The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart

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!

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

Thank you.

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.

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.

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.

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.

We emigrated our whole family from England to Australia.

All three of us had the same understanding

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

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.

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.

When the Beatles came on the scene,

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

They turned pop music into an art form,

singing three-part harmony like we did.

So we made up our own minds

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

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."

Before we left Australia, we did an album called Spicks and Specks.

And they became our best demos.

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."

My dad, he was very, "We gotta do this,"

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

in the Gibb clan.

We loved the Beatles, so Dad had sent this stuff to NEMS,

the Brian Epstein offices.

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

is now as well known as they are.

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.

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.

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?

Whoever this man was, he really believed in us.

He was almost like a parent.

You can't deny talent.

And the talent was so obvious.

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..."

And we thought, "What could come from that?"

We made believe we were in a mine.

Because it was our first single, we wanted a title

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

And "New York Mining Disaster" was born.

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.

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.

And it was amazing.

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

We've always been influenced by Black music.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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