The brothers wrote eight songs for the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever
(1977), the celebrated film starring John Travolta. Driven by incessantly
catchy bass lines, synthesised backing tracks and by now ubiquitous falsetto
vocals, the album remained at the top of the charts for almost half a year.
Suddenly the Bee Gees, who had been preparing themselves for a return to
musical obscurity before the album, were among the hottest tickets in
popular music. But just as Travolta found it hard to shake off his role as
the star of much-imitated, often parodied dance routines, so the Bee Gees’
image seemed to be forever fixed by their disco success. Whatever the
reality, the brothers Gibb were thereafter thought of as perma-tanned,
hugely-coiffed performers in platform heels; blinding white teeth, a flash
of chest hair and skintight gold or white romper suits completed the look.
Robin Hugh Gibb was born at Douglas, on the Isle of Man, on December 22 1949,
an hour before his twin, Maurice. Barry was three years older. Their father
was a jobbing drummer and the boys grew up in relative poverty in
Manchester. “I can remember my dad sitting under a 40-watt bulb counting
pennies, trying to make them last until Friday,” recalled Robin. “The
evening meal was a sixpenny bag of chips divided among us all. But kids
don’t question that. We didn’t think we were poor then. We only knew we were
poor later.”
In 1958 the family, complete with a fourth brother, the newly-born Andrew,
moved to Brisbane in Australia. Robin and Maurice left school at 13, and
with Barry they began performing in local clubs and theatres. Robin Gibb
remembered in 2003: “We were writing music even as young kids, we created a
world into which a lot of our friends couldn’t enter. We wanted to make
music all our lives and it evolved to a point where the only people who
could understand that were the three of us. We didn’t feel comfortable with
anyone but ourselves. The three of us were like one person.”
From the outset they concentrated on the close harmony vocals and detailed
arrangements that would become their calling-card for decades to come; and
soon they recorded an album which broke into the local charts.
Barry Gibb sent the album to record companies in Britain, and in 1967 the
brothers returned to England, where they were signed up by the promoter
Robert Stigwood, a business partner of the Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein.
Their first release, for Polydor, New York Mining Disaster, was a small hit.
But it was followed by a series of successes which began to cement the
trio’s fame — To Love Somebody, Words, and then the No 1 hits Massachusetts
and I’ve Gotta Get A Message to You. By the time the Sixties drew to a
close, the Bee Gees were stars on both sides of the Atlantic, and noted for
their willingness to experiment with unusual musical styles.
But Robin Gibb’s personal life was proving turbulent. On arriving back in
England he had met and married Molly Hullis, a secretary from Brian
Epstein’s office. The pair were together in 1967 when they were caught up in
the Hither Green rail disaster, in which 49 people were killed. “I remember
it very vividly,” he later recalled. “Children were trapped, passengers were
being given anaesthetics to have their limbs removed. It was horrendous,
like Dante’s Inferno. I just wanted to escape.”
By his own admission, he neglected his marriage. He also took refuge in
amphetamines: “I took the pills to stay up all night and make records. You
had to work through the night because studio time was expensive. I never
took serious drugs like LSD or cocaine — I was scared stiff of them.”
The divorce was acrimonious. Molly was granted custody of their two children
(when they were six and four) and refused to allow their father to see them.
Gibb went to court, but was unsuccessful; he did not see his children for
six years.
“It was akin to bereavement,” he said later. “I felt as though I was on the
verge of madness. There was no response to my calls, no acknowledgement of
my gifts, no letters. Nobody would tell me anything. All the professional
achievements, they mean nothing if your kids are taken away.” Subsequently
he was allowed to re-establish contact with the children: “Then it got to
the stage where they would just arrive unannounced, that was the best
moment.”
After Saturday Night Fever the Bee Gees had a further success with the title
track for the film Grease (1978), performed by Frankie Valli; but as the
popularity of disco waned so did that of the group which had come to be
defined by it. The Bee Gees fell out with Stigwood, and in 1988 their
younger brother Andy (a successful singer in his own right) died from
myocarditis aged 30.
The group came back in 1987 with You Win Again (their fifth British No 1) and
wrote Islands in the Stream and Chain Reaction, respectively hits for Kenny
Rogers/Dolly Parton and Diana Ross. They continued to record, releasing
albums such as Still Waters (1997) and This is Where I Came In (2001), and
continued to attract large audiences at live performances.
Increasingly, however, the Bee Gees became noted for their wider influence on
the music industry. Throughout their careers, the brothers were known for
their talent in composition, arrangement and production, and their songs
have been covered by countless artists, from Elvis Presley and Janis Joplin
to Boyzone and Destiny’s Child.
Robin Gibb actively pursued his solo career, with albums including How Old Are
You? (1983), Secret Agent (1984), Walls Have Eyes (1985), Magnet (2002) and
My Favourite Christmas Carols (2006). In 2004 he toured Germany, Russia and
Asia and Europe, and recorded with both Barbra Streisand and Cliff Richard.
In 2006 he performed with Barry at a charity concert in Miami, and later
that year the two brothers teamed up again for the Prince’s Trust Concert in
Britain.
Gibb returned to the top of the UK charts in 2009 when he collaborated with
Ruth Jones, Rob Brydon, and Tom Jones on a new version of Islands in the
Stream for Comic Relief.
In 2002 all three Gibb brothers were appointed CBE.
Gibb had recently been campaigning for the building of a national memorial to
the members of RAF Bomber Command who gave their lives during the last war:
“It’s just something I feel strongly about. I wasn’t even alive when these
guys did what they did, but I know they deserve a monument to their
sacrifice.”
Robin Gibb lived in a rambling 12th-century former monastery, set in 100 acres
of gardens, in Oxfordshire. The tennis court was transformed into a
Druidical stone circle — a gesture to his second wife, Dwina, a bisexual
former Druid priestess whom he married in 1985.
A staunch friend and defender of Tony Blair (“a wonderful man”), Gibb wore
small, blue-tinted spectacles and claimed to follow a macrobiotic diet — his
only vice in the dietary department being vanilla ice cream.
He had, however, suffered for years from crippling stomach pains, and in 2010
underwent surgery for a blocked intestine — the same condition which led to
the death of his twin brother Maurice in 2003, a blow which Robin felt
deeply. “I think about Maurice at unpredictable times,” he said in 2008. “I
wake up in the middle of the night thinking about him. One is a twin for
life. I can be sitting here talking normally about how he is dead and then I
can be sitting in the bath and it hits me. And I find it incredible that
he’s no longer alive.”
In April 2011 Gibb was forced to cancel a series of concerts in Brazil after
suffering severe abdominal pains. He was again taken ill in October . He had
recently been undergoing treatment for liver cancer, but on February 13
returned to the stage to perform at a charity concert at the London
Palladium, receiving a standing ovation.
He is survived by his wife Dwina, with whom he had a son. He had a son and a
daughter by his first wife, Molly; and in 2008 his housekeeper, Claire Yang,
gave birth to his daughter.
Robin Gibb with son Robin-JohnRobin-John Gibb, 29, has emerged from mourning to correct reports that blamed liver or colon cancer for the Bee Gee's death on May 20. Gibb's long battle with cancer was referenced in the statement his publicist released to press following his passing. "It wasn't the cancer that killed my father; those reports are wrong," the son told England's Daily Express. "Dad had actually gone into remission and the cancer was completely unrecognizable; it was too small to detect. No scan could see it. He actually died of kidney failure."
This may help explain the disparity between the late singer's extremely optimistic public statements about his cancer in February and the ill health that beset him in March... a dichotomy that might have made other patients worry that if Gibb's cancer could take such a dramatic turn, then maybe theirs could too.In early February, Robin Gibb told the BBC that he'd had a growth removed from his colon, which "is almost gone and I feel fantastic. Really from now on, it's just what they could describe as a 'mopping-up' operation. I am very active and my sense of well-being is good." How he went from that sense of well-being to a coma in April and death in May confounded fans. Had he been in denial about the extent of his cancer, or was its progression really that reversible and deadly?Neither, according to Robin-John. The kidney failure was a separate condition -- although one no doubt exacerbated by the toll the cancer and its aggressive treatment had taken on Gibbs' body.The GibbsesThe Daily Express described Robin-John as "frustrated" about differences between doctors about how to treat his father in his final weeks, and he expressed unhappiness with the decisions taken by the hospital staff. "At the end there was a divergence of opinion... They had totally different approaches. The (hospital's) CCU staff started treating him palliatively, while his main doctors wanted to reduce all the sedative medications so he could fight... In the end the decisions were made by CCU. I wanted dialysis and CPR. They said it was futile because he was a Stage 4 cancer patient."
The son told the newspaper that his father had appeared to be doing well until three days before his death, when he suffered a seizure. "He was then dosed with sedatives to deal with the side effects of his chemotherapy and his liver just couldn't process them. He deteriorated to the point where it started to affect his kidneys as well. Basically, my father died of kidney and liver failure. It was a really sudden downturn."Robin-John GibbRobin-John described the moment of his father's death as "peaceful and dignified," with "no theatrics. It was only later that I cried and cried." At Gibb's deathbed, "I was cradling his head and holding his right hand, and my mother was holding his left. I gave him a kiss and made way for (brother) Spencer and we both held his right hand. We watched him go and told him we loved him." A half-hour later, after medical staff had left, the family returned to visit the body one more time. "One of my favourite Bee Gee songs, 'I Started A Joke,' has the line: 'I finally died, which started the whole world living,' and I played it on my phone, put it on Dad's chest and we sat together," he told the paper. "I'd tried to hold it all in until then but that's when I bawled like a baby."
The private funeral service in Oxforshire has been put off till June. A de facto public memorial will take place when "Titanic Requiem," c0-written by the father and son Gibbs, is performed in Rome on June 23.Another British newspaper, the Sunday Mirror, reported Sunday that Gibb had given the mother of his "love child" a lump sum payment of 4 million pounds (or about $6.4 million) a few months before he died to provide for the care of their 3-year-old. Claire Yang, the former housekeeper for Gibb and his wife, gave birth to Snow Robin in 2008, and the singer is said to not only have acknowledged the paternity but even provided Yang a house, which was reportedly transferred into her name shortly before Gibbs' death.
