From the S&S archives: Bee Gees kick off worldwide tour in Germany (2024)

PUNK AND TECHNOPOP may have permanently cooled off the Saturday night fever of disco music in the 1970s. But Bee Gee Robin Gibb thinks there will always be room in the music business for lush, romantic ballads sung in mournful falsetto harmonies.

"The reason the Bee Gees have managed to succeed for so tong is because we have our own sound," Gibb said. The British trio's trademark falsetto harmonies have racked up numerous Top 40 hits in clumps of popularity since the late 1960s.

Gibb and his brothers, Barry and Maurice, recently held a press conference in Saarbrucken, West Germany, to herald their upcoming tour and discuss their new album, One, released earlier this month, The album's first single, Ordinary People, was released several weeks in advance of One.

"We think this album is a bit more on the emotional side, a bit warmer than our previous album." said Barry Gibb, better known to those unfamiliar with the singers' first names as the "Handsome Bee Gee.''

"We're not out to save the world ... We like to write music lot the masses," Barry said. "We do love music for music itself ... and we just write music we enjoy."

The three singers said they've done away with the flashy explosions that dotted their disco-era concert tour ("It's hell on the ears," Barry remarked), but they promised ''incredible sound'' and a musical agenda of tunes that spans their lengthy career.

The worldwide tour will kick off in Dortmund, West Germany, on Wednesday.

''Germany's always been behind our music. Even when we didn't have good times in other countries, Germany was always right by us. To start the tour here was the right thing for us,." Barry said.

The Bee Gees' career has seen numerous ups and downs over the 20-plus years they've been making records.

Periodically easing their way in and out of musical chic, the trio first attracted American attention in the late '60s (1967-1968) with a series of sad songs, including New York Mining Disaster, 1941, I've Got to Get a Message to You, Words and Holiday.

After two comparatively hitless years, the three brothers slipped in a renewed assault on the charts in 1970 with Lonely Days (Lonely Nights) before again creeping out of the public eye on a trail of less well-accepted records.

Their greatest fame and fortune was yet to come on the heels of the disco craze. In 1975, a series of singles that included Jive Talking and Nights on Broadway paved the way for their chart-topping success two years later with the disco-fied soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever, the monster movie hit starring John Travolta.

Their next album, Spirits Having Flown, also sold well and produced several hit singles, such as Tragedy and Love So Right.

Since then, however, the brothers Gibb haven't scored a major hit collectively, although Barry Gibb wrote well-received songs such as Islands in the Stream and Guilty for other artists, including Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers and Barbra Streisand. The Miami-based brothers also have their own recording studio where Maurice Gibb, a self-proclaimed "technical booger," handles the technical side of production.

''It's like we don't like doing just one thing," Barry said of the Bee Gees' interests in individual in producing and writing for other artists. "We'd enjoy getting into films. Acting's out, but we like production."

"We like brain surgery as well," Robin quipped. "We do it on the weekend. It brings in a few extra pounds."

In addition to One, the Bee Gees are looking toward another album project that will be released later this year in conjunction with a cartoon series. featuring rabbits as characters called "The Bunburys."'

Any relation to the Traveling Wilburys, a supergroup that featured the late Roy Orbison, George Harrison, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne arid Bob Dylan?

"The Bunburys is a group of musicians not unlike the Wilburys, except the Wilburys don't have cartoon characters behind them. It's not on (TV) yet," Barry said.

"I'd like to point out that this was (planned) long before the Wilburys were even. thought of," interjected Maurice Gibb, the "Balding Bee Gee."

Now in their fifth or sixth musical incarnation, the Bee Gees are in a position to see newer groups such as Duran Duran attempt their first comeback. Any advice for new travelers on the comeback trail?

"The standard thing we say is, 'Make sure you've got a good lawyer.' If you want good advice, that's good :advice. It's important to have somebody who's really on our side. Everybody else has some sort of motivation of their own," Barry said.

"And — the corniest thing of all.— is to believe in what you're doing," he continued. "Other people will try to talk you out of it all the way down the line."

"And they'll write you off just as many times," Maurice added. "We're a perfect example."