Bee Gees single by single thread

Makes me wonder what the hell I was doing at age 16!

 

Installation of your first Barry poster? JK

 

This "Battle of the Blue and Grey" song is pretty corny, but no more so than many massive hits of the time. I don't think there was any group that looked more dorky than the young Bee Gees. Those teeth! It was astonishing, however, that within about three years they would start to sound totally professional and with their own unique sound, writing complex songs with cryptic lyrics like "Town of Tuxley Toymaker, Part One".

There is a hilarious clip somewhere of the three performing one of their early hits; at the end of the song they go to exit the stage, except that one of them walks the wrong way, resulting in a three-way pile-up.

 

Thanks for this! Great info, and that nugget about the Bee Gee's name origin is great!

 

That is common knowlegdge. Can't believe you're asking that
in a single-by-singles thread.

 

Same thing i was doing, stayin alive.

 

released on these in the late 60's

 

Hey! I had a Dynamite magazine poster when I was probably 10, so there!

 

Timber! (1963)

Released: July 1963
B-side: Take Hold of That Star
Charts: # 75 (Australia)

 

Not a big fan of 'Timber!', I prefer the B-side 'Take Hold of That Star'.

 

ahh yes, everytime I think of early Bee Gees, this label is imprinted into my mind:

 

Unlike Cut to the Chase, I found this song to be one of the liveliest songs of their Australian period. It´s a throwaway song, just a little bit of fun, but I like the energy in it. It reminds of a later song that I love even more - the great "I.O. I.O." from "CUCUMBER CASTLE". "TAKE HOLD OF THAT STAR" is another song that hints at all the great ballads that were to come. A good single.

 

"Timber!" sounds as if it has a full string section, but it's really one violin, one string bass, and a lot of echo. Either Festival Records didn't keep good records, or said records are lost, but no one's quite sure who played on some of the early Bee Gees recordings.

To these ears, it also sounds like a rush job. It might have been better at a slower tempo -- but then again, maybe not.

"Take Hold of That Star," by contrast, is a really nice B-side with some great Barry vocals on the bridge. Barry also played guitar on the track.

Two items might be worthy of note. Already, Barry Gibb was gaining a reputation as a songwriter. Had the Bee Gees never made it as adult performers -- and until they went back to England in 1967, there was serious doubt that they would -- Barry at least would have been an in-demand composer. Col Joye, a big name in Australian music, recorded Barry's song "Carousel of Love" in 1963. Second, Festival started using the young Bee Gees as backing vocalists for many of their other singers. All but one of these was uncredited, and because, again, record-keeping was poor or non-existent, new instances of Brothers Gibb vocals on Festival-related records were being discovered well into the 21st century. One of these was released in the United States in 1964, three years before "New York Mining Disaster 1941"!

 

I think you are referring to "(Underneath the) Starlight of Love".

 

Another set of songs I never heard until today!
The A-side, Timber! is well, short. Can't imagine that on the radio, although you could play 30 songs every hour! I prefer the B-side, the boys get a chance to "sing" more, and surely that is their strong point.

 

I think success as performers in their own right was inevitable, it was just a question of when. By 1967 they were writing hit songs for the likes of Jon Blanchfield, Ronnie Burns and Johnny Young, and I am pretty sure some of those records had the Gibb brothers themselves as backing vocalists.

 

The main question, as it is for so many "child stars," whether in music, acting or other endeavors, was this: Would the general public take them seriously as adults?

In Europe, Japan and the United States/Canada, which first heard the Bee Gees in 1967, this wasn't a question. But in Australia, it was far from settled. They had been on TV variety shows in Australia since the early 1960s, before they had a recording deal, and much of the audience saw them as those cute little kids who did covers of others' chart hits while sort of singing like chipmunks. By the time they finally had a bona fide hit song in Australia ("Spicks and Specks"), they were on the boat returning to England.

 

Me too! Really showed off their early vocal harmonies beautifully.

 

The next two singles didn't chart in Australia:

Peace Of Mind (1964)

Released: March 1964
B-side: Don't Say Goodbye

 

Claustrophobia (1964)

Released: August 1964
B-side: Could It Be

 

Some information on 'Claustrophobia/ Could It Be':

"For this pair of Beatlesque songs the Bee Gees were backed by a good beat group who had played with Johnny Devlin this year and who would play in 1965 with Dennis Williams as Dennis and the Delawares. The Bee Gees had met them doing shows, and Barry requested them for this recording session, probably having written the songs with them in mind. Although the presence of four guitars is not obvious, Maurice joined Barry for the first time as an instrumentalist, and Robin of all people plays the solo on ‘Claustrophobia’, on a melodica, a hybrid keyboard-recorder that sounds like a harmonica."

source: Gibb Songs : 1964

 

Once again, you can clearly hear the faint flaps of wings here... Talent did run in the Gibb family, however young. I think both sides of the "CLAUSTROPHOBIA"/"COULD IT BE" are very good, and the latter hints at more of a rock´n´roll sound than you normally associate with them. A taste of "BEE GEES FIRST", perhaps?

 

The British Invasion arrives in Australia, and Barry Gibb was paying close attention. Three of these four tracks show a strong Beatles influence.

"Peace of Mind" is a little shrill to me; the harmonies feel off. It's a big step forward from "Timber!", but not quite to the next level. You can hear echoes of the Fabs' cover of "Twist and Shout," with the ah's and the repeated chords at the end.

"Don't Say Goodbye" might be Barry Gibb's first country song. One doesn't think of Australia as a country hotbed, but at least one fairly legendary country singer came from Down Under (Slim Dusty), and another modern country singer is an Aussie (Keith Urban). The piano is straight out of Nashville, and Barry sings it earnestly with some light harmony from his younger brothers. Years later, the Bee Gees would have a top-40 country hit, and "Don't Say Goodbye" shows the roots of that.

I'm going to skip to the B-side of the next one. "Could It Be" is a nice Beat Boom rocker, again showing its Beatles influence. Listen to that wailing harmonica, especially as the song ends.

But I save the best for last: "Claustrophobia" is a genuine classic to me, the first Bee Gees song I put in that category. The first time I heard it was when a friend of mine in college gave me a still-sealed copy of Take Hold of That Star, one of the four Pickwick LPs released in either late 1978 or early 1979 with songs that had been on the Rare, Precious and Beautiful albums (Vol. 3 of which was never issued in the U.S.) Two songs on that album caught my ear. One was "I Was a Lover, a Leader of Men," which we'll get to soon, and the other was "Claustrophobia."

First, I found the song title intriguing. It's not every day that a song is called "Claustrophobia," or even uses the word in the lyrics, so my first instinct was to think it was called that for some other reason. But it's there, and used properly. It makes me wonder if Barry Gibb wrote the song because someone challenged him to write a song about claustrophobia. I have no proof of that, of course, but it's as good a theory as any. And then the song starts! That descending intro is ear-catching, a really cool way to start. That instrumental break, played by Robin on the melodica, is really cool, too. And then the song gets progressively more urgent as it goes along. To finally hear it in true mono on Brilliant from Birth was a treat. To me, this is where the Bee Gees come in. It would have sounded great on the radio in 1964; a shame it wasn't even a hit in Australia.

 

The A-side has almost a groovy/psychedelic vibe. The B-side is rather forgettable. Not much to say about this single.

 

This one from the name of the song, to the lyrics are rather interesting. I don't know that is is a good single, but it is an intriguing song. Again this B-side wasn't something that really caught my interest in hearing it again.