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J well, you can tell by the way
I use my walk

j music loud

j kicked around

j and now it's all right, it's ok

j' and you may look the other way

j we can try to understand

j the "New York times" ' effect on man

j' ah, ha, ha, ha

j stayin' alive...

How did you people get back here?
Come on. Sorry.

You can't come in here.
Get them out.

You can't come in here!
This is a private session!

Barry: Thank you very much.
Good evening to all of you.

Thank you.

J' I can think of younger days

j when living for my life

j was everything a man could want to do

j I could never see tomorrow

j no one said a word

j about the sorrow

j' hey...

J' how can you mend

j' a broken heart?

J how can you stop
the rain from falling down?

J' how can you stop

j' the sun from shining?

J what makes the world go round?

J dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah

j dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah

j dah-dah-dah-dah

j dah-dah-dah

j' please help me mend

j' my broken heart

j and let me live again

j dah-dah dah-dah-dah

j dah-dah-dah-dah

j dah-dah-dah-dah-dah

j dah...

Barry: I am beginning to recognize
the fact that nothing is true.

Nothing.

It's all down to perception.

My immediate family's gone.

But that's life.

It's the same thing with every family,
that someone will be left in the end.

And this time of life,
I have fantastic memories.

But everybody's memory is different.

So they're just my memories, you know?

I know that Maurice and Robin would have
had a different kind of memory.

Maurice: I remember Barry saying

that one day
we were gonna be really famous.

And we said, "oh, yeah," you know.
"Whatever you say."

He's the big brother, you know.

Robin: We saw ourselves as triplets
rather than me and Maurice being twins.

And we always had
the same goals growing up,

that it became impossible
to see each other as normal brothers.

Barry: My ninth Christmas, there was
an acoustic guitar at the end of my bed.

Robin and Maurice started to collaborate
and pretend to sing with me,

and we started doing gigs
as a teenage act.

Robin: We emigrated our whole family
from england to Australia.

Barry: All three of us
had the same understanding

that we were going to be famous
come hell or high water.

J you know I love getting up
in the morning

j when the sun first
strikes the trees

Barry: Our father had his own band,
but it didn't work out,

so he became our manager,
and it was a team.

There was us three and dad,
and mum, of course.

Maurice: My mother,
she was always the person

who kept the calm between dad and us.

Very strong, very loyal.

The Beatles have just arrived
for the first time in our country.

Maurice: When the Beatles
came on the scene,

it was like,
"that's what we've been trying to do."

Robin: They turned pop music
into an art form,

singing three-part Harmony like we did.

Barry: So we made up our own minds

that we were going back
to be part of the British invasion.

Robin: Making music is what we wanted
to do for the rest of our lives,

so we thought, "whatever's going
to happen, we will make happen.”

J where is the sun...

Before we left Australia, we did
an album called spicks and specks.

And they became our best demos.

Jitlss dead...

Barry: Dad and I did the rounds,
met with industry people.

And as we sat in everyone's office,
they would say the same thing.

“No, no, I'm sorry, lads,
we can't help you."

Maurice: My dad, he was very,
"we gotta do this,"

because my dad was really
the most ambitious man, I think,

in the gibb clan.

Barry: We loved the Beatles,
so dad had sent this stuff to nems,

the Brian Epstein offices.

Announcer: Brian Epstein, the man
who built the Beatles into a cult

is now as well known as they are.

Man: I was doing Brian's mail
most of the time.

There was a letter by the father
of these three handsome, cute guys,

who were very proactive

and who had some success.

They came from Manchester,
but they were writing from Australia.

I showed it to him.

Brian said, "yeah, that's very nice."

He said, "well, give it to Robert."

"He's Australian, and he's good
at these kind of things."

Somebody sent you a tape
of these boys from Australia?

Yes, they did.

Oh.

I heard it, and I was
absolutely astounded.

It was the most brilliant Harmony
singing and composing I'd ever heard.

J if this should end

j 1 don't mind

j if this should end

I 1 will find

j what shall I do?

Man: At the time,
Robert was my manager.

Cream was signed to Robert

on what I thought
was an exclusive deal.

I was just surprised
that other bands were coming in.

J if this should end...

Robert was so eccentric.
I mean, absolutely bonkers.

He was Australian, but he spoke
like an english gentleman.

And he would wear
these really big flashy ties

and he had a comb-over
and it was all just...

Well, who is this guy?

Barry: Whoever this man was,
he really believed in us.

He was almost like a parent.

Stigwood: You can't deny talent.

And the talent was so obvious.

Man: Somebody mentioned
that the Bee Gees were in town.

They were good friends of mine
from Australia.

So I phoned them up.

I said, "is Maurice there, then?
Put Maurice on."

And he said,

"we've been signed up
by this guy called Robert stigwood.

We're doing this recording.
Why don't you come and play guitar?"

Caught a train into London
and found ibc studios.

So there they were,
there was Barry, Robin and Maurice.

And the drummer, Colin petersen.

That night,

my life changed completely.
Completely.

The first evening we were in there,
there was a blackout.

While waiting for the power
to come back on, we sat on the steps

and Barry was playing his guitar.

It was so echoey.
It was a wonderful echo in this place.

There we were in the dark.

The first thought was, "in the event
of something happening to me..."

J in the event
of something happening to me

and we thought,
"what could come from that?"

J there is something I would
like you all to see

we made believe we were in a mine.

J' it's just a photograph
of someone that I knew

j have you seen my wife, Mr. Jones?

J do you know what it's like
on the outside?

J don't go talking too loud,
you'll cause a landslide

j Mr. Jones

Robin: Because it was our first single,
we wanted a title

that captured the imagination,
that got people's attention.

Maurice: And "New York mining disaster”
was born.

Barry: We had our first hit record
within five months of being in england.

The thrill was that it did
the same thing in America.

We thought we might get
a hit in england

but never dreamed we'd get a hit
in America as well.

So I take them to the United States
to make a record deal for them.

I made a decision to place
the group with Atlantic.

Otis Redding: J what you want,
honey, you've got it...

Barry: He said, "I'm taking you
to meet ahmet ertegun

and to get you into
the American music scene."

Otis Redding was playing at the Apollo.

Ahmet ertegun and Robert stigwood
took me down there to see Otis.

J' hey, hey, hey

and it was amazing.

Soul has always had a special place
in Bee Gees music.

Maurice: We've always been influenced
by black music.

Smokey Robinson, motown.
All that was a big influence on us.

Barry: Robert introduced us, but said,

"I want you to write
a song for Otis Redding."

"To love somebody" was born that night.

But unfortunately,
Otis never got to record the song.

J there's a light

j' a certain kind of light

j that never shone on me

j' I want my life to be

j' lived with you

man: I mean, I must have always known
"to love somebody,"

because that song
is just like in the ether.

Those lyrics, "there's a certain kind
of light that never shone on me."

I don't know if he's talking
about himself,

but at some point, I got obsessed
tracking down every cover version,

like Nina Simone, the animals.

Some great singers have sung
that song, obviously,

but his vocal when he sings it,

I can still get chills
thinking about it.

J baby

j you don't know what it's like

j' baby, you don't know what it's like

j' io love somebody

j' io love somebody

j the way I love you

j' ahhh, no, no

j you don't know what it's like

man: I just remember
this music being on.

And I'm like, "who's this?"
And... "Well, it's the Bee Gees."

And I was like, "the Bee Gees?"

It actually blew my mind.

Those early records sound like
the Beatles' early records.

J I received an invitation

it's a classic '60s guitar pop sound,
but then it had another thing going on.

J come to the united nations

you've got the brothers singing,
and when you've got brothers singing,

it's like an instrument
that nobody else can buy.

J that was when I was somebody

j' in my own time

you can't go buy that sound in a shop.

You can put a Fender stratocaster
through a vox amp

and sound like buddy Holly.

You can't sing like the Bee Gees

because when you've got family members
singing together, it's unique.

It's the blend of the tones
of each brother.

And Robin had this wonderful
tear-jerking voice.

Barry: Robin was a joyous kid.

He took great joy in being
on television.

This was the funniest kid
you could ever meet.

Maurice: My father called him
the nanny goat.

He was always going... "Ewww!"

He'd be rehearsing in the back
of the car doing all these faces.

You know, j I love you...

And he'd go, "shut up!
Sound like a bloody nanny goat."

J' I started a joke

j which started
the whole world crying

Robin was always a bit of a loner.

Robin: I like being spontaneous,
I like being funny with people,

but you won't get that right away
with me, you see?

Barry: Robin had a wit
that no one could compete with.

And he could be very dark, too.

J' 1 looked at the sky...

Maurice: Robin is not a person
who would say, “I love my brothers."

Or... "Group hug."
You know, none of that stuff.

Robin: I'm basically a very shy person.
I'm very hard to get to know.

I have to really know somebody
before I reveal myself.

J till I finally died

j which started the whole world living

j oh, oh...

Maurice: You know, that's the voice,

that's the voice
that reaches your heart.

Barry: We did a show
at the saville theatre.

Paul McCartney was there
with Jane Asher.

Because Robert had said,
"will you come and see the boys?"

When you think that, five months
before all this was going on,

I was in pitt street buying up
the Beatles fan club book.

And now here I am partying
with these guys.

We felt like we'd arrived.

Now I'm living out in highgate,
outside London.

Barry's got a place in eaton square.

Robin's got a house
in St. George's hill. Beautiful area.

Barry: And mum and dad
had their own place,

and, of course, Andy lived with them.

He was just like us.

And he was always tagging along,

hoping that one day he would do this,
too, he would like to sing.

Maurice: There was a lot of hits
in that short time.

After all the work we had done
through clubs and everything,

I felt grown up, you know,
and so we made the most of it.

Host 1: A very talented group of men,
the Bee Gees!

Host 2: Once again
the fabulous Bee Gees!

Here they are and get involved
with the Bee Gees!

J' I am man and you are woman

j who needs marriage?
We are humans all

by then we were flying, you know?

Just the most amazing experience.

J then it would please you
if I should call

j doesn't matter wnat your name is

j' 1 can do a million things to you

as a pop group, this was
the biggest moment of our lives.

Never expected.
Hoped for, but never really expected.

J' no, no, no

j no, no

then came "Massachusetts."

Robin said, "I've got this idea
for a song."

He sang the melody,
and I just remember our jaws dropping.

J' feel I'm going back to massachusetfts

j; Something's telling me

j' I must go home

j' and the lights all went out

j in Massachusetts

j' the day I left her

j standing on her own

man: For me, they connected
from very early on.

“Massachusetts” was probably the first
song, I think, that really resonates.

There is a... gospel quality to it.

There's a folk quality to it.

I didn't know where the hell
Massachusetts was.

But I found myself singing that
and translating it to where I was from.

Robert goes, ""Massachusetts'
has just gone to number one!"

We went, "what?"

To have a number one in england,

you have no idea how much
we dreamed of this back in Australia.

J and Massachusetts

j' is one place I have seen

host: "Massachuseftts™
from the Bee Gees.

Woman: I met the Bee Gees
at top of the pops, I was young.

Was I 167 maybe I was even 17.

Announcer: Top pop girl in America.
Top pop girl in britain.

I'ne one and only Lulu!

J some people live within the world

j and some people live without it

j some people gotta whisper their love

j' and some, they gofta shout it

the Bee Gees were always in the studio.

They were always recording.

They would literally go into the studio
and start writing.

I had never known
anything like that before.

We don't usually write our lyrics
till the day we sing them.

We usually write our lyrics
in the studio itself.

That seems to work
through thick and thin.

It always works for us.

Maurice: It's very hard
to describe how we write.

But the only way I can describe
how we work at it

is by becoming one mind.

Barry: Maurice had unique insight
into the way Robin and I thought.

He would just be fiddling around
on the piano.

He'd suddenly play something,
we'll go... "What was that?"

He was trying to please us,

in the way that we would all
try to please each other.

And that sometimes
was the birth of a song.

We'll wake each other's little
instincts up and the melodies come.

It's wonderful when you hear it
taking shape.

Then it all blossoms.

- The third verse is four bars.
- It's rolling, fellas.

They'd say, "ok, we're ready to roll.”

They'd play the song.
I'd work the chords out.

Colin would figure out
what he's gonna do on the drums.

They'd say, "right, here we go.
Bang, bang, bang." Down it went.

And that spontaneity
came out in the songs.

Barry: In those days, you knocked
an album out in three weeks.

I think we had three albums out
in one year.

J' but that was when I got an idea

j came like a gun and shot in my ear

j don't you think it's time you got up
and stood alone?

Melouney: When we went to Europe,

there'd always be a big bunch of kids
outside waiting for us to arrive.

It was a frightening time because
they crawled all over the Mercedes.

They were on the roof,
they were over the window. It was crazy.

"Hey, guys, you think we're famous?"
"Could be."

Announcer: The Bee Gees!
The most exciting sound in the world.

J now I've found

j that the world

j is round...

If you've never been famous,

the first time it happens
is a very difficult thing to handle.

You don't know how to behave.
You don't know how to experience it.

And that affected all of us
in its own way.

Maurice: I had six rolls-royces
before I was 21.

I don't know where they are now.

But that's how crazy it was.

Barry: We were all very selfish
at that point.

The testosterone kicked in,
and the competition of life began.

J' 1 told him I'm in no hurry

j but if I broke her heart

j then won't you tell her I'm sorry?

Melouney: There was always a conflict
between Barry and Robin.

They both had fantastic voices

and Robin wanted to sing a song
and Barry wanted to sing it.

J' 1 just gotla get a message to you

j hold on

j hold on

Barry: Both of us wanted to be
individual performers.

We all wanted individual recognition.

And therein lies the issue.

J hold on

we're speaking to you from a club in...

In Hamburg, and I'm Barry gibb
of the Bee Gees.

Robin here. We've heard rumors
that the group is splitting up.

Would you like to verify those rumors?

If I was to say that was true,
I would be the premier of Russia.

- I don't know.
- Thank you very much, Mr. petersen.

- How about you, Mr. melouney?
- No, I don't think it is.

No, no, no.

Gallagher: I always say
that making music with your family

is equally the greatest strength
and the greatest weakness

you could ever have
in a musical partnership.

To get to the top or near the top,
you've gotta be incredibly driven.

And what drives you is your ego.

It can be tricky to stay there.

J' I am the searcher of my fortunes

j' 1 got my right hand on the wheel

Barry: The three of us stopped
looking inwards to each other

and all started looking outwards
to what we could be individually.

"To hell with what my brothers think.”
and each one of us was thinking that.

J don't wanna live

j' inside myself

Gallagher: Travel the world
when you're young with a family member

gives you a certain sense of who you are
and where you've come from.

So, you kind of walk that tightrope.

We'd been together all our lives,
don't forget.

We'd been together since Robin and I
were five, singing professionally.

That's a lot of years.

Robin: We'd been kids living together
with each other

right up until the time we arrived
and even after we arrived in england.

J don't wanna live inside myself

Barry: Robin was the first to say,
"I'm quitting the group.”

I stopped really knowing Robin and his
personal life once we became famous.

And the same with no.

Our three lives
were three different lives.

We were no longer living the same life.

Brothers... in general,
it's a very complicated thing.

Emotions are heightened and there's
things that go back to childhood

about, you know, if one kid got more
attention than the other,

and all these things play out in front
of just a small group of friends,

but when you magnify that
with the whole world,

it changes the game a little bit.

Robin, that's a good picture.
That's you, Barry, Colin, Vince.

- That's correct.
- Do you miss them?

Well, it's not really a matter
of missing them, really.

I still see them on and off
so that's the way things go.

I'll show you the studio, anyway.

Barry: It was really me and Robin
that were in conflict.

And I think Maurice was in the middle.

Story of my life, really.

Barry would call and say,
"tell Robin if he wants to do that..."

Robin would go,
"let Barry know I'll be over..."

I said, "Robin, you call Barry."
"Barry, you call Robin."

And they both said, "no, we won't."

And for 18 months, they never did.

Barry: We had this fascination
with calling the newspapers up.

You'd call nme or you'd call
disc or music echo and say,

"Robin said this about me and I want
to correct the record," and all that.

Robin: It was a whole strange episode
of our lives.

But a lot of things
had gone down at that time

and we needed time apart
to think about them.

Announcer: At caxton hall,
vip transport

for very important pop star Barry gibb.

He's getting married to 20-year-old
former miss Edinburgh, Linda gray.

Their world was crazy at that time.

At one time, there were three brothers,
and then all of the sudden,

there were three wives.

Maurice gibb and Lulu
became mister and missus

at St. James parish church
at gerrards cross in buckinghamshire.

Lulu: You think, by marrying someone
that you absolutely adore,

you think that'll solve
all your problems. But, really...

At caxton hall, Robin gibb
of the Bee Gees marries Molly hullis.

Robin: Molly was my first real love,
the first serious one,

but it was a very traumatic time for me.

I went with my manager. He said, "Robin,
I'm going to send you to New Zealand."

He says, "you're doing
the redwood park festival."

So I went there, and it was advertised
that the Bee Gees were coming,

not just Robin gibb, you see.

Robin: All right, ok.

Man: How did you feel last night?

Robin: Um... I have an obligation
to my audience not to look scared.

I can't say I really felt scared.

I was terrified.

J how far am I able fo...

Barry: All three of us became isolated.

And all three of us did things
to each other

that I think we're all sorry for.

We loved each other.

There was an enormous amount
of love between us.

Growing up, we did everything together.

We often thought we were triplets,
because we all had the same love.

We had the same sense of humor,
the love of the same kind of music.

Barry: Just typical kids, you know,

but the one thing
that no one else was doing

was we were singing in Harmony,

and beyond anything else,
that's all we cared about.

We fell in love with the mills brothers.

They all did something unique
in their own way.

At the same time,
Robin and I did two different leads

and Maurice would always know
where to put that other melody,

to make a three-part Harmony.

They mirrored what we wanted to be.

Host: Do you find you miss
Robin and Maurice, musically?

Yeah. Not musically,
I miss them both as brothers.

Jonas: And something about entering
the world from the same place,

I think, has an effect on your ability
to sing together,

your creative awareness
and your artistic voice.

Host: Could we see the Bee Gees
back together again?

Um, that's a very strong point,
that it could be.

I can't say definite, but I'd like
to see the Bee Gees again.

Reporter: Mr. Epstein has been unwell
now for some months.

He's been in the habit of taking tablets
to help him sleep at night.

He was found in his second-floor bedroom

just after two o'clock this afternoon
by his housekeeper.

Brown: When Brian died
and we restructured nems,

Robert asked to become a more important
senior executive for the Beatles.

And that wasn't acceptable to them,

so he then left the company

and took with him Eric Clapton
and Bee Gees

so he could start off on his own.

Barry: We were an asset.

We were one of those people Robert
needed as an element of going public.

At the launching of the company,
we were starting to communicate again.

And once we came back together again,
we wrote "lonely days,"

which reflected the idea
that we'd been broken up.

We'd always been boys
growing up together,

and I think we came back
together as men.

We respected each other's opinions,
which we didn't before that.

If anything, that was the good thing
about the break-up.

J' I can think of younger days...

Barry: I'd already started
a first verse and chorus.

I knew what "how can you mend
a broken heart" was.

But Robin walks in.

I said, "I'm just working on this song.
Do you wanna do it with me?"

And he went, "yeah, of course.”

J I could never see tomorrow...

We'd been apart for two years.

If we hadn't been brothers,
we wouldn't have lasted half an hour.

It just wouldn't have happened.

J hey

j' how can you mend

j' a broken heart...

Things started to just improve
over time.

J how can you stop
the rain from falling down?

We became the Bee Gees again.

J' how can you stop

j' the sun from shining?

J what makes the world go round?

Barry: We came back together and made
two number-one records in America.

So we were on a bit of a high.

But we were not really that good

when it came to just doing
anything without a pill.

You know, or without a drink.

It was destroying us.

J' my broken heart

that became, that became the battle.

The fight to survive being a pop group.

J dah-dah-dah-dah

j dah-dah-dah-dah-dah

j dah

Thank you very, very much
on behalf of my brothers,

Robin,

and Maurice.

And this beautiful orchestra.

Our lead guitarist, Alan Kendall.

Man: Robert stigwood said,
"the Bee Gees are gonna go on a tour

and want a guitar player that can play
bass as well," because in those days,

Maurice played bass
but he would go on piano sometimes.

And so I called him and I said,
"well, I can't play bass."

And he said,
"just say you can play bass."

So I said, "ok, I can play bass."

I'll be honest, I was very much
into the lifestyle.

I just loved being on the road,
I loved playing music, chasing women.

Maurice is so funny
cos he was good at magic tricks.

And he liked to drink a little,
as I did.

Robin I never really knew.

I mean, I'd converse with him,
but not as much as the others.

And I would bump into him
every now and then

wandering the corridors of the hotel,

and there's Barry
with his glamorous wife

smoking a bone, you know.

My early days with the Bee Gees were,
for me, thrilling.

Even though I can understand
why it wasn't for them,

cos they weren't
necessarily selling out.

Barry: When we were broken up,
the world changed radically, quickly.

And that was the beginning of the period
when there was no interest in us at all.

Remember, we were on tour.

They'd try to keep Robin
from looking out into the audience,

in case it was only half full.

When we got back home,
I'd tend to do more drinking.

I'd go to the pubs,
the police knew my car.

I was becoming the town drunk.

I had about two grand in the bank

and lived next door
to a fish-and-chip shop.

Barry: So, by "74, we didn't think there
was gonna be much of a future.

When you become famous,
you think everyone loves you

and they're gonna love you forever.
That is not true.

Maurice: All of a sudden, we had to work
the clubs of the north of england

to pay the tax man,
so we had the sheffield fiesta,

the golden garter in Manchester,
batley variety club...

Great clubs of our time.

Kendall: The batley thing, it's where
all the has-beens went to play.

Not saying that they were has-beens,

but it was like, "god, not batley,"
you know.

J Sunday morning...

Woman: I was a waitress
at the batley variety club.

I really wasn't a fan of the Bee Gees.

The only thing I knew about them was,

you know, Maurice was going
through a divorce with Lulu.

Maurice: Yvonne came in
and I saw her eyes.

I don't know about the rest of her,
I just saw her eyes.

And I said, "I'm gonna marry her."

And I knew I was gonna marry her.

Yvonne: He was so cute.
His personality was amazing.

Robin:
Maurice had this childlike quality,

which is something very special in men.

Yvonne: He loved dressing up
in police uniforms.

Wherever we went on tour,
they'd give him a hat, give him a badge.

- Is that his wallet?
- It's a badge.

- Whoa! What was that?
- I'm not showing you now.

People loved him.
He had the best smile ever.

I remember him teaching me
the show-biz smile,

and he said, "the trick is,
you don't move your eyes...

And you just go like this.”

And I'll be honest with you,

I think Maurice was the glue
that held it all together.

Oh, I'm Mr. fix-it.

There's some discrepancy
between Barry and Robin,

or we're gonna make a decision
about something,

"what does Maurice think?"

But most of the time, I'm like my mum.
I'm the peacemaker.

Yvonne: If they'd not been brothers,
they would not be together.

No doubt in my mind.

Man: I met the Gibbs when they were on
a bit of a downturn in their career.

Robert stigwood made me, unaccountably,
the head of his record label.

I was only 21 years old.

I believe it was because I was the only
guy in the room that I got the job.

It was odd to me. I thought,

if they can write those songs,
how come they can't be consistent?

If you can write "how can you mend
a broken heart" and "to love somebody,"

where does that talent go?

There was two albums
in a row that were dismal.

Ahmet ertegun said to Robert,
"maybe their time is gone."

Cos Atlantic were paying
for these recordings.

And Robert wouldn't hear of it,
of course.

He would never let the Bee Gees go.

There was this thing about stigwood.

Stigwood and his loyalties.

I had a kind of deep-seated resentment
about the fact that,

you know, they were still his favorite.

I had come out of a long period
of addiction and alcoholism,

and I went into the sort
of recovery period.

All these musical ambitions
came to the surface.

So I went to Miami to record.

Barry: We had a conversation with Eric
about making the comeback.

Eric said, "I've just made this album
called 461 ocean boulevard in Miami.

Why don't you make an album in America
instead of making an album in england

and maybe a change of environment
will do something for you?"

The studio there was unbelievable.

And I think that's what
the suggestion was about, really.

I thought those guys
were actually an R&B band

that hadn't really worked that out yet.

I thought, man, this would be so good

if they could pick up
on what's going on in America.

Kendall: I do know that they
had to change something.

That's when the whole idea of actually
being more of a band together

rather than musicians and orchestras
and all that stuff.

Man: Alan Kendall,
who was a friend of mine, he said,

"the Bee Gees are looking for a drummer.
Are you interested?"

And I went, "uh, yes. I think
I'm interested. Yeah, I am interested."

Barry: We needed to get more energized

and don't rely so much on the ballads
that we had been doing.

We wanted to be a band so bad.
And that was basically the birth of it.

Bryon: We had a great
bass player, Maurice.

We had a great guitar player, Alan.

So really, the only thing we needed
was a keyboard player.

And I thought, blue.

Dennis called and said, "I'm putting
a band together with the Bee Gees.

I've spoken to Barry and everybody's
in agreement. Are you interested?"

I said, "no, no. I'm having great fun.
I'm in a rock-and-roll band."

Queen was our support act.

I'm touring America
and living the rock-and-roll life.

J you don't get me,
I'm part of the union

j you don't get me,
I'm part of the union...

Bryon: We'd grown up together
playing in bands in Cardiff.

I said, "we've known each other
for a long time, right?"

He said, "Dan, don't do this to me."

And I said, "I am doing it to you."

And after you've met Barry, if you don't
wanna do it, I'll leave you alone."

Barry: Maurice and I had moved
to the Isle of Man, where we were born.

Blue was the guy who was gonna
come to the Isle of Man

and audition for us on piano.

J if I were you and you were me...

Weaver: We were staying in Barry's house
and Linda and then Maurice came over.

And hughie, the father.

Instantly, you feel
comfortable with them.

They started talking about synthesizers
and moogs, and blue had them all.

It was the Sunday evening I was leaving
and hughie said,

"hey, we haven't heard you play,"
you know.

But my piano was so bad

that he played something
and it just sounded awful.

It was just, like, totally embarrassing.

I said, "sounds fine to me, man,
let's do it," you know?

Barry offered him the job.

Weaver: I'd always loved the music,

but the first time
you ever hear the Bee Gees,

just when they're in a room like this,
you know, it's just magic.

I think that's what
won me over with them.

I said, "yes,"
and January the 1st we left.

J doo-doo-doo doo-aoo-doo

j doo-Dee-doo-dah-day

Man: Miami is a gateway city.

But in those days,
it was kind of sleepy,

you know, a little off the beaten path.

But in the winter,
that was the place to be.

So Atlantic records
would always book their acts

down in criteria.

J when the lights shine...

I was about the number-three engineer
at the studio.

I worked my way up,
and I was at that point in my career

where I was ready for anything.

J get on up

j look around

j can't you feel the wind of change?

When we got to Miami,
all of the sudden sunshine and, oh...

You know, this is paradise.

We'd come from england, and so there
was nothing sleepy about America.

Put them in the same house I'd rented
for Eric Clapton, 461 ocean boulevard.

Weaver: The first thing all of us did

was take pictures
against that palm tree,

doing the Eric Clapton pose.

J we need a god down here...

Weaver: Being in that house together,
you know, we were creative.

And we were a family,
I mean, I felt like that.

Kendall: It did make us close.

I mean, you had to be,
and we'd all watch TV at night.

The chemistry, it was very exciting.

Weaver: In the morning, you went
to breakfast, had a cup of tea.

It was all very relaxed.

J taste the air

j can't you see the wind of change?

It was strange considering
the amount of pressure

that was really
on the Bee Gees at that time.

They were about to drop us.

We had to adopt a new sound,
we had to adopt a new attitude.

So the next step was, we brought
arif mardin in to produce them.

Aretha Franklin: J day dreamin'
and I'm thinking of you...

Barry: We'd often worked with other
people, but they weren't producers,

and this man was a literal producer.

Oakes: They expressed how much they
wanted to do American R&B kind of stuff,

and arif was top of the heap for that.

Maurice: Arif was so instrumental
in producing black artists,

and we wanted that input.

J it turns me rignt on
when I hear him say...

Robin: We actually did an album
with arif before that, but arif said,

"we've gotta go more into R&B."

And we started working together
right here in Miami down at criteria.

Well, I was in studio b,
and arif says to me,

"Karl, have I got a group for you."

And, of course,
everybody knew the Bee Gees.

It was a surprise, out of nowhere.
I was excited.

You know, they sing like angels,
and they were as excited as I was.

And arif was right in there with them.

Robin: He said, "look, if you're ever
going to break open brand new,

you've gotta start now.

Shock the pants off these people
who don't believe in you."

Maurice: Robert came and saw us
when we were making the album.

Sat down with us on the beach and said,
"right, we're gonna start from scratch.

This is gonna be it. Let's make it big."

Man: If you said to me, or anyone,

“just go and write a hit song
right now,"

they would be able
to craft something good,

but it would probably be missing
this magic that,

if you work in music long enough
you understand is running everything.

Like surfers with waves.

Surfers don't make the waves,
fishermen don't make the fish.

Songwriters don't really write songs,
you receive songs.

Barry: Driving backwards
and forwards to criteria,

this clickety-click thing was going on
on this bridge

every time we crossed over it,
and in my head it sounded like...

And it was gone.

And eventually, I started
singing to it in my head.

J' just your jive talkin...

Kendall: I remember
going in the studio.

Barry said,
"can you do chicken pickin'?"

I didn't really know what it was.

So I played this one note and muted it,
thought it sounded like a chicken.

J tak-it-ta-ka, tak-it-ta-ka...

And mixed with Barry's rhythm guitar,
it really worked, you know.

J' it's just your jive talkin'

j' you're tellin" me lies, yeah

j jive talkin'

j you wear a disguise

j jive talkin'

j so misunderstood, yeah

j jive talkin'

j' you're really no good

at that time, only a handful
of R&B artists were using synthesizers

so we went into this field, uh...

Pioneering in a way.

Music is this huge energy
flying around everywhere,

and if you're lucky, you get little
slices of it that turn into songs.

- There is a sort of...
- Like a radio transmitter.

It's exactly like that.

As if somebody's written
the songs in the air

and they're giving them to us.

J' leaving me looking
like a dumbstruck fool

j' with all your jive talkin'

j you're tellin me lies...

Robin: Robert pressed for "jive talkin™
to come out as the first single,

because it was something
totally unexpected from us.

Oakes: We sent the record out
but without naming the Bee Gees on it

because by then, their stock had fallen
so low with radio stations in America.

And within hours of the record
landing at all the radio stations,

they were calling and saying,
"who is this? This is amazing."

Time, weather, and...

Kasem: The British group
who move into number one this week

hit number one exactly
four years ago to the week.

I'he brand-new number-one song
in the usa,

the Bee Gees and "jive talkin"

Maurice: When "jive talkin™ came out,
everybody went, "who?

The Bee Gees? 'Broken heart' Bee Gees?
Are you kidding?"

Richardson: Something different was
happening, and the brothers felt it too.

Miami, Miami beach,
that whole vibe turned them on.

Barry: I just fell in love
with the atmosphere here.

It reminded me so much
of growing up in Australia.

Man: I'hat's great.

Barry: And from "jive talkin™ onwards,
we kicked it up.

Richardson: The songwriting
was just very unique, nothing like it.

They would write on the spot,
and they would bounce off each other.

Engineer: You let us know
when you're ready.

Richardson: “Nights on Broadway"
was one of those.

The guys had been to New York
and they'd go,

"we gotta write a New York
kind of song."

Engineer: Here we go. Take ten.

Richardson: They just did it naturally
in the studio, and everybody chipped in.

Barry: Three, four...

J well, here we are

j in a room full of...

Barry: Ahmet ertegun came to Miami.

He was there when we were
cutting "nights on Broadway."

At the time, it was
"lights on Broadway."

J blamin' it all

j on the lights on Broadway

and ahmet went, "no."

He says, "you know, you've got to get
more adult about the songs."

And so "lights on Broadway"
became "nights on Broadway."

J well, I had to follow you

j' though you did not want me to

j that won't stop my loving you

j' 1 can't stay away

j blamin' it all

j on the nights on Broadway

j' singing them love songs

j' singing them
straight to the heart songs

Maurice: We were completing
"nights on Broadway."

We'd just done most of the vocal tracks.

Usually at the end you have some adlibs
or some kind of thing

to take us away from the original melody
and have some fun.

Richardson: Arif suggested to the band,

"we really need some kind
of background parts

that come in and express
the meaning of the song."

Barry: He was looking for one of us
to scream, in tune, if possible.

I said, "I'll give it a shot.”

Are we almost ready? Well, let's do it.

So he went out then,
he did the "blamin" it all's.

J biamin' it all

j' blame it on the nights on Broadway

everybody in the control room woke up,

and it was like,
"oh, this is a new sound."

J blamin' it all on the nights
on Broadway

j' blame it on the nights on Broadway

Barry: I was thinking, "my god, where
is this coming from? I can do this."

My whole life I didn't know
I could do this.

Everybody's giving me credit.

No, he was singing it.
I said, "keep on doing it."

J' blame it on the nights on Broadway

j' yeah, yeah

j' singing them
straight to the heart songs

j blamin' it all...

Arif brought it out of us, all that.
We weren't the first to sing falsetto.

We loved the stylistics.
We loved the spinners, the delfonics.

They were all falsetto lead singers.

J' if I had money I'd go out

j' buy you pearls

j' dress you like a queen

Riley: Something to be said
about all music

is that it doesn't happen in a vacuum.

The falsetto is very much
a black tradition.

But they've translated it into
this interesting interpretation of soul.

But I guess, more importantly for me,
it's emotional.

Because we were so excited about this,
we started writing songs for this voice.

Richardson: It created another
dimension of sound.

That's what we thought, emotionally.

It became another icon of the Gibbs.

Everybody knew when you heard
that falsetto, that's the Bee Gees.

J ooh, be tender with my love

j' you know how easy it is to hurt me

Maurice: When we sing songs like...

J' you know how easy it is to hurt me

it's Barry and Robin
singing in unison,

but they mesh together so well
that it sounds like one voice,

but it's a different voice
from them separately.

J with my love

j' you know how easy it is to hurt me

j yeah-eah

j' Fanny, be tender...

Riley: It's delivered with such delicacy

and the message in the lyrics

was what guys should say,

didn't say, couldn't say,
for whatever reasons.

It's the kind of music you might have
bought and given to your girlfriend.

But that's what
was special about them.

J ahh

j ahh-ah-ah

j' Fanny, be tender with my love

Barry: Main course became
a turning point for us.

Dennis bryon on drums
and blue Weaver and Alan Kendall.

That became our band.

J with my love

j' cos it's all that I've got

j' and my love won't desert me

j be Fender, tender...

In many ways they were
chameleons of pop.

Clapton: The way they changed

and the groove they got into there
was so profound.

If that was something
that was initiated by me,

I can't think of any... it's one of
the great things I've done in my life.

I'll take full credit.

Barry: We were getting ready
to record the next album,

and we get this phone call that arif
can't be involved in this album.

Robert chose to take the organization
away from Atlantic records

and go private.

Atlantic, who were not happy about that,

said, "you're not using arif anymore,
he's a house producer.”

I said, "what about the next album?”
you know.

I said, "who do you think
can continue where you left off?"

Richardson: I got a call from Barry
and he said,

“I want my studio time back
to work with you."

And I'm in the control room.

I said to Dennis the drummer,

“that pattern you're playing right now
is just a little too busy."

He said, "well, what do you mean?"

I said, "I can't get into specifics
about the note values."

I didn't have a technical term
for the open and closed hi-hat

or any of that stuff.

So apparently, I needed a communicator.

Man: I was working as an independent
producer on some pub band in London.

Karl called and he said,
"what are you doing?"

I said, "I finished the mix.
I'm on a plane tomorrow."

Richardson: Albhy went to berklee
school of music in new england

and he was one of my best friends.

He says,
"I'll be on the next flight to Florida."

J' baby, you turn me on...

Galuten: I got off the plane,
I went straight to the studio.

I walked in, they were working
on "you should be dancing."

They came in the control room
and Barry said, "what did you think?"

And I said, "well, I just got in,
but sounds awfully good."

We seemed to hit it off,
so I came back the next day.

We have to remember at the time,
albhy was a hippie.

I mean, he was just different.

J 1 get lifted up...

Albhy used to hang around the studio,
and I got on really well with him.

I found out he played on
"I shot the sheriff" with Eric.

Albhy had an inroad into technology
and he had a great ear.

Everybody just seemed to be,
I think, relieved

to have another ear in the control room
to hear what they were doing as a whole.

In the beginning when I came,
the three brothers were clearly a unit.

Each knew the way their brother sang
and would be on the same mic,

and they would lean in or lean out
or complement each other's voices,

so it was in perfect synchrony.

J' how a love so rignt

j ooh

j' can turn out to be so wrong...

Barry: We found another sound,
we found a new sound.

I came up with a lot of new ideas
to suit the falsetto.

Everybody was saying the same thing.
"Do that falsetto again."

That was fine for me,
I was having a ball.

Man: A lot of new music
has been coming out of Miami lately.

Enough so that we've even heard
mentioned the term "Miami sound.”

J my baby moves at midnight

j goes right on till the dawn

Riley: This is actually
a really important period

for musicianship and production
and songwriting

that targets the dance floor.

It's a different emotional energy,

which is about,
"can you make the body move?

Can you make the body happy?"

J' you should be dancing, yeah

j' dancing, yeah

man: And certain songs sounded like
the human embodiment of a brass section.

- The same way a horn just punches?
- Man: Yeah.

That's what Barry's voice reminds me of.

J gives me power

j goes right down to my blood

I was always into
arrangement of instruments.

“You should be dancing,” their voices
together sound like trumpets to me.

J' you should be dancing, yeah

I am not high, for the record.
I just wanna...

It was a discovery,
and we discovered a new audience.

Man: At the clubs,
"you should be dancing" exploded.

Not just, "oh, well, I heard that record
and I really liked it."

It was three times a night
at any club that you went to.

There was a whole industry that was
built around this clubbing thing.

Billboard started a chart
that was dance music chart.

This billion-dollar industry was being
built way before the Bee Gees.

A lot of people
don't realize disco started

in the gay and the black community.

People don't understand what it was like
back then for gay people.

There was a law in New York that
did not allow people of the same sex

to dance together in a place
that had a liquor license.

And then the law changed
and that allowed me to open my club.

A new era of dance music started
in the gay underground clubs.

J dream world

so, the record industry
wants to name it, package it, sell it.

That was the explosion
of the disco sound.

J dream world

we're down at criteria sound studios

and currently it's the studio

that's being used by the Bee Gees.

What particular thing about the studio
makes it so attractive?

It's cheap? = no.

Cheap it isn't, but...

But the actual atmosphere of the place
is very relaxing.

We create better here
than anywhere else.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Maurice:
America was the ultimate dream.

As three kids, we said, "one day
we're gonna have houses in America

all next door to each other
with swimming pools."

We thought, "oh, that'll be great.”

It was a huge uprooting.

It's a very large family.

And it just kept getting
bigger and bigger over time.

Mum and dad came to Miami
as quickly as we did.

I think they were probably the happiest
they'd ever been in their lives.

And of course Andy came here with them.

Richardson: Andy was a gift
out of left field.

But I never knew he existed

until one day,
he shows up fresh from Australia.

Barry: Andy was a great kid.

He could do anything he set his mind to.

Barry was Andy's idol.

- They were almost like twins.
- Barry: We were very much alike.

We looked alike,
we had the same birthmarks.

I would say we were as much like twins
as Maurice and Robin.

Maurice: Main course, and
children of the world which followed,

were triple platinum.

I think he really wanted
to be a part of that.

They suggested that I go to Australia,
as my brothers first did in 1958,

when I was only five months old,

and start working there
and get some records released.

Linda: Andy was very young then.
He had his little band.

Barry: It was a process of building
him up, getting him to play live,

and getting him to be an artist.

Andy: I was there for two years.

A phone call came from my brother Barry
and said, "I wanna produce you."

And I think it was two weeks
I was in the studio

to do a new album in Miami.

I didn't think I was ready.

The first few times in front of a real
professional studio microphone,

Andy was, like, petrified.

But, you know, Barry was there

and guided him through
and helped him with lyrics.

He was very receptive to new ideas.

And it didn't take him long, you know,
to find, like, another groove.

J' for so long

j you and me been finding
each other for so long...

Galuten: The Bee Gees' point of view
was about having hit records

and being on the radio, and so,

the greatest gift that you could give
to your younger brother

would be to give him that success,
to write songs with him,

to teach him to be a star.

Jil..il..

J' 1 just wanna be your everything...

Barry: Then suddenly, out of nowhere,

Andy had about three
number ones in a row.

Oakes: He was a teen idol.

There wasn't talk about him
becoming a bee gee.

Robin saw he had a younger audience.
It was smart to keep him on his own.

J oh, baby

ji...

J if I stay here without you,
darling, I would die

Barry: All of the sudden,
he was the big thing.

There was a period when we lived
in the shadow of Andy's band.

J' io be your everything

Richardson:
After children of the world album,

the next project
we were booked to record in France,

cos of the Elton John album
honky chateau. It sounded great.

J bye-bye, chateau, I must leave you

j though it breaks my heart

Robert sent us there.
I think it was some kind of tax thing.

Richardson: We thought,
"if this studio sounds that good,

yeah, let's go off to France, why not?"

It wasn't the honky chateau
that Elton John had used.

A chateau sounds
absolutely gorgeous, doesn't it?

Beautiful building.

Great grounds and gardens
and ponds and fountains.

No, it's nothing like that.

It was a half-built castle.
No central heating, nothing.

And it was a dump.

Yvonne: We seemed to be
in the middle of nowhere.

Not a happy place to be.

It was kind of decrepit. I think
it'd been used to make porn movies.

This was not right.

But because there was a contract,
we just decided to plough on through.

Barry: We were going there to mix a live
album called here at last... live.

But also we were getting songs ready
for our new studio album,

which would be the follow-up
to children of the world.

And we got a call from Robert stigwood.

A friend of mine, Nik cohn, wrote
this piece for New York magazine,

"tribal rites
of the new Saturday night."

Disco was really under way,
in Manhattan, anyway.

But Nik cohn's point was that,

rather than just being
underground gay clubs,

straight couples are doing the hustle
on Saturday night in the suburbs.

I got Robert to buy the film rights
to a magazine article,

in which there was no story.

But it caught Robert's attention
because he saw

that that's a lead role for an actor,
if it was a movie.

He announced at the Beverly Hills hotel
at breakfast,

“I'm signing John Travolta
to a three-picture deal.”

People thought he was mad.

He was a TV actor. No one gets
a million dollars for three pictures.

Turned out to be the bargain of the
century because he got him for grease

and the movie we don't talk about,
moment by moment.

But two out of three's not bad.

I was still running rso records,
so my job was to do the soundtrack.

And my brief was,
"put all your favorite disco tracks.

Everyone will play it at a party
and will never stop dancing."

These were comparatively easy,

but we needed the Bee Gees
to write their few songs.

Barry: A phone call came from Robert
saying, "I wanna make this film."

He said, "but I'm gonna need
two or three songs."

It wasn't the idea that they would
do the soundtrack.

We knew they were busy, but,
"have you got some songs?" Robert said.

And they said, "yeah, sure.”

Barry: Robert said,
“I'm sending you a script."

But we decided not to read the script.

Robin: We weren't writing
the fever music.

We were writing our new album
and just having fun doing it.

They had a couple of tunes, or titles.
We thought, "let's leave it with them."

What we ended up doing
was the demos of these songs.

And I was really surprised

that it was only a few weeks later
we got the songs.

We got a cassette,
and to this day, it's amazing.

J on the waves of the air...

J you're in my life

it was just one after the other.
"Stayin' alive," "more than a woman."

"How deep is your love,"
"if I can't have you," "night fever."

On one cassette. I thought,
"yes, we've got a soundtrack."

Kendall: You know,
you listen to that tape,

whoever was playing,
there would have been hits.

The songs are so good, you think,
"shit," you know? "That's so cool.”

Barry: We had the demos,

and then we went into the process
of making real records.

Barry, Karl and I lived in that control
room, I don't know, 16 hours a day.

Yeah, that was the only thing to do.

We recorded "night fever" first.

We actually had that in the can.

Barry: Robert called and said,
"I need a title for the film."

"What I've got at the moment,”
I said, "is two titles:

Stayin' alive and night fever,"
and he said, "night fever."

He said, "sounds ok,
but it sounds a bit too pornographic.

It needs to be called
Saturday night,” he said.

So it turned into
Saturday night fever.

J' night fever, night fever

j we know how fo do it

oakes: We were editing fever
on the lot at Paramount.

I was deluged
by Paramount people saying,

"how's your little disco movie
coming along?"

So that was a bit patronizing.

But the inspiring thing was that
stigwood during post-production said,

"why wait for the release of the film?
Let's put out a single now."

Then he started with the heads
of Paramount. "How many theatres?"

They told him something like 200.

He said, "I'm releasing the record
in every city.

Why can't it be in every single city?"

So they made a deal whereby
if the record got to the top 20,

they would increase
the number of screens.

If it got top ten, they'd go more.

He said, "I need the first record
to be number one."

Weaver: Stigwood phoned up
and said to Barry,

"il need the best love song
you've ever written for the movie."

So we went into a room in the chateau.

Chopin had stayed there,
so every time I looked at this piano,

I envisaged chopin
sitting down and playing.

I sat down at the piano
and thought of his prelude in e flat,

and I knew Barry could sing in e flat.

When we were working like that,
I had a cassette player.

Barry: I think I wanna end there.

And I'm sure it happened at that point,
through the stained-glass window,

came a beam of sunlight, you know?

J' your eyes in the morning sun...

Barry: J I know your eyes
in the morning sun

j I feel you touch me
in the pouring rain...

Barry: And that's a memory,
that will last me all my life.

Never forget it.

Never forget it.

Weaver: All the feelings,
all the emotions are still there.

When you talk about it,
it all comes back.

I have a...

My heart is in that song.

J' I know your eyes in the morning sun

j I feel you touch me
in the pouring rain

j and the moment
that you wander far from me

j' I want to feel you in my arms again

j and you come to me
on a summer breeze

j keep me warm in your love
then you softly leave

j and it's me you need to show

j how deep is your love?

J' 1 really need to learn

j cos we're living in a world of fools

j' breaking us down

j when they all should let us be

j we belong to you and me

Weaver: Everything came together.

But sadly, Dennis had had some bad news.

Bryon: My mother was in hospital.
She had Alzheimer's.

So, you know...
I told Barry what was going on.

He said, "get dick to book you
a flight now."

He had to fly back to the uk,
and we had no drummer.

We thought, well,
we've got to carry on writing

and getting these tracks together.

Galuten: When I was at berklee,
I had studied things

where they were moving tapes around

and make sort of
these interesting Sonic loops.

And when Dennis was not there,

I said, "well, why don't we just take
a bar out of 'night fever'?

It's a slower tempo, we'll slow it down
a little bit and make a loop out of it."

We found a bar that we thought
had a nice feel to it.

We copied it over
to a half-inch four-track

and spliced the tape into a loop.

Galuten: I was pretty good at imagining
what you might be able to do,

but Karl was able to make it happen.

Richardson: It was just necessity
being the mother of invention.

Galuten: No one had taken a drum beat
before and created a two-bar phrase.

We were breaking new ground.

Man: Perfect.

Galuten: This is the first time
we had ever

taken the song and built it
piece by piece from the ground up,

and we started with this drum loop.

And then we did a bass line.

Then a guitar part.

Never again would we rely
as much on the liveness.

We would always know that
we could construct the song

and put the pieces together based on
the original vision of the song

and how we imagined it.

I got back to the sessions
and there was just a buzz.

When we did it, we thought,
"we're just doing this temporarily.

When Dennis comes back,
we'll replace it with real drums."

But what happened is, the feel was
so amazing, we couldn't get rid of it.

He played it for me, and I could tell,
from the first listen,

I said, "man, that is amazing.”

When you listen to the drum track
on "stayin' alive," like, by itself,

it's really this super rugged,
like, tough thing.

It's like...

It's not pretty or pop
like you remember, it's pretty tough.

Barry: "Stayin' alive” was the influence
that New York gave to us.

And the energy level at that point,
in the late '70s, was really that.

You know, survival, it's survival.

Man: This is "77, everybody know
the time is hard.

You know, if I was out there myself,
I would have got what I wanted, too.

- Reporter: You were not a looter?
- No, I wasn't. Unfortunate.

Reporter: Do you feel threatened
by the .44 caliber killer?

Woman: Yes, I do.

I don't feel free to walk the streets
or go out at all.

Robin: Very few people realize
it's to do with anything but dance.

The lyrics don't talk about dance
at all.

And the lyrics very obviously state
the scenario of survival.

J whether you're a brother
or whether you're a mother

j' you're stayin' alive, stayin' alive

j feel the city breakin'
and everybody shakin'

j and we're stayin' alive,
stayin' alive

j' ah, ha, ha, ha

j' stayin' alive, stayin' alive...

Timberlake: If you think about...
"Ah, ha, ha, ha..."

I mean, that could very easily
have just been a horn line.

Instead, their voices are so sick,

they're like,
"nah, we're gonna sing it."

J oh, when you walk

Riley: The general fever at the time

was you must see this film.

The songs precipitated the interest.

It was this cultural phenomenon.

In the first week of release,

they were having to hire
extra staff in some cinemas

to stop them dancing in the aisles.

J girl, I've known you very well,
seen you growin"...

Other movies were being put back
or taken out of other screens

to make room for fever.

It was really quite a phenomenon.

John took me aside at one point
and said, "what do you think?

You think maybe
an academy award nomination?"

I'm thinking, "Jesus Christ.

I mean, this is ridiculous.
It's a dance movie."

He had the last laugh.

Host: And John Travolta
in Saturday night fever.

Oakes: The fever thing happened,
that's when everything exploded.

Other record companies were printing it.

Our record company
couldn't keep up the pace.

We didn't know what was going on
because this was just a soundtrack.

Could I ask what Saturday night fever
has grossed thus far?

Around 110 million.

At the moment, in America.

- Host: In America?
- In America, yeah.

Host: And the album?

The album, I think, is nearing
18 million double albums worldwide.

But that would be
the record breaker of all time.

Yes, it's already
the biggest-grossing album

in the history of music.

Host: The statistics
are just incredible.

Four singles from Saturday night fever

have hit number one

since the album was released.

More than from any other
new album in history.

That's just a few of the statistics

that lead to gold records like this.

And so it's my privilege to say,

ladies and gentlemen,
will you welcome the Bee Gees?

Has it changed your lives,
the enormous success of it?

Yes, I can safely say
it's changed our lives.

The Bee Gees I think
were stunned by the success.

Barry: We were aware
we were creating a specific sound,

but we didn't know what it was gonna do.

Oakes: It did end up with them having
half the top ten with these songs.

It was extraordinary,

the same domination the Beatles
had in the '60s in America.

They were just everywhere.

- Friends don't treat us the same way.
- From a distance, you know.

I was speaking to one of my friends
as he was cleaning my shoes.

I said, "listen..."

Kendall: Stigwood said, "let's give
the band half a point or a quarter."

No, it's not a percentage.
That's a tiny amount of money.

But when you sell as many copies
as Saturday night fever sold,

it turns out to be big money.

Host: What are you doing
with these millions of dollars?

What are you doing
with your millions of dollars?

= oh, now! -

it is the biggest night of the year
for people in the recording industry.

The grammy awards.

And the winner is
Saturday night fever.

Oakes: For a soundtrack
to win best album was amazing.

It went on to be one
of the best-selling albums in history.

Barry: We didn't know
that we were defining the culture.

We were just still
Barry, Maurice and Robin,

wondering what the hell's going on.

Reporter:
The "fever" has been contagious.

Discos, the places in which
to dance away the night

and the morning hours, are thriving.

What the “fever” has done is made

just about anything
related to disco profitable.

Where there's money to be made,
disco is the business.

Barry: We didn't categorize
our songs as disco.

But then we weren't thinking
that way at all.

We were just thinking
about writing songs

based on this discovery
of this falsetto voice

and how well that seemed to work.

Oakes: What the Bee Gees brought,

I've always felt
they brought melody to disco.

Most disco at that point
was melody-free, you know.

This was a different take on disco.

It was completely for
the broadest possible audience.

- You got the lyrics?
- Yes, right here.

- Ok, let's go.
- Straight in.

One, two, three, four...

Right, that's it.

Hey, guys. Just too slow.

It would be nice to find
a bigger sound for that solo.

- The way we'd rehearsed it last night.
- All right.

Yeah, just like that, yeah.

Beautiful. Bring that sound in.
That's great.

- Yeah.
- Let's try it again.

Ok. One, two, three, four...

J tragedy

j when the feeling"s gone
and you can't go on

j' it's tragedy

j when the morning cries
and you don't know why

j it's hard to bear

j' with no one beside you

j' you're going nowhere

j ahh

when we brought out
spirits having flown,

it did phenomenally well.

At the same time,
fever was still in the top ten.

You know, we could
have left it another year,

and it still probably would have been
a little too soon

with what was going on with fever.

Good morning, everybody.
Charley steiner, 99x.

As is per usual for Monday,
a very busy day coming into town.

Steiner: I'm working at a top 40 station
in New York, a big one.

Wxlo, but it was known as 99x.

And I was the morning news guy.

Most radio stations
had a very small playlist.

And the Bee Gees probably had the top
four, top five hits any given week.

Thirteen cfrw/,
music of the Bee Gees and "tragedy."

Doing one more with the Bee Gees.

All the gibb brothers together,
the Bee Gees.

"You should be dancing,” you should
be shakin' that thing one time.

And for those of us
at the radio station,

we're... we're gonna take hostages.

And if you haven't had enough Bee Gees
music yet, well, we've got more.

Guess you could kind of call it
"over-gibbing."

Steiner: And then Andy gibb, too.

He was like the caboose
on this musical train.

It was like waves in the sea.

J nobody gets too much heaven
no more

host: You're right
on the top of the world.

What is it
that drives you back on the road?

When we make records
and we're in the studio,

we never really see
who buys those records.

Getting on the road means that to us.

It means that we come face to face
with people

to whom our records mean a lot.

Well, to be sure, doing a tour
is an enormous amount of work.

The only thing that I notice
that's not right

is it doesn't actually say the Bee Gees,
and the Bee Gees name should be...

It should be, "Bee Gees:
Spirits having flown."

Oakes: The "79 tour
was a complete sell-out.

Weaver: The Bee Gees
hadn't toured since 1976.

And that tour was a promotion
for the spirits having flown album.

But it was celebrating
Saturday night fever as well.

Girl 1: Twenty-five thousand people
are supposed to be here.

- Girl 2: It's gonna be great.
- Man: You don't mind the rain?

Both: No, not at all.

We've been here since nine this morning.

They're worth waiting in the rain for.

I mean, it was huge.

Dodger stadium, places like that.
We used to dream of this.

Having people in the audience
like Barbra Streisand,

watching your show and loving it.

I mean, these are fantasies.

You're in a goldfish bowl on tour.

You don't see much
of what's going on out there.

The most important thing is,
what are we gonna do after the show?

What do you wanna do?

Announcer:
It's here, the disco-body shaper,

the brand-new exerciser sensation
that's sweeping the country.

Send for yours today.

Buy it today, be a disco star tonignt.

Let's disco to burger king.

It all goes back to one thing,

and the same thing
that's happening now: Greed.

Greed is the thing
that happens in people

that really ruins a lot of shit.

J went to a party the other night...

In the beginning, you would buy
a disco-bannered record,

and it would be a great song,
no matter which one you picked out.

J movin' my feet to the disco beat...

But then some executive in diapers

decided, "let's put disco
on all these records we wanna sell,"

and it wasn't good music anymore,
it was garbage.

J look aft me

j I'm the disco duck!

J oh, let's go, mamma...

That was, I think, the straw
that broke the camel's back.

J' disco, disco duck

disco as a purely musical form
is, you know, dead.

I hated it. Couldn't think
of anything redeeming.

It was old people's music.

It was a very easy thing to get
involved with for commercial reasons.

J everybody's doin'
the disco, disco duck...

Man: I'd like to show you
how we destroy the disco records.

Thisis howl do it.

- Gotta get worked up a little bit.
- Psyched up.

Yeah. And then I just...

Oh, that felt good.

Our next guest tonight is Steve dahl.

He is a disc jockey for station wlup-fm
out in Chicago, Illinois,

and he hates disco music.

Steve dahl was kind of hard
to avoid in Chicago.

Steve dahl's on the radio saying,
"disco sucks, disco sucks."

I was 14.

I listened to the loop,

the radio station
that this kind of centered around.

He brings helium to the studio,

inhales it and imitates
the Bee Gees on the air

and then breaks up their records.

J how deep is your love

§ how deep is your love

j' 1 really need to know

you know, when you do all those things,
like put out garbage,

you know, have radio feeling ostracized,

and a lot of straight people
feeling threatened,

it creates a real poison.

Hello again, everybody.

Harry caray and Jimmy piersall
from comiskey park,

where we're gonna have
a wild night tonight.

A twi-night doubleheader.

Lawrence: I was an Usher
at comiskey park.

That was my first job.

Look at that crowd out there.

Reporter: Fifty thousand people,
the largest crowd of the season,

showed up at Chicago's comiskey park.

Many had come for disco demolition
night, a promotional gimmick.

Fifteen thousand others
had to be turned away.

Steve dahl says, "we're gonna let
everybody in the white sox park

for 98 cents
if you bring a disco record.

And we're gonna blow those records up
in the middle of center field."

We're letting people in.

I pointed out to my chief Usher,

“that record, that record, that record,
that record, that record,

that record...
Those aren't disco records.

Those are just,
those are R&B records.”

And the thing that I noticed
more than anything

was just mostly black records.

Maurice: At the same time all this stuff
is going on in Chicago,

we were playing the stadiums.

It was an amazing tour.

We were sort of like
in our own little world.

Not thinking about the outside world.

Caray: He struck him out
and the ball game is over.

Announcer: Ok, let's Usher Steve dahl
to the explosives

with a loud "disco sucks' chant!

Disco sucks!

= disco sucks!

Disco sucks!

Barry: Ladies and gentlemen,
our brother Andy!

J my baby moves at midnight

j goes right on till the dawn

j my woman takes me higher

j my woman keeps me warm

j what you doin' on your back?

J' yeah, yeah

j what you doin' on your back?

J' ahh, you should be dancing, yeah

j' dancing, yeah

come on!

Maurice: Andy joined us on stage
for "you should be dancing,"

and it was the four of us together,
and Andy joined my mic.

So we were singing around the one mic.

And he kept looking over
and stood back and goes,

“can you believe this shit?"

Nobody could believe
what was going on.

And to see the four of us on stage,
when I saw Barry and Robin

and I saw Andy in front of me I thought,
"this is how it's gotta be."

J yeah

How about the Bee Gees?

Well, listen, we took all the disco
records that you brought tonight,

we got 'em in a giant box.

And we're gonna blow 'em up real gooa!

One, two, three...

Boom!

I'ney blew up real good!

Lawrence: They tell you as an Usher,
"every now and then,

you're gonna get a drunk person
storming the field.

Try to grab them, hold on to them,”
or whatever.

But everybody ran on the field.

When I got older, I recognized that...

This was actually the end of an era.

It was a book burning.

It was a racist,
homophobic book burning.

And the Bee Gees got caught up in that,

because they were part of that culture
that was lifting a lot of people up.

Barry: Thank you, we love youl!
And we'll see you again. Bye-bye.

Reporter: Nearly 7,000 spectators
held their very own demolition.

Game two of the doubleheader
was canceled last night.

That game will be forfeit.

The anti-disco movement
was almost anti-Bee Gees at that point.

Reporter: Ironically, the soundtrack
to "Saturday night fever,"

the album that made them superstars,
also branded them as a disco group.

Because you can dance to it doesn't
necessarily make it a disco song.

You can dance to lots of songs.

Host: You really don't wanna be labeled
"disco" at all, do you?

Because our music is a variety
of different kinds of music.

It shouldn't be called just that.

Some people hated disco.

Hated it.

Maurice: We had FBI and secret service
round the airplane

every time we landed in a certain place
because of the bomb threats.

It was scary stuff.

We were perplexed.

Cos I got that vibe from them,
"why are people doing this?"

Reporter: The Bee Gees claim
some radio stations around the country

are refusing to play their new single.

The Bee Gees
are not allowed to have a hit

because they had success with
Saturday night fever. That is crap.

Galuten: Radio is very difficult
to get back once you lose them.

Back then, if you weren't on the radio,
there was nothing.

Let's all grow up, we're just a pop
group, we're not a political force.

We're just making music, but I don't
think there's any reason to chalk us off

because we existed in the "70s
and would like to exist in the '80s.

Does anybody mind if we exist
in the '80s, thank you?

It was so overwhelming and...

The whole dynamic changed.

Yvonne: They were just crazy days.

I preferred Maurice as Maurice,

not being a bee gee,
if that makes sense to you.

I preferred him as Maurice,
not being a bee gee.

Dwina: Suddenly they realized
that they were in a different position.

Robin went through a kind of a...

It wasn't a breakdown,
but it was just something where

he felt very shy of being in public
and doing things for a while.

Robin: The backlash
was a very frightening experience.

When things get to that point, you're
out of control of the whole thing.

We thought the Bee Gees
better go on the back burner

until this dies down
or something, you know.

We couldn't do anything
as the Bee Gees at all.

Well, backlash I'm really good on.

Uh...

Any band... that is successful

is going to have...
Some form of resistance.

That's just the law of nature.

When they get so successful,

sometimes the only interesting thing
to say about them

is, "oh, I don't like them.

Everyone else likes
'how deep is your love.'

you know, it's stupid.”

For bands of my generation,

you understand about the ups
and downs, you can see it.

Like, where are the pitfalls'?
What is the shit you're gonna take?

When might this happen?
When might that happen?

For those people
that were on the first wave

of sort of global pop superstardom,
if you want to call it that,

it was new to them, like, "why does
everyone suddenly hate our band?

We sold eight billion records last year.
What's the deal?"

So it's confusing.

It was not just the Bee Gees,
but the idea of dance.

In that period,
it was no longer acceptable

for this kind of music to carry
the weight, to carry the industry.

Everybody was at that point
in their lives where they...

They began to look
for other things to do.

And Andy was having problems, too.

Maurice: I saw him in Malibu,

and he'd been involved with
a lot of people who were doing drugs.

And he was doing drugs,
he was doing cocaine.

I talked to him outside
on the balcony,

saying, "this is really
a nice house, Andy,

it's a nice car out there,
that Porsche, really nice.

You're not gonna keep all this,
you know."

He said, "what do you mean?"

I said, "you do what you're doing,
this stuff will vanish.

All this stuff will go. Your career
will go out the window, everything."

And he said, "I know,
I know what I have to do."

There was a lot of chaos that I
didn't witness, but I was aware of it.

We were scattered
all over the place for a little while.

Robin was either in New York
and Maurice was in england.

I was alone at the time
and I got a phone call from Barbra.

She'd asked me about
writing songs for her.

And that terrified me.

I don't know if I can do this, you know?

So I called my brothers, and I said,
"this is what we gotta do.

And let's do it."

And that's how
the guilty album came about.

We really could not get on the radio.

So the whole idea
was to write for other people.

Let's be songwriters.

Let's try and graduate
from being a group that's probably...

Beginning to fade, you know?

Let's see if we can dance around that.

Barry: [ Life is a moment in space

j when the dream is gone

j' it's a lonelier place

Richardson: It was more
about outlets for writing.

Writing songs
that aren't Bee Gees songs.

They have an attitude somewhere else.

Streisand: J I stumble and fall

j but! Give you it all

j 1am a woman in love

j' and I'd do anything

j' to get you into my world...

Host: Now, Robin, you and Barry
co-wrote "woman in love,"

which became the international smash.

Was it difficult taking
the woman's perspective?

Oh, no.

It's our way of doing things.

We will assume that role
within the song to write the song.

After the Barbra Streisand album,
managers would call up all the time.

"Gee, can I get together with you guys?
Will you make my record?"

You know, established artists.

J oh, oh

j why do you have to be
a heartbreaker

j when I was being
what you want me to be?

J get in the middle of a chain reaction

j you get a medal
when you're lost in action...

It was just as important for us to have
an artist singing our songs

and being on the radio
as it was for ourselves.

J islands in the stream

j that is what we are

j no one in between

j how can we be wrong?

J' sail away with me...

Maurice: When you write a song with
someone in mind that you really love,

and then that person ends up singing it,
there's no reward like it.

J immortality

j oh, baby

j there is a vision and a fire in me

j oh

Barry: We wrote
so many different types of songs.

And that created
that new determination...

For us to become the Bee Gees again.

J when a lonely heart breaks

j it's the one that forsakes

j it's the dream that we stole

Barry: I think over time,
we became more and more unified.

By "85, we really
got it together as a group.

We became a real band, again.

J' for you it's goodbye

j for me its to cry

j for whom the bell tolls

we never really had a category.

We just had different periods.

And we managed
to fit into different eras.

And we saw a lot of people who were
the champions of their era come and go.

We didn't always connect
but we stayed around.

We managed to defy the criticism,
most of the time.

J it's the one that forsakes

j it's the dream that we stole

and I just hope and pray
that the music lasts, you know.

Because I begin to recognize that
there's not as much time in front of me

as there is behind me.

Hi, Australia.
This is Andy gibb here in Miami.

And I'd like to wish all you kids...

One more time.

Hi, Australia.
This is Andy gibb here in Miami.

And I'd like to wish all the kids
and all my friends in Australia

a very merry Christmas
and a happy new year.

J' ahh, ahh...

Barry was first. In fact, Robin's
half an hour older than I am.

And we're twins. And that's how
we basically met.

- Robert stigwood, this is for you.
- You gotta watch the thing.

Oh, the reaction? All right, ok.

Oh, yeah, that's right.
Sorry, do it again. Ok.

Robert stigwood, this is for you.

Announcer: Ladies and gentiemen,
an Oscar nominee

for "Saturday night fever,”
John Travolta!

Tonight, the recording academy
is celebrating

three brothers who changed my life
and the world of music forever.

And though brothers Robin and Maurice
are sadly gone,

we are thrilled to be joined
by a brother like no other,

one of the most successful
singer-songwriters of our times,

my friend, Barry gibb.

J hmm...

J' feel I'm going back to massachusetfts

j something's telling me
I must go home

Gallagher: They're a brilliant chapter
in the book of music.

Some people are a footnote.

Some people take up...
The Beatles and Dylan take up huge...

But the Bee Gees are there.

J' the day I left her standing

j on her own

Timberlake: You go back
and look at their body of work

and it's some of the best songs
ever written.

J' talk about the life
in Massachusetts...

There's nothing else to say
about the Bee Gees except

they were fucking awesome.

J speak about the people
I have seen

j' and the lights all went down

j in Massachusetts

j and Massachusetts

j' is one place I have seen

j and Massachusetts

j' is one place I have seen

Barry: When I think about it now,

I think about
how it all sort of started.

We just had this dream.

And we thought, well,
"what do we want to be famous for?"

It turns out it was the songwriting.

And I think everything we set out to do,
we did, against all odds.

I can't honestly
come to terms with the fact

that they're not here anymore.

Never been able to do that.

I'm always reliving it.

It's always, "what would Robin think
or what would Maurice think?"

And Andy. It never goes away.

And what I wanted to say earlier

is that I'd rather have them
all back here and no hits at all.

J' if ever you've got rain in your heart

j someone has hurt you
and torn you apart

j am I unwise to open up your eyes
to love me?

J' and when you've got nothing to lose

j' nothing to pay for
and nothing to choose

j am I unwise to open up
your eyes to love me?

J' run to me whenever you're lonely

j run to me if you need a shoulder

j' now and then, you need someone older

j' so, darling

j you run to me

J well, you can tell by the way
I use my walk

j I'm a woman's man, no time to talk

j music loud and women warm

j' I've been kicked around
since I was born

j and now it's all right, it's ok

j' and you may look the other way

j we can try to understand

j the "New York times" ' effect on man

j whether you're a brother
or whether you're a mother

j you're stayin' alive
stayin' alive

j feel the city breakin'
and everybody shakin'

j and we're stayin' alive
stayin' alive

j' ah, ha, ha, ha

j stayin' alive, stayin' alive

j' ah, ha, ha, ha

j stayin' alive...

J' as you walk

j' life goin' nowhere

j somebody help me

j somebody help me, yeah

j' life goin' nowhere

j somebody help me

j' I'm stayin' alive...

J' life goin' nowhere

j somebody help me

j somebody help me, yeah

j somebody

j' life goin' nowhere

j somebody help me

j' I'm stayin' alive...

Barry: One, two, three, four...

J! Green fields

j where we used fo wander

j' purple valleys

j' near my home

j we would play there

j' beneath the sky

j' and then I kissed you

j' butterfly

j' young girl

j you came restless

j and you left me

j' here to cry

j my big tears

j' in red pastures

j' for I loved you

j' butterfly

j' butterfly, yeah

j' I dream about you

j' lonely without you, butterfly

j' butterfly, yeah

j' each night I'm sleeping

j' your face comes creeping, butterfly

j! Green fields

j where we used fo wander

j' purple valleys

j' near my home

j we would play there

j' beneath the sky

j' for I loved you

j' butterfly

j butterfly, yeah

j' I dream about you

j' lonely without you

j' butterfly

j' butterfly, yeah

j' each night I'm sleeping

j' your face comes creeping, butterfly

j' butterfly...

J smile an everlasting smile

j' a smile can bring you near to me

j don't ever let me find you down

j' cos that would bring a tear to me

j' talk in everlasting words

j and dedicate them all fo me

j and I will give you all my life

j I'm here if you should call to me

j you think that I don't even mean

j' a single word I say

j' it's only words

j and words are all I have

j' to take your heart away

j' it's only words

j and words are all I have

j' to take your heart

j away

Subtitles: Iyuno media group