Robin and Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees | Double Vision: Top 10 Famous Twins | TIME.com Double Vision: Top 10 Famous Twins By Samantha Grossman @sam_grossman Jan. 04, 2013 Time & Life Pictures / Getty Images Robin and Maurice Gibb of family musical group The Bee Gees in 1989. At the forefront of the wildly successful pop/disco outfit the Bee Gees were twin brothers Robin and Maurice Gibb, who formed the band with their older brother, Barry. Both Gibb twins, who were born in 1949 on the Isle of Man, are now deceased. Maurice, the younger by 35 minutes, died in January, 2003 following complications during an intestinal surgery. Robin died in May, 2012, after a long battle with cancer. During his final moments, the singer reportedly spoke of his fraternal twin , telling family members, “I wish Mo was here, I can’t believe he is gone.” At the height of the Bee Gee’s popularity, Barry’s falsetto became the band’s trademark, with the twins adding distinctive harmonies.

Barry is now 66 — the last surviving Gibb brother. (The youngest, Andy, who sustained a career as a solo singer, died in 1988.) Bee Gees' Barry Gibb: The Last Brother - Rolling Stone Barry Gibb: 13 Essential Tracks "Taxes," the former Bee Gee muttered. "I've set aside 40 percent in a tax account since we started. All the money I see is mine." On the floor next to him, an oscillating fan blew back and forth, gently disturbing what was left of his snowy mane. Gibb sighed and changed the channel. Gibb's wife, Linda, was in the next room, wrapping a mountain of Christmas presents for their five children and seven grandchildren. But Gibb wasn't feeling very festive. In fact, he was depressed. Seven months earlier, his younger brother Robin had died after a long bout with cancer. He was preceded in death by his twin brother, Maurice, as well as their brother Andy and their father, Hugh. "All the men in my family are gone," Gibb said.

"The last few months have been pretty intense." Recently, a German TV crew had come to film an interview with him, and the encounter left Gibb shaken. "They were just nasty," he said. "They were holding up pictures of Robin and me, trying to get a reaction. There was no sensitivity about the fact that I'd lost my brothers." Thirty-five years ago, Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb – better known as the Bee Gees – were the most popular band in the world. Their Saturday Night Fever soundtrack – the ne plus ultra of mainstream disco – knocked Fleetwood Mac's Rumours off the top of the charts and stayed there for six months straight. They've sold more than 200 million records; as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame put it, at the time of their induction in 1997, only Elvis, the Beatles, Garth Brooks, Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney had sold more. They're the only group in history to have written, recorded and produced six consecutive Number One hits. "We weren't on the charts," Maurice once boasted, "we were the charts." And then, just like that, they weren't.

America decided that disco sucked, and the Gibb brothers went from icons to punch lines overnight. Andy passed away, then Maurice. Now that Robin was gone, Barry was the only one left. Robin and Maurice's birthday was in three days, and Gibb was going through photos from their childhood, picking out some of his favorites. "Our group has always gotten criticism without anybody really knowing us," he said. "I'll respond to every question you ask." We made plans to meet again in two days. But that night, I got back to my hotel and had a message from Gibb. I called him and asked if everything was OK. "I'm fine," he said. "But I don't want to continue. I'm just really uncomfortable with having my life opened up right now. I'm still grieving. I'm still dealing with the fact that I've lost all my brothers. It's just horrible for me. It's horrible for me inside." "I like you," Gibb went on, "and I think that you like me. And at some point we can do this. But right now, I'm just too fragile, it's one day at a time." He hesitated, searching for the right words.

"I'm just not whole enough," he said. "I pray that you understand." And then he hung up. What do you think of when you think of the Bee Gees? Saturday Night Fever and "Stayin' Alive" for sure. Bell-bottom suits and falsetto hooks. "Big hair, big teeth, medallions," as Barry once said. Maybe you've seen Jimmy Fallon's Saturday Night Live send-up, "The Barry Gibb Talk Show," or Homer Simpson and Disco Stu dancing by "table five, table five." (The Gibbs to Rolling Stone in 1988 about "Stayin' Alive": "We'd like to dress it up in a white suit and gold chains and set it on fire.") It's possible you have some vague awareness of their vastly underrated early work, like "To Love Somebody," which they wrote for Otis Redding, who died before he could record it, or "Lonely Days," which could be an outtake from Side Two of Abbey Road. Otherwise, they're frozen in 1978, forever pointing to the sky at 120 beats per minute.

Which is a shame, because in reality, the Bee Gees are one of the strangest, most complicated, most brilliant groups ever to achieve pop stardom. They rose from nothing in the backwater of Australia to conquer the music world as teenagers, then lost everything and did it all over again. As songwriters, they're unparalleled: Michael Jackson once called Saturday Night Fever the inspiration for Thriller, and Bono has said their catalog makes him "ill with envy," ranking them "up there with the Beatles." Ever since their days harmonizing in grade school, the Gibbs wrote almost telepathically, Robin throwing out a lyric, Barry ready with the melody. They once wrote three Number One singles in an afternoon. "We work better as a team," Robin said. The Gibbs were like legs on a tripod: Take away one, and the others would collapse. This led to a lifetime of love-hate relationships. Often they couldn't stand one another, but they couldn't bear to be apart. Robin and Barry lived in Miami two houses from each other, and Maurice lived just three blocks away. Their success afforded them a fabulous life – mansions, cars, boats, planes – and then, slowly but surely, drove them apart.

As Robin once put it, not long before his death, "I sometimes wonder if the tragedies my family has suffered are a karmic price for all the fame and fortune the Bee Gees have had." To get to Barry Gibb's house, you cross the Julia Tuttle Causeway, a three-and-a-quarter-mile concrete span connecting the Florida mainland to the glitz of Miami Beach. The bridge is lined with girders of reinforced steel, which, when traversed at 55 miles per hour, fill a car's interior with a loping backbeat: chuckity-chuck, ch-chuckity-chuck. Drive a little faster than 55, and the backbeat grows into a funky little groove. One day in January 1975, Gibb was driving over the bridge heading home from the studio. Things were not going great. The Bee Gees had recently had an album rejected by their label, and they'd been reduced to playing England's dinner-theater circuit. In Atlantic City, they were second-billed to a horse. Their friend Eric Clapton suggested they try Miami, where they could rent his old house at 461 Ocean Boulevard and get a tan while they plotted their comeback.

Then one night they heard that groove, wrote a song based on it the next day, and by the end of the summer, "Jive Talkin'" was Number One – the first in an epic run of hits that spanned four years and eight top singles, one of the most successful stretches in pop-music history. Gibb, 67, lives in an exclusive enclave in North Miami Beach called Millionaire's Row, and his neighbors include Alex Rodriguez, Lil Wayne and some Miami Heat players whose names he can never remember. The place is extravagant, even by Miami standards: Two life-size stone lions guard the front steps, and a full-size basketball court sits out back. In the driveway, there's a big fountain, and parked next to it there's an Escalade. Inside, Gibb is watching Fox News again, where talk has turned to the missing Malaysian plane. He's as handsome as he ever was – blindingly white teeth, rectilinear jaw, flowing locks, movie-star chin. He looks like an older version of the Burger King king. Gibb's beard is thinning a bit, but it's too late for him to get rid of it now.

"The beard pulls all your muscles down," he says, "so it's not so pretty if you shave. Every time I see Brad Pitt with that beard, I think, 'Better cut it before it's too late.'" Gibb says he didn't know it at the time, but when we first met, he was despondent. "I went on as normal," he says. "But that's not how I felt. I was groping around. I didn't know what to do with myself. When suddenly you're on your own after all those years, you start to question life itself. What's the point in any of it?" That lasted about a year and a half, until two people snapped him out of it. The first was Linda. "She kicked me off the couch," Gibb says. "She said, 'You can't just sit here and die with everybody else. Get on with your life.'" The second was Paul McCartney. They were talking backstage at SNL, "and I said I wasn't sure how much longer I could keep doing this.

And Paul said, 'Well, what else are you going to do?' And I just thought, 'Well, OK, then.'" So this spring, Gibb is hitting the road across North America for six solo shows, his first tour ever without his brothers. The show costs him half a million dollars a night, so he'll be lucky to break even. But that's not the point. "I have to keep this music alive," Gibb says. "Before my brothers died, I wouldn't have thought of it that way. But that's my job now. It's important that people remember these songs." When Barry Gibb first came into the world, he was the little brother. His sister Lesley was nearly two when Barry was born, on the Isle of Man, off the west coast of England, where his father was a bandleader and his mother took care of the kids. He almost didn't make it out of childhood: At 18 months, he spilled a teapot and scalded himself so badly the doctors gave him 20 minutes to live. He spent three months in the hospital.

Over the next few years, he also fell through a roof, shot himself in the eye with a BB gun and was hit by a car on two occasions. "I was," he says, "just one of those kids that was always getting hit by a car." The Bee Gees were rounded out a few years later when the twins came along. Three-year-old Barry was unimpressed: Their cat had just given birth to six kittens – what was the big deal with two? Once, when Robin started crying, Barry begged his mother to take him back. When Barry was eight, the family moved to Manchester, which was still rebuilding from the war. They lived across from bombed-out ruins and ate ketchup sandwiches and stolen candy. For Christmas when Barry was nine, his dad bought him a guitar, and Barry and his brothers started writing songs. Soon thereafter the family moved to Australia, where the boys sang at matinees and RSL clubs (short for Returned Services League – like a VFW hall with drunk Aussies). They dropped out of school when Barry was 15 and the twins were 13, and after a few years of local success decided to make a go of it in the U.K.

The Gibbs arrived in 1967, at the peak of Swinging London: Union Jacks waving in Kensington, Minis and miniskirts everywhere. ("And the miniskirts were really mini," Gibb says. "Not like today – you could see everything.") They signed with Brian Epstein's management company and soon had a couple of hits ("New York Mining Disaster 1941" and "To Love Somebody"). Gibb became a regular on Carnaby Street, dropping £1,500 on shirts like it was Tube fare. He bought a Rolls-Royce, a Bentley and a Lamborghini; one time he walked out his door and realized every car on the street was his. (In his defense, said Linda, "It was a small street.") And yet for all its success, the group always had trouble earning respect. There's one night Gibb remembers vividly. He was at a nightclub called Speakeasy, surrounded by a who's who of Sixties London: Pete Townshend. Jimi Hendrix. The Beatles and Stones huddled together, John Lennon still wearing his outfit from the Sgt. Pepper photo shoot earlier in the day.

After a couple of Scotch-and-Cokes, Townshend turned to Gibb and said, "Do you want to meet John?" He led him across the room to where Lennon was holding court "John," said Townshend. "This is Barry Gibb, from the group the Bee Gees." "Howyadoin'," said Lennon, not bothering to turn around. He reached back over his shoulder and offered Gibb a halfhearted shake. "So I met John Lennon's back," Gibb says with a laugh. "I didn't meet his front." At the time, the group's biggest songs were the ones where Robin sang lead, his crystalline vibrato powering moody dirges like "Massachusetts" and "Holiday." But his overbite and goofy smile were no match for Barry's matinee-idol looks. " 'Resentment' may be a strong word," says Gibb, "but not inappropriate." As Barry got more of the attention, their squabbles grew more intense. Finally, in 1969, with the bitterness at a high point, Robin quit the band. The next few months were a dark time for the Gibbs.

Robin put out a solo album that didn't do as well as he'd hoped. Maurice started boozing it up with Richard Burton and Ringo Starr. Barry became a near-recluse, retreating to his flat in London, where he shot BB guns at his chandelier and read TV Guide alone in the dark. Finally, after a year and a half, the brothers declared a detente and decided to reunite. As Robin put it, somewhat presciently, "It's no fun if you're on your own." By then the Bee Gees had fallen out of the spotlight, where they remained for the next half-decade. "Those five years were hell," Barry once said. "There is nothing worse on Earth than being in the pop wilderness." Then came the chuckity-chuck, and their comeback with "Jive Talkin'." Playing around at a recording session that same year, Barry discovered his million-dollar falsetto, and soon the group was embracing the growing movement called disco. "I think it was probably the Vietnam War that triggered the whole thing," says Barry.

"People wanted to dance." In the spring of 1977, the Bee Gees spent a cold, miserable month in France's Château d'Hérouville – a.k.a. Elton John's Honky Château – working on their next album, when they got a call from their manager. He was producing a disco movie, and he needed some songs for the soundtrack. The brothers gave him what they had, and the result changed pop-music history. The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack went on to sell 15 million copies and win a Grammy for Album of the Year. The songs were inescapable: Five of them went to Number One. When their manager needed a song for another movie he was producing, also starring John Travolta, Barry wrote "Grease," which went to Number One as well. Of the 10 biggest songs of 1978, the Gibbs were responsible for fully half. "Looking back, it was an incredible experience," Barry says. "But it made us all a bit crazy. It got to a point where we couldn't breathe. I remember death threats. Crazy fans driving past the house, playing 'Stayin' Alive' at 120 decibels.

I really like privacy. I'm just not that good with whatever fame is." For their next album, the Bee Gees mounted a 41-date tour. "We did three nights at Madison Square Garden, and one of those nights we never went to bed," Gibb says. "To this day, I can't figure out how we did it. Youth, I guess." (And possibly drugs. The Gibbs had always been fond of substances: Barry smoked grass, Robin liked pills and Maurice drank. For the most part, they stayed away from harder stuff. "I did a week of cocaine in 1980-something," says Gibb. "But the trouble with cocaine . . ." – he laughs – "is cocaine! You've got to do it every half hour. It's too much work. Amphetamines last four to six hours. And in those days," he says with a grin, "there were some great amphetamines.") At that point Barry was the undisputed star of the group.

He'd always been the leader: As Beatles producer George Martin once put it, "Everybody knows that Barry is the idea man of the three, and when he is too overt about that, they tend to rebel." Now, thanks to Barry's falsetto, he was singing everything too, and old jealousies started to rear up. Barry didn't want a repeat of 1969, so he decided to step back and sing fewer leads. His falsetto fell by the wayside. The thing that made them massive, the thing everyone wanted to hear, he gave up for the sake of the family. "The best time in our lives was the time right before fame," says Gibb. "We could not have been tighter. We were glued together. The following year is where excesses started coming in. Drink, pills. The scene, egos." That's when the competition began – and with it came the separation. "It was 45 years, so there were times we had the times of our lives," he says. "But it was never as sweet and innocent as it was in 1966." Gibb needs to stand up for a bit. "Oh, my joints," he says, stretching his back.

"Everything hurts today." He twists one way, then the other: "Movement is important." Then he takes a step. "Ah, fuck." These days Gibb wakes up late, usually because he was up late watching Netflix. He rolls out of bed around 11, sings for a while to make sure his voice is still there. (Yesterday it was "Blame It on the Bossa Nova.") He takes breakfast and reads for a bit – currently The Sixth Extinction, by environmental journalist Elizabeth Kolbert – and then heads to the living room to read a little more. He likes end-of-the-world stuff and quasi-science – the Bermuda Triangle, Ancient Aliens, anything about the apocalypse. "All the things that people laugh about, I believe in," he says. "It's much more fun than being skeptical." After lunch, Gibb goes back to the living room, where he'll fiddle with one of his four dozen guitars, or else to the library, to peruse his collection of first editions. He got an iPad for Christmas, but has hardly used it: "To me, it's just a big clock." He doesn't have e-mail or a cellphone, but occasionally he'll send his lawyer a fax.

A few years ago, Gibb might have passed the afternoon at a shooting range, but he stopped going when it affected his hearing. He still has 25 or 30 guns in a cupboard upstairs. He doesn't take them out much – he learned that lesson the hard way when he was arrested in London in 1968 after chasing a stalker from his front door with an unlicensed .38. (He was fined £25 and released: "Besides possessing two pistols," declared the judge, "about the only thing I can see Mr. Gibb has done wrong is wear a white suit to court.") All in all, it's a pretty quiet retirement. Every once in a while, a fan might turn up at his gate, and if Gibb's not too busy, he'll go out and say hello. He enjoys talking to fans. "It does your heart good," he says. "Makes you realize not everybody hated it." After the disco backlash of 1979, the Bee Gees' career imploded. The Gibbs turned their attention to songwriting, penning albums for Diana Ross and Barbra Streisand.

The brothers also wrote and produced "Islands in the Stream," the seminal duet between Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. "In the long run it gave us credibility," Gibb says of songwriting. "That's what we loved doing: writing a song that people liked and that would be remembered." Gibb was always driven by an almost childlike pursuit of approval. "It became trendy to laugh at us," he says. "When you're the center of attention, and suddenly people don't want you to be anymore . . ." He trails off. "But it hasn't left a deep scar. Hills and valleys." Now in his twilight years, Gibb is surrounded by ghosts. Not literally, although he did have some encounters in England a few years back. More figuratively, in the dozens of photos that cover his walls. Most of them are of family. But others are of departed friends, like Michael Jackson, who was godfather to one of Gibb's sons. "He would come to Miami and stay in our house," says Gibb. "He'd sit in the kitchen and watch the fans outside his hotel on TV, just giggling – 'Hee hee!'" He lived upstairs for a while, right before his child-molestation trial.

"We never discussed the case," says Gibb. "We would just sit around and write and get drunk. Michael liked wine – there were a few nights when he just went to sleep on the floor." Gibb nods to a spot on the rug a few feet away. "I look at that floor, I remember that." But the biggest ghost Gibb lives with is the one of his own past. "I still think of myself as a teenager," he says. "I keep my bathroom mirror dark, so I can imagine myself as a kid and not see myself as I am now. It helps." One night, Linda makes dinner at home: pork roast, mashed potatoes and traditional Scottish crackling. "Thank you, love," Gibb coos as she brings him a mug of warm sake. (It's the only thing he drinks: "As strong as scotch, and no hangovers.") Linda, a bewitching brunette, has the deep tan and physique you'd expect from a former beauty queen who's lived in Miami for 37 years. A Bee Gees children's book from 1983 portrayed Gibb as a cartoon lion and her as a sexy panther, which seems about right.

They met on Top of the Pops in 1967. Linda was 17, the reigning Miss Edinburgh, and Barry, 21, had the Number One song in the country. "Our eyes met across the studio, and that was it," he says. He asked her to coffee in the BBC canteen, and they had their first intimate encounter that afternoon in the Dr. Who phone booth. (Gibb: "Time was of the essence!") They got married on September 1st – Barry's birthday, so he wouldn't forget. "I'd had my fun," he says. "I wanted to have a family." They've been married 44 years, and they still flirt like teenagers. "We've both been tempted," Gibb says. "She was – she is – a beautiful girl, and because of the Seventies for me there was always someone trying it on. We've both enjoyed the attention, but we've never taken it seriously." Linda is about to bring out dessert when she brings up Andy, the Gibbs' baby brother. "Poor Andy," she says. "Oh," says Barry, looking pained.

"Let's not talk about that." Andy was the first brother that Gibb lost, and it's still the one that hurts the most. "We were like twins," Gibb says. "The same voice, the same interests, the same birthmark." Barry gave Andy his first guitar, for his 12th birthday. When Andy grew up, he wanted to be just like Barry. Andy had a handful of hits in the late Seventies, almost all written by Barry. But he developed an addiction to cocaine and Quaaludes. He eventually cleaned up, but the damage was done. He died in 1988, from inflammation of the heart compounded by years of drug abuse, five days after his 30th birthday. Barry was devastated. "It was the saddest moment of my life," he said at the time. Even now, he feels guilty for pushing Andy toward showbiz. "He would have been better off finding something else," Gibb says. "He was a sweet person. We lost him too young." Maurice was the next to pass, in 2003.

He'd had problems with alcohol – in the late Seventies, he used to have to run his hand along the wall just to make it to the stage. He got clean in the Nineties, but he died of a heart attack at age 53, no doubt exacerbated by a lifetime of drinking. "With Andy, we could see it coming," says Gibb. "But Maurice was a shock." At first Barry and Robin said they would continue as the Bee Gees, but soon reversed course: "It wasn't the same. We didn't want to be the Bee Gees without Mo." The only two left were the two who'd never gotten along. Robin and Barry tried to organize a tribute concert for Maurice, but they couldn't even agree on that. "The distance between us became more and more dramatic," Gibb says. "There were times when we didn't talk for a year." In February 2012, Gibb played his first-ever solo show. "God bless you," he told the fans. "And say a little prayer for Rob." At the time Robin was undergoing chemotherapy. Barry went to visit him in London, where Robin told him he loved him. Six weeks after that, he was gone.

Gibb says that, when it comes to his brothers, "my only regret is that we weren't great pals at the end. There was always an argument in some form. Andy left to go to L.A. because he wanted to make it on his own. Maurice was gone in two days, and we weren't getting on very well. Robin and I functioned musically, but we never functioned in any other way. We were brothers, but we weren't really friends. "There were too many bad times and not enough good times," he says finally. "A few more good times would have been wonderful." The first time he lost his brothers – back in 1969 – Gibb didn't perform in public for a year and a half. Now that he's getting back on the road, he's taking his family with him. His son Stephen plays guitar in his band, and Maurice's daughter, Samantha, is a featured singer. Gibb still plays Bee Gees songs, although he won't sing any that Robin sang, out of respect. And he wants to record a new album soon. He keeps a tape recorder on his night stand in case an idea comes to him in the middle of the night.

"I've got bits of paper with songs all over the house," Gibb says. "They just sit and wink at me every time I go by." Gibb thinks about death a lot. "But I don't have any fear of it," he says, "like I might've if I'd never lost a brother." He knows his performing days are numbered: "I will not end up in a casino somewhere – I can't do that." When his time comes, all he asks is that it's "fucking quick. A heart attack onstage would be ideal," he says, laughing. "Right in the middle of 'Stayin' Alive.'" He can tell the time is getting closer. "I have a bucket list now," he says. "I didn't used to have a bucket list." He'd like to have one more hit – "Who wouldn't?" And he'd like to see the inside of a nuclear submarine. "I'm not sure why," he says. "You can still have little dreams." Gibb isn't sure what he thinks about an afterlife. "When people say, 'Your brothers are looking down on you and smiling,'" he says, "I don't know if that's true.

But maybe, if there's any truth to that stuff, one day I'll bump into my brothers again. And they'll say, 'What kept you?'" This is from the June 5th, 2014 issue of Rolling Stone. The Bee Gees | Robin Gibb The Bee Gees The Bee Gees Harmony and synergy Harmony turns a pleasing combination of musical elements into a whole. Synergy occurs when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Barry and the younger twins, Robin and Maurice In the story of the Bee Gees, harmony and synergy are the essential truths. Because when Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb got together to make music... in their boyhood bedroom in Manchester, in recording studios in London and Miami, on the biggest stages all over the world... their perfectly-blended voices made something special happen. Together, in silent synergy, in heavenly harmony, the brothers Gibb at a microphone together meant that something magical was about to take place. That “something” first happened over a half-century ago, when the brothers first raised their voices together. And now, forever known as the Bee Gees, they are one of the greatest vocal groups and songwriting teams in the history of music.

And that’s no exaggeration. By the time their career had come full circle, with their final album (2001’s This Is Where I Came In), they had created a body of work that made them worthy of both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame and in the process, revealed the story of their life through the medium of the most consistently best-crafted, elegant pop music one could dream of. The Bee Gees story, of course, is a real life... one of a family... a talented, determined, unstoppable trio of brothers (older brother Barry and fraternal twins Robin and Maurice)... who began singing together when they were just boys. From the very beginning, singing together was really as natural as breathing and almost as essential. Born on the Isle of Man, where their late father Hugh was a big band leader, the Gibbs started harmonizing in their modest British bedroom in the mid-1950s when they were mere lads. Oldest brother Barry (then 9) and twins Robin and Maurice (only 6 years old) made their first public appearances in 1957 in Manchester at local cinemas, miming to the hits of the day.

For one of the greatest singing groups in history, it’s more than a little ironic that they began their career as lip-synchers. From the very beginning, singing together was as natural as breathing and almost as essential. Anyway, after their family emigrated from Manchester to Australia in 1958, the soon-to-be-named Bee Gees began busking at a local racetrack, and then graduated to Aussie nightclubs. As pre-teens, they were a successful act, singing in a style influenced by the legendary Mills Brothers. In 1963, they earned their first record contract, and unlike most groups, they immediately began recording their own songs. Then, in 1964, inspired by the Beatles, the brothers became a teenage pop group and honed their songwriting and recording skills as they earned national stardom "Down Under." By the end of 1966, they were fast becoming the biggest fish in a small pond and feeling that fulfilling their ultimate destiny meant leaving Australia, they sailed home to England. Ironically, it was while on the ship that they learned that they had gone to number one in Oz with Spicks And Specks.

But there was no looking back, because the Bee Gees were bound for music’s real Emerald City, the swinging London of 1967. In terms of worldwide attention, the Bee Gees story really began in February, 1967 when only weeks after arriving in England, they hooked up with legendary impresario Robert Stigwood, who immediately recognized their talent and quickly put them in the studio. He mounted an audacious publicity campaign, calling the Bee Gees, “the most significant new musical talent of 1967”. It was a lot to live up to, but the Bee Gees were clearly up to the challenge. “The most significant new musical talent of 1967” Robert Stigwood, impresario and entertainment entrepreneur Bee Gees 1st was released in the post-Sgt. Pepper musical universe of the fall of 1967, just in time for the group to be an integral part of the second Wave of a "British Invasion" that included Cream, the Moody Blues, Procol Harum and Traffic. Their success was instantaneous.

For nearly five years, beginning with their first international hit, New York Mining Disaster, 1941 the Bee Gees were massive pop stars. Fueled by songwriting talents that are virtually unequaled, their first four UK albums (especially the landmark orchestral pop concept record, Odessa) revealed their talent and ambition in full bloom. During their first run of success, they, with seeming ease, supplied themselves with an unending stream of hit singles (Massachusetts, To Love Somebody (originally written for Otis Redding), Holiday, I've Gotta Get A Message To You, I Started A Joke, Lonely Days, How Can You Mend A Broken Heart et al), and took perhaps equal pleasure in the fact that their hit songs were also being recorded by their idols, such as Elvis Presley (Words) Sarah Vaughn (Run To Me), Al Green and Janis Joplin. The Bee Gees on stage in the early seventies In the early 1970s, despite a pair of major hit singles in America, the Bee Gees fell out of favor, particularly at home.

In England, in a music scene where stacks of Marshall amplifiers ruled the day, there didn’t seem to be a place for them amidst the heavy metal thunder of Led Zeppelin or in a glam-rock era when the next big thing came along every month. There just wasn’t much of a demand for three young men singing beautifully-crafted pop songs. Steadfastly refusing to become an oldies act, the brothers wrote and recorded new albums and struggling to connect with listeners, they relocated to America where they hoped to re-establish their musical identity. It was when they joined forces with legendary producer Arif Mardin and rediscovered their love of soul music that the next chapter in their history began in earnest; they started making R&B-drenched records that reflected their real passion. In truth, the brothers had always been most inspired by great soul artists such as Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder, so when they gave that part of their creative heart free reign, it fueled the Bee Gees return to the top. Their comeback began in 1975 with Jive Talkin', the first of their dance-tinged number one hits that would trigger an unprecedented second round of superstardom.

By writing and singing straight from the gut, they had returned to the top. Unpredictably, they would soon be bigger than ever. Jive Talkin' triggered an unprecedented second round of superstardom 1975's Main Course album (which also featured the Top 10 hit Nights On Broadway) was followed by 1976's smash, Children Of the World (including the number one You Should Be Dancing and number three Love So Right). Next came a “standing room only” arena tour that proved the Bee Gees were bigger stars than ever. Nobody realized that what was to come next would turn them into icons for a generation. In early 1977, the Bee Gees were focused on two things: writing songs for their new studio album; and launching the career of their baby brother Andy, when they received a request from their manager, Robert Stigwood, who was producing a new film, a “little” movie set in a dance club in New York. He asked the brothers for a few songs for the soundtrack. The songs they sent him made music history.

1977's Saturday Night Fever, which sparked not only a cultural phenomenon but was, for two decades, the biggest selling soundtrack record ever (around forty million copies to date), began a miraculous string of number one hit singles for the Bee Gees, starting off with How Deep Is Your Love, Stayin' Alive and Night Fever. At the same time that Saturday Night Fever was burning brightly, another member of the Gibb family was also tearing up the charts. Barry, at Robert Stigwood's behest, somehow found the time to oversee the launch of baby brother Andy's stateside career, and Andy's first album, Flowing Rivers (which was actually released months prior to Saturday Night Ever) marked the beginning of the 19-year old's white-hot stardom.

Andy became the first solo artist to ever have his first three singles reach number one —I Just Want To Be Your Everything (which was written by Barry, preceded How Deep Is Your Love to the top of the charts), (Love Is) Thicker Than Water, a Barry-Andy collaboration, which replaced Stayin' Alive at number one and the multi-million-selling Shadow Dancing, (Billboard's number one single of 1978), which is also noteworthy for having been co-authored by all four Gibb brothers. Various creative combinations of Gibbs also led to three more top 10 singles for Andy, including Everlasting Love, the poignant (Our Love) Don't Throw It All Away and Desire. In 1978, the Bee Gees were at a pinnacle they had often dreamed of. But they would only barely pause to enjoy the view before they set a new challenge for themselves—How do you top what was then the biggest-selling album of all time? How do you top the biggest-selling album of all time?

With that question mark hanging over their heads, the brothers returned to the studio (for the third straight time with the men Barry Gibb calls the “unsung heroes,” co-producers Karl Richardson and Albhy Galuten) determined to make their greatest album ever. Never ones to shy away from a challenge, the Bee Gees may have indeed done exactly what they intended. Spirits Having Flown sold an unbelievable fifteen million copies worldwide and yielded three more million-selling, number one singles (Too Much Heaven, Tragedy and Love You Inside Out). That album and the hugely successful Spirits tour (which included dates at places such as Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, where only the Beatles and Elton John had previously played) firmly and finally placed them in the pop pantheon. From 1977-1979, the Bee Gees were, very simply, the biggest group in the world.

Among the records they set during that “Feverish” era that may never be equaled: the Bee Gees became the only recording artists to write and produce six straight number one singles; they were the first composers to have five songs in the top 10 at the same time; and when, from February 1978 through mid-May of that same year, the number one record was a Gibb composition (featuring either the group, brother Andy or Yvonne Elliman), it was the first four straight songwriting number ones ’s ever, breaking Lennon&dash;McCartney’s record from 1964. To give you an idea of how important the Bee Gees had become, when the brothers Gibb donated all the royalties from Too Much Heaven to UNICEF, that generous gesture ultimately lead to a TV special and album that to date has generated over ten million dollars for the children’s emergency fund. Even when it came to their charitable activity, the Bee Gees were setting records.

As the new decade began, the Bee Gees decided it was time to take a breather from group activities, and in the early 1980s, the brothers concentrated on their families, slowing down their prolific pace. Of course, nothing could stop the flow of great music and seemingly in their spare time, the brothers wrote and Barry (again, with Karl and Albhy) produced a string of hits for some of their favorite singers&rsquyo;Guilty, the Grammy Award winning Barbra Streisand album (three top 10 singles including the number one, Woman In Love and, at fifteen million sold, the biggest album of her career), a giant, UK number one for Diana Ross (Chain Reaction), Dionne Warwick's 1982 return to the top 10 (Heartbreaker) and Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers’ duet, Islands In The Stream, a 1983 number one hit and the most successful single in the history of RCA Records. After a series of solo excursions (including Robin’s hit Juliet), by the mid-1980s, the brothers Gibb were again ready to join forces and re-take their place center stage as the BeeGees.

And inspired by the international welcome received by hits like the anthemic You Win Again and their spiritual One, the brothers, after a near ten-year hiatus, returned to live performing in 1989. Their SRO tour covered three continents and attracted what was now three generations of Bee Gees fans. Maurice, Robin and Barry perform together in 1991 The first half of the 1990s was marked by continued international success for the group, with albums like 1991's High Civilization and 1993's Size Isn't Everything. That album proved that the brothers still had the ability to create catchy up-tempo, R&B influenced tracks (like the hit single Paying The Price Of Love) or from-the-heart pop songs that touch people everywhere, like How To Fall In Love, Pt. 1 and the epic ballad For Whom The Bell Tolls (a number five hit in the UK). In 1994, in recognition of their remarkable and still-growing body of work, the brothers Gibb were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

By 1996, as the Bee Gees approached the 30th anniversary of their first international hit, there also seemed to be a shift in the pop culture zeitgeist. Their fans around the world had always remained loyal, but in the media... among the power-brokers and gatekeepers... it suddenly became hip to love Bee Gees music. Again demonstrating the lasting quality of their work, in 1996 the Gibb’s songwriting earned them four more number one singles (Stayin' Alive by Ntrance, How Deep Is Your Love by Take That, Words by Boyzone and the brothers’ own version of First Of May) adding to a worldwide career total that&rsuo;s in the dozens. Remarkably, they have written number one UK chart hits in each of four consecutive decades from the sixties to the nineties. By 1997, as they entered their 30th year on the world music scene, the Bee Gees had become legends, with career statistics befitting their status.

They were one of the top five most successful recording artists of all time (behind only Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney) with well over two hundred million records sold worldwide. Over the years, in the U.S. alone, they had racked up seven million-selling singles, five others that sold over two million, nine gold albums, three platinum and three consecutive number one LPs. By 1997 they were in the top five most successful recording artists of all time While the brothers had also previously earned a modicum of industry recognition (including sixteen Grammy nominations and seven Grammy Awards), it was in 1997 that they received long overdue acknowledgment that was commensurate with their stature, achievements and now-iconic status. In quick order, they received the American, World and British Music Awards “Lifetime Achievement” honors and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, making them part of a very select group of artists to be in both the Rock and Songwriter Hall of Fames.

But as proud of their legacy as they are, the Bee Gees have never been content to rest on their laurels, and in 1997, they created new music that launched yet another wave of Bee Gees fever. Still Waters featuring the worldwide Top Twenty hit Alone, became a monster hit album. Four decades into their career, producing an album of the quality of Still Waters wasn’t just shocking; it may be, as Bee Gees biographer David Leaf noted, “The best album ever by a veteran group, and certainly one of the best of their career”. However welcome that kind of praise may have been, the Bee Gees only wanted one thing—for people to hear their music. “[Still Waters is] the best album ever by a veteran group, and certainly one of the best of their career” David Leaf, Bee Gees biographer So in the fall of ’97, the Bee Gees began a unique three year world mini-tour... playing special “One Night Only” events around the globe.

Highlights of these stadium performances, which saw the brothers play to over a half-million people live and TV audiences estimated at another hundred million, included emotional homecomings as they opened Australia’s Olympic stadium and played a landmark show to over 75,000 screaming fellow countrymen at Wembley Stadium in London. Other highlights from the “One Night Only” events included the guest appearance of superstar Celine Dion, joining the brothers for a beautiful ballad they wrote, Immortality, That song is featured in a stage version of Saturday Night Fever which became first a London and then a Broadway smash. At the same time, at the turn of the century, with artists such as Wylcef Jean and Pras sampling Bee Gees hooks, their sound was as much a part of the contemporary music scene as it was in ’67, ’70, ’77 or ’87. And yet, despite all of their past success, as the new millennium began, the Bee Gees were not satisfied. Great artists never are.

So with the creative restlessness that has always defined them, they returned to the studio to revisit their amazingly undiminished passion for making records that will fill people's hearts with the love that is so deeply embedded in their music. Even for the brothers Gibb, writing great songs and turning them into exciting records is not automatic—it takes a lot of hard work. For the brothers, the creation of what would be their final opus was a yearlong journey of songwriting, production, collaboration and self-discovery. With their still unconquerable spirit, they once again set a familiar goal; they were determined to make their best album ever. The creation of the brothers’ final opus was a yearlong journey of songwriting, production, collaboration and self-discovery; they were determined to make their best album ever. But unlike the Still Waters CD, which utilized some of the top producers in the business, the Bee Gees took a new approach on this self-produced effort. Working first separately and then together, but always with the same goal in mind: to make an incredible CD, the brothers first crafted a dozen or more songs worthy of the credit “B.R.M.

Gibb.” Then, meticulously working in the studio throughout the fall of 1999 and into 2000, the brothers added the final touches. Finally, in 2001, the Bee Gees were ready to again share their music with the world. This Is Where I Came In was not just an album filled with memorable tunes and terrific singing. Nor is the title just the name of the first single. Rather it reflected the musical style of the record. By choosing to revisit their roots, by making music that sounds like nothing else in the world, the Bee Gees once again made a major statement. It would, sadly, be their last. Only death could still their voices. Maurice passed in 2003 and nearly a decade later, in 2012, Robin left this mortal coil. The Bee Gees, as a recording and performing entity, was no more. For those of us who love them, love the musical gifts they shared, the straight truth is that nobody did it longer and nobody did it better than the Bee Gees.

With hit records in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and the first decade of the 21st Century, they became the first group ever to have such success over a similar time span. Only Frank Sinatra and Barbra Streisand had significant careers that lasted as long, but unlike those legends, the brothers Gibb wrote, arranged and produced their own songs. For over forty years on the worldwide stage, the Bee Gees timeless music connected with fans all over the planet. They set trends and transcended fads with the sheer purity of their creativity. We know now that their music is immortal. And as the mid-point of the second decade of the 21st Century approaches, the Bee Gees legacy is truly undeniable. Harmony and synergy. The result of fifty years singing together is a body of work that makes Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb—the Bee Gees—in the title of one of their songs, Children of The Universe.

© 2013 David Leaf History Part 2 History Part 5 History Part 6 History Part 7 History Part 8 History Part 9 History Part 10 Maurice and Robin In the mean time, Barbara, Hugh and the kids moved from St. Catherine's Drive to Sneafall Road, Spring Valley and the young Gibbs spend a normal childhood on Man with a lot of playing outdoors and mischief. Within a couple of years the family would move another two times: to the Strange Road and to Willaston. Each one has his own early memories of this time on Man. Maurice and Robin both got stung by a bee in their early youth and because something like that hurts very much,this memory will stay very vivid. Maurice can also remember the time he fell in the water, got soaking wet and walked backwards all the way back to Snaefall Road so nobody would see his rear. And of course then there were the Mad Sundays when Hugh took the kids on his brightgreen Norton Motorbike and drove round the TT circuit on Man.

Being bathed by Barbara, illustration from: The Legend Maurice remembers, another highlight was when all four of them being bathed by Barbara in a grey tin tub with hot water from a kettle! One of the first memories of Barry, besides his burning accident was his playing at the ice factory in Spring Valley. He remembers standing on the loading dock pretending to perform. ( later on in 1974 Barry would go back to all the places of his childhood on Man but not much had been changed). The smell of fresh bread also brings back lovely memories to Barry, from the time he joined his dad in the van to deliver bread and sometimes he then even ate some of the bread which had to be delivered! And of course the memories they all have of their parents back in the early days singing and playing records at home. Lovely old and melodic songs like for instance The Mills Brothers. Around 1953 the family moved to Manchester. Barbara wanted to move back to Manchester because most of her family lived there. It was a very big change specially for Barry for whom it was quite an adventure and he very well remembers all the ruins `caused by the war.

In Man there`d been no war but Manchester was bombed and it was strange walking through this ruined city and not knowing exactly why and how this had happened!! Bee Gees back at Oswald Rd. School The first school experience of Barry in Manchester was bad, specially the head master of the school he went to was not fond of him. He terrorised Barry for some months and Barry really became afraid of him and he and some friends didn`t go to school then anymore for about a year. He didn`t tell his parents but: "if I would have, something could have been done about it probably": said Barry. Robin loved to play with fire. He started fires everywhere, even under his bed. He always took a box of matches from the kitchen. Maurice once tried to shoplift a bottle of orange juice, but he got caught and that was the first and last time he ever tried anything like that. Barbara and Hugh had their hands full with all the stuff their kids got up to in their childhood days in Manchester and Barbara can go on and on talking about their pranks and mischief.

But inner cities like Manchester were also very desolate places for young kids to grow up in right after the war and a lot of them had the occasional trouble with the police. Barry and older sister Lesley in the early 50ties Although the Gibb brothers are renowned for their lyrics and compositions, they only spend little time in school and they were mostly self taught. Their love for music and performing started very early in life. Through the music played by their sister Lesley they regularly heard Rock and Roll music which was very popular then. In those years they also made their first musical instruments themselves; guitars made out of wooden boxes with electric wire for the strings. They didn't make any sound but it felt a bit like the real thing. In those days the twins were already singing in the school choir. They hadn't developed a preference for a certain kind of music yet, but the foundation for the Bee Gees was already formed. The brothers Gibb back in Keppel Road They`d already started singing in harmony when being 6 and 9 years old but had never done it in front of public yet.

"We`ve never been that kind of family where parents pushed their kids and terrorised them to do more and more in music and go on stage. We started to sing in harmony just for fun and were never pushed in any direction like some other American show business families. It all came very naturally. Meanwhile the family lived in Keppel Road, Chorltoncum-Hardy, a suburb of Manchester. The neighbourhood cinema round the corner, owned by the Gaumont concern, was the place where the young kids watched a movie on Saturday. During the break kids could lip-sync to their favourite records. That was something the Gibb boys wanted to try and they asked if they could have a go. They practised all week together with some friends and called themselves The Rattlesnakes and the next Saturday, with a breakable 78 r.p.m. record under their arm, they left for the theatre. But the record broke and so the brothers decided to go on stage and sing with their own voices. That was really the beginning!!

Barry, the twins and their 2 friends rehearsing 1956 The children in the audience were enthusiastic and although only Barry had a real guitar it felt like it was their first success and that felt great. The next day there was a picture of them in the paper. Now they got a taste of stardom, they started to perform on street corners regularly. They enjoyed making music together with their friends Paul Frost and Kenny Oricks. More and more they developed the close harmonies and even though it often appeared you were listening to a record being played in the other room in the Gibb house, Hugh's father knew better: it were his grandchildren singing! The owner of another theatre asked them to come as well and so they performed at the Odeon and from there they started to sing more and more and even Hugh brought them through the backdoor of an adult club: The Russel Street Club where he performed as well with his band. The boys started to earn their first cents. In the mean time the name of the group changed in Wee Johnny Hays And The Blue Cats and if they weren't performing somewhere they would make music at home pretending to be in a television studio for recordings.

Leaving for Australia Meanwhile brother Andy was born and Barbara's sister Audrey had plans to emigrate and Barbara and Hugh liked the idea too. In those days you could board a ship to Australia voor 20 Pounds and to the kids these plans seemed like a big adventure. The performance in the Russel Club was just about their farewell performance before they left for Australia and for the first time the boys connected with the audience and that felt very special. Ever since that night in the Russel Street Club Hugh had felt that the three brothers had a special magic which could lead them into his life of show business!! Also on the ship the boys performed, now their name was Barry And The Twins. Those 5 weeks on the ship they performed a lot for the ships audience. They usually sat on the front of the ship, started to sing and the people came standing all around them. On September first 1958 they arrived in Sydney, Australia. It was Barry`s 12th. Birthday. They settled on Morton`s Bay in Queensland and became to make a name for themselves in Australia from that moment on. Life in Australia had an immediate advantage, the weather was much more pleasant.

Hugh had to find work and being a photographer often kept him away from home for long periods. In that time, when the boys minds were already focussing on show business especially Barry's, Barry also had a "normal" job for a while. He worked for a tailor, but his head was already on writing songs. With their first self written songs with them and very nervous the boys took the next step on the road to their professional career in music. Close to their house in Brisbane was a racetrack: Redcliffe Speedway. The boys didn't only wanted to sit on the side but asked if they could perform in between races. They told they sang al three and that Barry played the guitar. They got their chance and although they were too young to get paid for their performance they were allowed to pick up the money people threw on the track. The money wasn't the most important part anyway: they got to perform and that's what they wanted to do! This was when Barry was 12 years old and the twins were 9 years old. Bill Gates It was at the end of 1959 and a race car driver named Bill Goode noticed the excited audience and came to check out whatwas happening.

He heard the boys playing and was impressed. Bill knew a DJ from Sydney named Bill Gates and he arranged the contact between him and the boys. Gates noticed the immature talent of the boys very clearly and the harmonies were fantastic. Robin and Maurice in Australia Hugh, still working far from home, had heard about what was happening with his sons and he was advised it would be best to come home. Bill Gates became the boys` promoter. They were by that time also performing in hotels and soldier clubs and then the radio appearance started with Bill Gates who`d taped some of the boys` material: the first taped BG material ever!!! Which Gates later on would give to Barry and which of cause is a very precious memory. Barry still keeps this tape and the letter of Bill Gates in a special place.!! In that time Bill Gates had a daily radio program: Midday Platter Chatter and the songs of the boys he taped featured in his program regularly. The boys singing for sister Lesley This airplay did the boys a lot of good. The radio listeners inquired where records by that group could be purchased. Of course by that time there was no official group yet but the act should soon get a name.

With Bill Goode, Bill Gates and Barry Gibb representing three sets of BG`s , and the same initials signalling "Brothers Gibb" the group was so christened, just with those initials at first and later around early 1963 the name would be expanded to The Bee Gees. During this period Gates even asked sister Lesley to be a part of the group and sing together with her brothers, but Lesley being as shy as she was, wasn't very interested. Maurice and Robin with Tommy Steele Barry now was busy composing himself already. To his credit were, besides Time Is Passing By, three songs that probably predate the move to Australia; Turtle Dove, Twenty Miles To Blueland and Let Me Love You, which was recorded in that first Gates session. This song was recorded by Tommy Steele in 1960 which probably made it the first BG cover ever.?! At this time Bill Gates quit as their promoter. He was a disc jockey, not a businessman and there was nothing else he could do for the boys. Hugh took over and did everything for the Bee Gees. He basically became their manager and drove them to all shows because the boys themselves were much too young to go on their own.

A next very important phase was the TV breakthrough in Brisbane round 1960. To be continued. Happy Birthday: Maurice and Robin Gibb | rhino.com Happy Birthday: Maurice and Robin Gibb Get the Album Stream the Album 65 years ago today, two of the four Gibb brothers – and, in turn, two of the three Bee Gees – were born on the Isle of Man. The fact that both of them are now gone is still rather hard to believe, but the music they left behind…well, actually, that’s pretty unbelievable, too, but in this case, we mean it in a much more positive way. Robin Hugh Gibb and Maurice Ernest Gibb were born in 1949, with Robin arriving first by 35 minutes, which – and we’re only speculating here – probably came up at least a few times during the course of the fraternal twins’ lives. The Gibbs’ parents spotted their sons’ gift for harmonization early on, but it still doesn’t make it any less eyebrow-raising to learn that Barry, Robin, and Maurice, along with friends Paul Frost and Kenny Horrocks, started their first group, The Rattlesnakes, in 1955.

It was a bit longer before they had their first public performance, however, which took place in 1957 and likely never would’ve happened if, while en route to a local theater to mime their way through the Everly Brothers’ “Wake Up Little Susie,” Barry hadn’t accidentally dropped and broken the 45. “Barry had a guitar, which he had taken along to help the miming, and he suggested that we go out and really sing,” said Robin, in Andrew Hughes’ The Bee Gees: Tales of the Brothers Gibb. “So we went out and sang ‘Lollipop,’ by The Mudlarks, and it went down well. We ended up doing five more, including ‘That’ll Be the Day,’ ‘Book of Love,’ and ‘Oh Boy,’ and that was how the Bee Gees began.” The Rattlesnakes lasted until 1958, when the Gibb family moved from England to Australia, at which point Barry, Maurice, and Robin formally formed the Bee Gees, making their television debut in 1960.

Their popularity was a gradual build: they released their debut single, “The Battle of the Blue and the Grey” in 1963, but it took until 1965 to score their first top-20 hit on the Australian charts (“Wine and Women”), with their first top-five success not arriving until the following year (“Spicks and Specks”). Once they broke through with the latter, however, they were able to make the jump from being Australian sensations to finding popularity elsewhere in the world. Throughout the span of the Bee Gees’ career, Barry was the predominant songwriter, but both of the twins regularly collaborated with him on the group’s compositions, and on occasion they’d write their own tunes. As for taking lead vocals, Robin certainly found his way out front far more often than Maurice, which is doubtlessly why Robin forged a bit of a solo career for himself while Maurice’s solo catalog amounted to little more than a pair of singles – released 14 years apart – and two albums (The Loner and Strings and Things) which were never officially released.

That said, Maurice did do a bit of other work work outside the Bee Gees, including playing piano on George Harrison’s “Isn’t It a Pity,” producing Lulu’s “Everybody Clap” album and the Osmonds’ Steppin’ Out album, and singing background vocals on Larry Gatlin’s “Indian Summer,” a duet with Roy Orbison. Maurice’s death in 2003 from cardiac arrest was sudden and unexpected, which is the opposite of how Robin departed in 2012, having suffered from cancer of the colon, which subsequently spread to his liver. To celebrate their lives of the day of their births, we’ve compiled a playlist which combines their individual compositions with the Bee Gees, some additional moments which were highlights of their time with the group (using their respective discs from the Mythology compilation as a guide), and several tracks from Robin’s solo career. Indeed, the playlist opens and closes with “I Am the World,” starting off with the Bee Gees’ original version and wrapping up with a new version recorded by Robin in 2008 and included on the posthumously-released 50 St. Catherine’s Drive compilation, which emerged earlier this year.

Give the playlist a spin, won’t you? Maurice and Robin Gibb may continue to be missed, but this collection confirms that they’ll never be forgotten. Tracklist

Question: Which two Gibb brothers in the Bee Gees were twins?
Answer: Robin and Maurice