133 years of following their fortunes. The one thing that linked all five Bee Geeologists was the desire to write the definitive history of the Brothers Gibb, detailing not only their career but also the men themselves. We hope that we have succeeded.

  The Authors - April, 2000

  1

  ALL THIS AND WORLD WAR TOO

  THE TALE OF the brothers Gibb opens in Manchester, England, during the dark days of the Second World War. As Hitler’s Luftwaffe sought out cities on which to drop their bombs, Manchester, 200 miles north of London and just 35 miles east of strategically important Liverpool, was considered by many to be a safe city; indeed, the BBC even evacuated many of its London staff there as a precaution. But the BBC was wrong. When the blitz came conditions in the industrial capital of Lancashire were as terrible as in London, Coventry or anywhere else.

  Manchester’s first major air raid was on December 22, 1940, when German bombs struck Albert Square and Bridgewater Street. There were fires in the buildings around Deansgate: the Royal Exchange was burning and the Victoria Buildings were so badly damaged that they collapsed into the road. A lack of firefighters exacerbated the problem – 200 had been sent to Liverpool the previous night to help deal with bombing there. Fires spread to Portland Street and Sackville Street. The following night the bombing began afresh, and although the emergency services (including extra helpers from the London Fire Brigade) struggled to contain the resultant fires, strong winds quickly spread the con
flagration. Royal Engineers had to blast fire breaks to prevent the huge wall of fire around Piccadilly from spreading further.

  Manchester Cathedral, the Free Trade Hall, Exchange Street and Victoria Station were all bombed out. Hundreds of businesses and 30,000 houses were destroyed. In Stretford, where Barbara May Pass lived with her family, 106 civilians died and 12,000 houses were damaged or destroyed. In January 1941 Old Trafford, the famous Manchester United Football Club ground, was hit during a three hour raid. Another heavy air raid at the start of June 1941 damaged the Gaiety Theatre, police headquarters and Salford Royal Hospital, where 14 nurses were killed. On Christmas Eve, 1944, the Germans launched a volley of V1 flying bombs at Manchester.

  For the generations born after the war, the incendiary bombs, the air raid and all-clear sirens, blackouts, fuel and food shortages, rationing and complicated points systems are difficult to comprehend, but in 1941, when Hugh Gibb met Barbara Pass, they were a way of life. In a Britain thrust into war, patriotism took the form of a willingness to endure sacrifice for the good of the cause. The nation pulled together to fight the evils of Nazism, with all strata of society, rich and poor alike, pitching in side-by-side for the first time.

  Many Mancunians undertook civil defence work. By 1940 one and a half million, a quarter of them women, were involved in Air Raid Precaution. Wardens would assess the damage and help bomb victims to safety, first aid workers ministered to the injured and emergency rescuers searched for survivors and the dead amongst the rubble of bombed-out homes. There were more than 50 Auxiliary Fire Service stations in Manchester, all of them indispensable in helping the regular Fire Brigade battle the effects of incendiary bombs. The Home Guard, so often the stuff of Dads’ Army jokes, were actually a vital part of the war effort, guarding factories, railways and other strategically important sites, leaving the army free to concentrate on the more important business of actual fighting. Some eventually made their way into the army; by the end of the war, men up to 40 years of age were being conscripted.

  Even those not fighting were drawn into the war effort, zealously working long hours to keep production levels high. Manchester’s strength in engineering ensured that it made great contributions to the war effort. The Ford factory was restructured to produce engines for British Merlin planes. By the war’s end, it had 17,000 workers, of which only 100 had ever worked with aero-engines before.

  Until 1941, war work for women had been voluntary but as labour shortages became critical, women aged 20 to 21 were required in March of that year to register for war work at Labour Exchanges. This was soon extended to include women aged up to 40 years old. The Essential Work Order meant that women could not leave their employment nor employers release them without the authorisation of the National Service Office.

  By December 1941, the Minister for Labour, Ernest Bevin, conceded that it was necessary to conscript women into the armed services. Women were urgently needed to fill the formerly male domain of factory work and support services of the military. There was very little equality of the sexes though; female civil defence workers received only two-thirds the pay of their male counterparts, and female factory workers faced long hours and poor conditions.

  Entertainers were in high demand during the war, many being called up to ENSA, the Entertainment National Service Association. Music was seen as a morale booster, and a radio programme called Workers’ Playtime was even broadcast in factories in the hope that it might encourage employees to work more efficiently. Young soldiers and their sweethearts, desperate to leave behind the hardships and horrors of the war if only for an evening, would crowd the local ballrooms and dance to the big band hits of the day.

  Hugh Leslie Gibb was 23 when war broke out but because he was a musician, the leader of a dance band no less, he avoided conscription. As Maurice Gibb would laughingly say more than 50 years later, “He accompanied the war. He did the soundtrack to World War II.” Although Hugh didn’t serve in the forces, he did contribute to the war effort by working in Metro’s Gun Shop, where he operated a radial arm drilling machine in a department where searchlights were made. He was born on January 15, 1916, in the Chorlton district of Manchester. “I was the oddball in my family, ’cause I liked music and the attitude was that it would never do you any good,” he said. “The main theme then was go to work, have a steady job, and bring your wages home every weekend. A side-track from that wasn’t right in their eyes. To be a musician was like the old days, you know, when they were considered vagabonds; and that’s all I ever wanted to do.”

  Instead of following the more conventional career paths open to a young man in the Thirties, the self-confessed “oddball” sought fame as a drummer and bandleader. By 1940 The Hughie Gibb Orchestra was firmly ensconced on the circuit of Mecca ballrooms, playing mainly in the north of England and Scotland. So it was that 20-year-old Barbara May Pass came to meet her future husband in a Manchester ballroom in 1941.

  Barbara was born in the Bolton district of Manchester on November 17, 1920. She has often been erroneously described in Bee Gees-related literature as a “big band singer” but takes pains now to set the matter right. “Here, this has got all out of proportion!” she says. “My sister wrote and said she read that I was a big band singer. That escapes me altogether. I sang locally, but I didn’t make a career of it. After I got to know Hugh, I didn’t … The funny part is, he wouldn’t let me sing with his band. He used to say one [musician] in the family was enough.” It was ironic then that he would end up with a house full of them.

  Of that first meeting, Barbara said, “We met at a dance in Manchester at the Stretford Trades and Labour Club. He was a bandleader there and I used to go dancing with friends, and that’s how I met him. He came down and danced with me and that was it – we just went on from there.”

  Hugh Gibb told reporter Cynthia Heimel, “At the time I was teaching a young lad to play drums, running him ragged. He always stood in the wings, waiting for his chance, so I spotted Barbara, said ‘Come on, Alf, here’s your chance.’ So he went and played and I went and had a dance.”

  Hugh escorted Barbara home that night and thereafter romance blossomed. Ironically, despite the nightmare of war, Hugh Gibb has fond memories of the time he met his future wife. “People enjoyed themselves more,” he maintains. “Kids today … think they’ve done everything by the time they’re 18 and have nothing to look forward to.”

  It was a long courtship. “We went steady for about three and a half years,” Barbara says. “We both lived at home with our parents, you know, right up to getting married.” The wedding took place in Manchester on May 27, 1944. Photos show the happy couple posing beneath an arch of instruments formed by members of Hugh’s band.

  On January 12, 1945, their first child was born; a daughter, whom they christened Lesley Barbara. Soon after, the family relocated to Scotland where, according to Barbara, Hugh was offered a job by Mecca at the Palais in Edinburgh. “We lived just at the outskirts of Edinburgh,” she says. “Funnily enough, Barry’s wife’s mother and father used to dance to our band. We didn’t know them, but they used to dance to the band.”

  When World War II came to an end in the summer of 1945, the Gibbs returned to Manchester. “We went back and stayed with my mother in Stretford,” recalled Barbara, “and then Hughie was offered the job at the Douglas Bay Hotel and that’s when we went to the Isle of Man. However, he played at the Alexandra [Hotel] for old Mr Raineri first and then he played for Mr Leslie [Raineri] at the Douglas Bay Hotel.”

  Hugh Gibb’s new employer, Carlo Raineri, was born in Northern Italy but came to Britain at the end of World War I. After learning the catering trade in Glasgow, he took a summer job on the Isle of Man around 1920, fell in love with the island and returned there to live in 1922. In 1925 he bought a single hotel in Douglas, the Alexandra, in a block called Metropole Mansions. As his business prospered, he added one hotel after another until he had a total of six hotels on the same block which, when joined together, became th
e biggest on the island. In 1938 he expanded further and bought the Douglas Bay Hotel. By then the Raineri hotels could accommodate over 700 guests.

  During the war, all foreign nationals in Britain except the French were interned, many of them on the Isle of Man, with suspected Nazi sympathisers indiscriminately interned with Jewish refugees by virtue of their foreign birth. The massive size of the Alexandra made it ideal for an internment camp and, isolated behind barbed wire, it became the site of one of the largest in Britain.

  A tiny island in the Irish Sea, the Isle of Man is not part of the United Kingdom, although the UK is responsible for its defence and foreign relations, and for the purposes of custom duties and postal services, it is also considered part of the mainland. It has its own government, the Court of Tynwald, consisting of the Lieutenant-Governor, the Legislative Council, the upper house, and the Keys, a 24-man body elected by universal adult suffrage. Laws of the Tynwald nevertheless require the approval of the Crown. The Isle of Man has its own postal system, issuing its own stamps which must be used on the island, and mints its own currency although British sterling is also accepted. Nowadays the island is best known as a low tax area, where wealthy individuals take advantage of tax rates that rise no higher than 20p in the pound. The general rate is 14–15p in the £.