Bee Gees single by single thread

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by cut to the chase, Jul 15, 2018.

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  1. cut to the chase

    cut to the chase Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Germany
    Not a big fan of 'Lonely Days', and the German public seems to have agreed with me at the time, as it was their smallest hit in that country since 'Spicks & Specks'. This was also due to the fact that they concentrated on the US market in the 70s, neglecting promotion of their music in Europe.

    They had been huge in Germany from 1967 to mid 1970 with 10 top 10 singles including three consecutive number ones, but their success heavily declined from the release of 'Lonely Days' onwards. They didn't land any top 10 hits until 'Stayin' Alive' in 1978.
     
  2. tim_neely

    tim_neely Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Central VA
    Sidebar 7: Barry and Maurice during the hiatus

    (A big heads-up to @idleracer above for mentioning it first.)

    Once Barry and Maurice finished the album and TV program Cucumber Castle, Barry decided to end the Bee Gees. This was in late 1969, but, because the new album was delayed, most of the public was unaware of the breakup until the spring of 1970. (Gee, this sounds like another group I've heard of that was British, begins with B and ends with S.)

    Both Barry and Maurice continued to write and record. Each had enough material for an entire album, but those plans were shelved when the Bee Gees decided to reunite. Robin's solo recordings during the split have mostly been issued or reissued, but, with very few exceptions, neither Barry's nor Maurice's have been released.

    Maurice Gibb

    Maurice was the first of the two brothers to release a single, "Railroad"/"I've Come Back." Both songs were recorded in December 1969, shortly after the Bee Gees called it quits. Maurice played many instruments himself, but also had help from then-brother-in-law Billy Lawrie, who co-wrote both songs; Geoff Bridgeford on drums (he later drummed with the reconstituted Bee Gees); Leslie Harvey of Stone The Crows on guitar; and Johnny Coleman (Lulu's arranger) on piano.

    "Railroad" was released in April 1970 in most of the world, but was delayed significantly in the U.S. and Canada, until August 1970 (a promo copy on 45cat is rubber-stamped Aug 19 1970). The delay most likely was to allow the final Bee Gees singles to run their course before solo 45s started to emerge.

    The song received a review in Billboard. In the August 29, 1970 issue, "Railroad" appeared in the Special Merit Spotlight section of its single reviews, the section that can best be described as "we don't think these will be hits, but they might be worth a listen." Billboard wrote, "The former Bee Gee offers a beautiful ballad performance that should quickly make its mark on the best selling charts."

    Atco assigned "Railroad" a catalog number (45-6757), but evidently treated it the same way it did Robin Gibb's second and third singles: It never issued stock copies, thus causing it to fail before it had a chance to succeed. White-label promos from both Specialty (SP) and Plastic Products (PL) are known to exist; both of these have "Railroad" in mono on one side and in stereo on the other. Before Atco decided to bury the song, WFAA in Dallas debuted "Railroad" at #54 on its August 17, 1970 survey, but it disappeared the next week.

    Atco in Canada did release a stock copy of "Railroad"/"I've Come Back" on ATCO-6757. This is hard to find.

    Though it wasn't a hit anywhere else, the song was a top-10 hit in both Malaysia and Singapore.

    Maurice prepared an 11-song LP for release in 1970, tentatively called The Loner, but the first single's failure probably led to its permanent cancellation.

    "Railroad" can be found on the box set Tales of the Brothers Gibb.

    Barry Gibb

    Barry started his first solo project a bit later than Maurice did. He began recording in February 1970, and the first single to emerge from the sessions was "I'll Kiss Your Memory"/"This Time," two more of the country-style songs that Barry had been writing extensively since 1969. Other than the use of Bill Shepherd's orchestral arrangements, the other instrumentalists aren't known.

    The single was released in most territories in June 1970. Atco in the U.S. gave it the ultimate insult by choosing not to release it at all. It never issued a promo 45; as far as I can tell, Atco never even assigned it a catalog number.

    "I'll Kiss Your Memory" made the top 20 in the Netherlands, but saw little action elsewhere. It's the only song from these sessions to appear on CD as of 2018, as it appears on the Tales from the Brothers Gibb box.

    By August 1970, Barry had completed his solo album, tentatively entitled The Kid's No Good. In conjunction with the new LP, a new single, "One Bad Thing"/"The Day Your Eyes Meet Mine," two songs that dated from 1969 but were completely remade in 1970, was scheduled. But with the reformation of the Bee Gees, Barry decided to put both album and 45 on the back burner, where they would stay permanently.

    Atco actually assigned a catalog number to the new single (45-6786) and planned to issue it in September. With new Bee Gees music on the horizon, Atco canceled its release. There is no evidence that any U.S. copies were pressed, even as promos, but word failed to reach Canada in time. "One Bad Thing"/"The Day Your Eyes Meet Mine" was pressed and available for a very short time there on ATCO 6781. To date, this is the only worldwide release of these two recordings, and because of this, it's a sought-after collector's item, worth in the $400-$600 range based on two documented sales in the 2010s.

    Interestingly, "One Bad Thing" would be covered by, among others, Ronnie Burns, the Australian who had, in 1966-67, covered a bunch of unreleased Bee Gees songs from their Australia years.

    Here's Barry's version of "One Bad Thing":

     
  3. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product

    another great song
     
  4. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product

    this album is probably one of my favourite bee gees albums, if not the favourite .... not sure that it contained singles as such, but i loved the feel of the album and the songs on it. Great balladry
     
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  5. bare trees

    bare trees Senior Member

    "Lonely Days" is one of those songs that I was never able to warm up to. I found it too repetitive and the horn arrangement sounded to Vegas-y.
     
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  6. JeffMo

    JeffMo Format Agnostic

    Location:
    New England
    The hand claps don't work for me, and I don't care for the overall lo fi production of the studio track.

    Live is another matter - the songs rocks on Here At Last, One Night Only, etc. and I prefer those versions by a mile!
     
  7. idleracer

    idleracer Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    :kilroy: Another example of a B-side being slightly more memorable than the A-side, although it is a bit echo-laden:

     
  8. Bob J

    Bob J Forum Resident

    Yes, this was a single that I had a hard time finding. I wanted it for the B-side, "Then You Left Me". I found a copy on eBay for a fair price. I'm not at home right now but I'm pretty sure it is a white label promo. What made the deal even better was that tbe seller included a homemade full color picture sleeve which is really nicely done. When I can, i will post a pic of it. Unless I missed it, I don't think this single was ever issued with a picture sleeve so whoever made this one up did a great job.
     
  9. Hadean75

    Hadean75 Forum Moonlighter

    Agreed. Fantastic song.
     
  10. Hadean75

    Hadean75 Forum Moonlighter

    Absolutely love Railroad. :love:

    First heard it on their Mythology set and thought it was great.

     
  11. tim_neely

    tim_neely Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Central VA
    You are correct on the picture sleeve; no regular U.S. Bee Gees 45 had one until 1983.
     
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  12. AudioEnz

    AudioEnz Senior Member

    I love Lonely Days but do prefer the live version on Here At Last... Live to the single.

    Lonely Days was the least successful charting single of the Bee Gees in New Zealand to date. While it reached #10, the single spent a mere three weeks in our-then top 20 singles chart.
     
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  13. tim_neely

    tim_neely Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Central VA
    Correcting my typo: The Canadian 45 also was number 6786 (not 6781).
     
  14. Hadean75

    Hadean75 Forum Moonlighter

    Lonely Days is definitely a good live song.

     
  15. tim_neely

    tim_neely Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Central VA
    Sidebar 8: Cucumber Castle's biggest hit was by someone else

    The Barry and Maurice Gibb album Cucumber Castle was one of the Bee Gees' least successful on the American charts. It only attained a peak of #94 on the Billboard album charts, the lowest for a non-compilation to date by far. All four of their previous U.S. releases had made at least the top 20, and Best of Bee Gees was a top-10 hit.

    None of the three U.S. singles from the album made the top 40 in any of the trade magazines. But one cover version was a bigger hit than any of them -- not that much bigger, mind you, but bigger nonetheless:



    "Sweetheart," relegated to the B-side of "If Only I Had My Mind on Something Else" (U.S.), was recorded by Engelbert Humperdinck in a version both faithful to his usual style and reminiscent of the Bee Gees' original. Indeed, it almost sounds like it could have been produced by Bill Shepherd, the Bee Gees' orchestral arranger, but it was produced by Peter Sullivan, Humperdinck's usual producer. At the time of its U.S. release, September 1970, it was a non-LP A-side. An album entitled Sweetheart eventually was built around it; released in 1971, it got to #22 on the Billboard album charts.

    Reviews for "Sweetheart" in the trades were very good. Record World had it as one of its Page 1 items on September 19, 1970: "The Gibb Brothers have written Engelbert Humperdinck's latest chart-climber... His sweethearts number in the millions." Billboard put it in its Top 20 Pop Spotlight that same week, with an asterisk indicating a Top 40 Easy Listening prediction as well. It wrote, "From the pen of Barry and Maurice Gibb comes a ballad beauty perfect for the Humperdinck style and it could easily prove his biggest ever. Exceptional material and performance." Cash Box listed it fourth in its Picks of the Week, right behind Bread's "It Don't Matter to Me," writing, "From Engelbert Humperdinck's treatment, it's hard to recognize this as material from the Bee Gee team. Attractive ballad rendition of 'Sweetheart' gives E.H. a bright entry for MOR programmers and one that should entice plenty of teen reception as well."

    "Sweetheart" made the top 40 in two of the three U.S. trades; it peaked at #35 in Record World and #38 in Cash Box. In Billboard, it came up just short at #47.

    It was a huge hit on the middle-of-the-road charts; it got to #1 on the Record World Top Non-Rock chart the week ending November 7, 1970 -- the first song written by the Brothers Gibb to get to the top of any U.S. chart. Here was the top 10 that week:
    1. "Sweetheart," Engelbert Humperdinck (last week: 3)
    2. "Fire and Rain," James Taylor (LW 1)
    3. "It Don't Matter to Me," Bread (LW 6)
    4. "And the Grass Won't Pay No Mind," Mark Lindsay (LW 5)
    5. "Make It Easy on Yourself," Dionne Warwick (LW 7)
    6. "Something," Shirley Bassey (LW 4)
    7. "Jerusalem," Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass (LW 13)
    8. "Home Loving Man," Andy Williams (LW 33)
    9. "I Think I Love You," The Partridge Family (LW 16)
    10. "One Less Bell to Answer." The Fifth Dimension (LW 36)

    It also peaked at #2 in the Billboard Easy Listening chart on October 31, behind only "We've Only Just Begun" by the Carpenters. (The Carpenters' hit did get to #1 on the Record World Top Non-Rock charts, but earlier than on Billboard; it was already out of the top 10 when "Sweetheart" hit the top spot.)

    Engelbert's "Sweetheart" was released on Parrot 45-40054; unlike any Bee Gees 45 to this point, it has a picture sleeve. Five different pressing plants made the 45, all of them using styrene: Columbia Pitman (prefix 45-PAR); Columbia Terre Haute (prefix PRT); Shelly Products; Monarch; and what was then called Philips in Richmond, Ind. (later known as PRC; this 45 has a "PH" suffix on the label after the matrix number). Stock copies are mono; promo copies have "Sweetheart" in mono on one side and stereo on the other.
     
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  16. tim_neely

    tim_neely Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Central VA
    "Lonely Days," part 1:

    I am pretty sure at this late date that I never heard "Lonely Days" on the radio when it was popular. I'm not sure now if I first heard it as an oldie in 1973 or if I first heard it when I bought a used 45. Regardless, it was the second Bee Gees single to enter my collection. And my goodness, did I love this song! I loved how it seemed to be two different songs combined into one, with the slow part leading into the faster chorus that, especially the second time through, became more impassioned and frenetic. Like the Beatles' "Let It Be," it has an obvious bum piano chord near its end, but it only adds to the pleading near the end: "Where would I be without my woman," indeed. Finally, it also introduced me to the word "nonchalant."

    Looking back on it, I still like "Lonely Days" a lot, but other Bee Gees hits have eclipsed it. In some ways, there's no there there, as Gertrude Stein wrote about the city of Oakland, California. But it's still nice to hear once in a while. When I put it in historical perspective, it was their best A-side since "First of May," and it was a sure sign that the group was on its way back.

    Even early on, I didn't always flip my 45s to listen to the B-sides. I didn't finally hear "Man for All Seasons" until I made my Singles A & B CD-R and played it from my copy of 2 Years On. It's nice to hear Robin Gibb's quaver on a Bee Gees song again, but other than that, it's merely OK.

    ---

    The industry was positively gleeful that the three-brothers version of the Bee Gees were back.

    Record World
    gave "Lonely Days" one of its front-page Singles Picks of the Week on November 26, 1970, right behind "My Sweet Lord"/"Isn't It a Pity" by George Harrison: "The Gibbs are back together and so is their music. Their new song goes through several engrossing changes which should keep listeners (and buyers) on their toes. They offer more music per second than any group you can think of."

    Cash Box was a bit more wary, but still positive, as it listed "Lonely Days" second in its November 26 Picks of the Week, behind only the largely forgotten "The Green Grass Starts to Grow" by Dionne Warwick: "Second listen may be required, or a careful first, for this rebirth announcement from the Bee Gees. Side is a slow building ballad aims [sic] at the creation of atmosphere before it breaks into its chant-like body. Bound to blossom from the FM garden into top forty."

    The general public wholeheartedly agreed with the reviews, as "Lonely Days" achieved a series of firsts.

    -- It became the first Bee Gees single to be certified Gold by the RIAA, on March 30, 1971.

    -- It became the group's first #1 single in two of the three trade papers.

    The week ending January 30, 1971, "Lonely Days" rested atop the Cash Box Top 100 Singles chart, jumping from #3 in its 10th week on the chart. Here's the complete top 10:
    1. "Lonely Days," Bee Gees (last week 3; 10th week on chart)
    2. "Knock Three Times," Dawn (LW 1, 12th week)
    3. "Rose Garden," Lynn Anderson (LW 5, 10th week)
    4. "Groove Me," King Floyd (LW 4, 14th week)
    5. "If I Were Your Woman," Gladys Knight and the Pips (LW 7, 11th week)
    6. "My Sweet Lord," George Harrison (LW 2, 10th week)
    7. "Stoney End," Barbra Streisand (LW 14, 16th week)
    8. "One Less Bell to Answer," The Fifth Dimension (LW 3, 16th week)
    9. "Your Song," Elton John (LW 8, 11th week)
    10. "It's Impossible," Perry Como (LW 16, 14th week)

    A week later (February 6, 1971), "Lonely Days" sat atop The Singles Chart in Record World. The songs in the top 10 that week:
    1. "Lonely Days," Bee Gees (last week 3, 10th week on chart)
    2. "Knock Three Times," Dawn (LW 1, 12th week)
    3. "Rose Garden," Lynn Anderson (LW 8, 10th week)
    4. "My Sweet Lord"/"Isn't It a Pity," George Harrison (LW 2, 11th week)
    5. "Groove Me," King Floyd (LW 4, 14th week)
    6. "I Hear You Knocking," Dave Edmunds (LW 12, 7th week)
    7. "Your Song," Elton John (LW 6, 11th week)
    8. "If I Were Your Woman," Gladys Knight and the Pips (LW 9, 12th week)
    9. "Mama's Pearl," The Jackson Five (LW 14, 3rd week)
    10. "One Bad Apple," The Osmonds (LW 25, 5th week)

    Only Billboard disagreed, as "Lonely Days" peaked at #3 the week ending January 30, 1971.

    -- Also, for the first time, a Bee Gees single made a chart other than the Hot 100. "Lonely Days" became the first of their 30 charted hits on the Billboard Easy Listening (later Adult Contemporary) charts, peaking at #28.
     
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  17. ferdinandhudson

    ferdinandhudson Forum Resident

    Location:
    Skåne
    Burns' visit to Barry when picking up "One Bad Thing" could have been cut rather short as he almost put a bullet in Barry's head. Barry was a bit of a gun nut (he might still be) and was showing off his gun collection. He handed Burns a Luger which went off and the bullet missed Barry's head by mere millimeters. He almost took his eye out once with an air gun back in Australia, you'd think he had learnt his lesson then...
     
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  18. Hadean75

    Hadean75 Forum Moonlighter

    Those guys had so many close calls over the years....

    Maurice nearly drowned as a kid....
    Robin got hit by a car (in Australia), nearly killed in a train crash....
    Barry with the guns and being badly scalded as a child....
    I think they were all in car accident while still in Australia....

    They were lucky to make it into adulthood lol. :yikes:
     
  19. tim_neely

    tim_neely Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Central VA
    "Lonely Days," part 2:

    Based on the review dates in the trade papers, "Lonely Days"/"Man for All Seasons" was indeed released in the U.S. in November 1970, as is generally stated. The Atco 45 was given the number 45-6795. This is only nine numbers after the planned, and canceled, Barry Gibb solo single (45-6786), which shows how quickly this release was scheduled.

    Once again, all the stock copies are in folded-down mono. "Lonely Days" has a matrix number of 70C-20392 and "Man for All Seasons" 70C-20391. This reflects the order in which the two songs appear on the tape Atco received from Polydor UK and not any possibility that the latter song was the intended A-side.

    Atco used four different pressing plants to handle the demand for "Lonely Days": Specialty (SP), Plastic Products (PL), Monarch (MO), and -- for the first time in a while -- Shelly (LY). Even with all the copies that were made, there appear to be only seven label variations, four of which are from Monarch (MO).

    For the first time, a U.S. Bee Gees 45 lists two publishers on the label -- Casserole and Warner-Tamerlane. This is because, during the breakup, Robin Gibb made his own separate deal to publish his music. For a few years, any Bee Gees song co-written by Robin had a separate publishing credit for his involvement.

    All copies have the group as "Bee Gees" (no "The") and state "A Product of Polydor, England".

    As far as I can tell, all the copies from SP, PL, and LY are consistent:

    SP:
    -- perimeter print is "MFG. BY ATLANTIC RECORDING CORP., 1841 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, N.Y."
    -- production credit is "Produced by B. R. & M. Gibb & R. Stigwood"

    PL:
    -- perimeter print is "MFG. BY ATLANTIC RECORDING CORP., 1841 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, N.Y."
    -- production credit is "Prod. by B. R. & M. Gibb & R. Stigwood"

    LY:
    -- catalog number is "6795" (no "45-" prefix)
    -- perimeter print is "MFG. BY ATLANTIC RECORDING CORP., 1841 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, N.Y. 10023"
    -- production credit is "Produced by B. R. & M. Gibb & R. Stigwood"

    At some point, or perhaps more than once, MO must have run out of current Atco label blanks, because some copies have the mid-1960s perimeter print. Also, the spacing of the credits on the left side of the label varies; this is true on both sides. I can't tell which came first, because both spacing variations appear with either perimeter print!

    This resulted in four variants from MO as follows:
    1. Perimeter print is "MFG. BY ATLANTIC RECORDING CORP., 1841 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, N.Y."; there is no space between the four lines of credit at the left
    2. Perimeter print is "MFG. BY ATLANTIC RECORDING CORP., 1841 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, N.Y."; there is a gap under VOCAL and another gap under the matrix number
    3. Perimeter print is "Division of ATLANTIC RECORDS, New York, N.Y."; there is no space between the four lines of credit at the left
    4. Perimeter print is "Division of ATLANTIC RECORDS, New York, N.Y."; there is a gap under VOCAL and another gap under the matrix number

    I didn't see any hybrids, where one side has the spread-out credits and the other side had the closely-spaced credits, but it's certainly possible such a thing exists.

    All copies from MO have the production credit as "Prod. by B. R. & M. Gibb & R. Stigwood".

    ---

    For the first time on a Bee Gees 45, all the promos feature the A-side on both sides, one side in mono, the other in stereo. Known copies exist from both SP and PL. Even though "Lonely Days" is on both sides, the PL copies have the words PLUG SIDE on both labels. The SP copies don't.
     
    Last edited: Sep 28, 2018
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  20. idleracer

    idleracer Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    :kilroy: Strange. Two records I distinctly recall being hits at right around the same time as "Lonely Days" were Credence's "Have You Ever Seen The Rain?" and The Grass Roots' "Temptation Eyes." Perhaps here in L.A, some things charted earlier or later.
     
  21. tim_neely

    tim_neely Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Central VA
    On the Cash Box chart, "Temptation Eyes" was at 38, up from 42, and "Have You Ever Seen the Rain" debuted at 63.

    The following week's Record World chart had "Temptation Eyes" at 32, up from 40, and "Have You Ever Seen the Rain" debuting at 40.

    In Philadelphia, "Temptation Eyes" didn't peak on the WFIL chart until April.
     
    Last edited: Sep 28, 2018
  22. Castle in the air

    Castle in the air Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Carolina
    Interesting because while I don't remember Lonely Days while at that time Knock Three Times and Rose Garden seemed to be played around the clock here.
     
  23. bob_32_116

    bob_32_116 Forum Flaneur

    Location:
    Perth Australia
    ...and they are both better songs IMO.
     
  24. Bob J

    Bob J Forum Resident

    Jumping back a bit to the "I.O.I.O."/"Then You Left Me" single and my previous post about it, here's my promo 45 and the homemade pic sleeve that I got from eBay a while ago.

    [​IMG]
     
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  25. cut to the chase

    cut to the chase Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Germany
    The next entry on Wikipedia's Bee Gees Singles Discography is 'Melody Fair', which I won't present in detail, because it was only a single in South Africa and Japan.

    Melody Fair - Wikipedia
     
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