Your Father's Bee Gees (and that's a Good Thing)
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The Bee Gees Selections From the Studio Albums 1967-1968 6 Discs 4 ½ out of 5 stars Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson |
In the mid 60s, a period when singer-songwriters rose to prominence, the Bee Gees, brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb, were on par with rock luminaries such as The Moody Blues, Traffic, the Kinks, and dare I suggest it – the Beatles. This 16 song sampler, released in advance of a 6 CD set highlighting the Bee Gees first three albums, “Bee Gee’s 1st,” “Horizontal,” and “Idea,” captures the Bee Gees at that height of creative powers. For those of us under 40 who may be unfamiliar with these titles, the three albums embrace the hybrid folk/rock/ballad style the Bee Gees popularized a decade before the lucrative disco days of Stayin’ Alive” and “Night Fever,” -- before Barry started to sing like a mutilated Mickey Mouse in a falsetto so high the vein in the middle of his forehead popped out like a middle finger. These songs come from a period in music when artists were allowed to experiment in the studio, often with brilliant results.
“New York Mining Disaster 1941,” the song that broke the Bee Gees worldwide, is the perfect starting point for this 16 song retrospective. An unlikely title for a single even in the try anything 60s, “New York Mining Disaster 1941” was based on an actual historical incident -- the landslide in Aberfan, South Wales in 1966 that killed 144 people (mostly children who were at school). Barely out of their teens, the Brothers Gibb wrote a chilling tale of two trapped miners who feared that no one was coming to rescue them. The sparse arrangement – a few strumming guitars and an occasional foreboding cello – gives the Bee Gees a chance to display their tight harmonies and talent for fashioning lyrics that put the listener in that same dark pit with the miners: “I keep straining my ears to hear a sound, maybe someone is digging underground. Or have they given up and all gone home to bed, thinking those that one existed must be dead?”
“I Can’t See Nobody” features the unique quivering falsetto of Robin Gibb (It’s the deeper, more accessible voice of Barry that you hear on most of their hits). Robin’s almost vaudevillian delivery might be a challenge to anyone hearing it for the first time – imagine someone being shaken while they’re singing – but at least in the early songs, such as “I Can’t See Nobody,” the fragile melancholy in his voice adds to the song’s dramatic impact. Remixed with powerful clarity, Bill Shepard’s lush string arrangement is intoxicating, but never intrusive.
“To Love Somebody” is an early Bee Gees masterpiece, and one of their most requested and recorded songs. (Janis Joplin once murdered it with her full tilt adenoidal vocal attack.) Originally written for Otis Redding, it plays off of one of Barry’s more soulful and heartfelt performances. When nearly shouts “I’m a man, can’t you see what I am! I live and I breathe for you!” you know he’s pouring his unspoken pain into the microphone.
“Holiday,” another showcase for Robin, displays the group’s uncanny ability to conjure up romantic images of the past. Opening with a church organ playing chords akin to a Catholic mass, it slips gracefully into a Victorian setting. You immediately get the feeling Robin’s singing about a proper olde English “holiday,” complete with parasols, curtseying, and finger sandwiches. “Turn of the Century,” with its Adams Family harpsichord opening, will send your imagination spinning back to the early 1900s, when newfangled inventions like the telephone offered the promise of a better life. Conversely, “Gilbert Green” is cut from a similar Model T era mold, but has a much more tragic storyline along the lines of the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby.”
Other Bee Gees classics on the sampler that are scheduled to appear on the 6 CD reissue include “World,” featuring Maurice manning a ghostly mellotron and standout guitar work from Vince Melouney. “Massachusetts,” a flower-power pop tune written in fifteen minutes, nearly became the state’s anthem (until someone informed the Governor that the writers were Australian.) “Gotta Get a Message to You” depicts a doomed man about to die, a subject the brothers would revisit throughout their career. Robin and Barry trade vocals, taking turns stepping into the doomed man’s shoes. “I Started a Joke” is arguably Robin’s shining moment as a vocalist. He’s Pagliacci, scorned and heartbroken, singing with a tear in his eye, and you cry right along with him, because man, you’ve been there and you know how much it hurts.
The 16 cut sampler contains a few unreleased demos guaranteed to peak interest for the 6 CD set, because the Bee Gees were such perfectionists that even their demos were finished songs. ”Words,” a hugely successful single from the period when the group recorded “Horizontal,” has only appeared on “Best of the Bee Gees.” It’s essentially a solo performance by Barry, who’s backed by a full orchestra of shimmering strings straight out of a tear-jerking MGM movie soundtrack. One of his most affecting performances (you can hear him take a deep breath as if to steady himself before launching into the chorus), “Words” demonstrates how the Bee Gees could turn heartache into hits. Other songs collected for the forthcoming 6 CD set include the effectively poppy “Ring My Bell;” “Chocolate Symphony,” a glimpse of life in small town through a young boy’s eyes, and “The Singer Sang His Song,” with Robin in full quiver on lead vocal. “Out of Line,” another unreleased cut, shamelessly borrows the bass line from the Beatles “Rain” as well as parts of the melody from “Think For Yourself,” which might explain why it remained unreleased so long. Begged, borrowed or stolen, “Out of Line” is another successful stab by the brothers at conveying fairy tale pop.
Some of What’s In Store for Listeners
On the Bee Gees Studio Albums 1967-1968 6 CD SetAll three albums have been expanded to 2 CDs to accommodate the wealth of unissued material. In addition to remastered versions of the entire first album, including “To Love Somebody,” “I Can’t See Nobody,’ and “Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You,” (one of the strangest compositions the brothers ever penned, which wraps together an eerie mellotron, Gregorian chanting, and biographical lyrics about stiff upper lip English soldiers going off to die in war), Bee Gees 1st, features demo versions of “New York Mining Disaster 1941,” “Cucumber Castle,” and “Turn of the Century.” “Horizontal”’s second disc is embellished with the previously unissued “Swan Son,” “Ring My Bell,” and “Deeply, Deeply Me,” among others. “Idea”’s second disc focuses on alternate mixes of songs on the album, but also includes “Jumbo,” “Chocolate Symphony,” and “Gena’s Theme.”
There’s a popular saying often used in commercials – “This isn’t your father’s (fill in the subject)…” Well, this is your father’s Bee Gees, the way they sounded a generation ago before disco and high pitched chipmunk vocals, and we should all be thankful for that. Listen closely and you’ll hear classic material when the Bee Gees made songs -- and not just money.
Posted November 13, 2006 Permalink
