Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 23:09:57 -0400
From: Chris Mathis <cmathis@brothersgibb.com>
Subject: Robin Shines on final album
http://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/music-review-bee-gees-robin-gibb-shines-on-final-album-1.2030007
Back to topDate: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 23:54:27 -0400
From: "Chris Mathis" <cmathis@brothersgibb.com>
Subject: Robin Shines on final album (Short URL)
Here is the short URL to the article:
http://alturl.com/nwr4c
Robin Gibb, '50 St. Catherine's Drive'
Music Review: Bee Gees' Robin Gibb, shines on final album
As one third of the Bee Gees, Robin Gibb had a plaintive ache in his
trembling, vibrato-filled voice that helped make such Brothers Gibb hits as
'Holiday' and 'I Started A Joke' so memorably distinctive. On '50 St.
Catherine's Drive,' his solo posthumous 17-track set, Gibbs' searing vocal
vulnerability is made all the more poignant given that it is his final
album.
Named after the address of the house in which Gibb was born in 1949 on the
Isle of Man, the intensely personal album was written between 2006 and 2008.
The exception is 'Sydney,' a nostalgic song about Gibb and his famous
siblings, written in August 2011. Gibb, already ill, hoped to finish the
song with his brother Barry, but died nine months later from cancer before
they had the opportunity.
Gibb, who wrote or co-wrote every song here, was affected deeply by the 2003
loss of his twin, Maurice, and much of the album's mainly mid-tempo material
deals with loyalty and love that death doesn't diminish. But as surely as
there is an embrace of everlasting eternity, there's also a very real
awareness that our time here on earth is limited. He movingly sings on 'Days
of Wine & Roses,' the bittersweet album opener: "Time and tide will wait for
no one . now you're gone."
'50 St. Catherine's Drive' makes no apologies for its unabashed
sentimentality. The album could have been a maudlin mess, but, in Gibb's
skilled hands, instead it's a delicate reminder from one who is no longer
here to cherish each day.
"Words & Music", Fans Of The Brothers Gibb ( Bee Gees )
http://www.brothersgibb.com
To change any of your list options,
please go to website listed above.
Back to topDate: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 00:17:50 -0400
From: "Chris Mathis" <cmathis@brothersgibb.com>
Subject: A Conversation with RJ Gibb
http://alturl.com/hz384
A Conversation with RJ Gibb
Mike Ragogna: RJ, 50 St. Catherine's Drive is the last project your dad was
working on before he passed away, so that must have been an incredibly
challenging task for you to complete because of the emotional bond you had
as father and son.
RJ Gibb: Yeah. He had started work on this project in 2006 to 2008, that's
when the recordings had taken place. I had at that time also composed a
couple of popular songs with him. We composed the Titanic requiem together
with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. That was later, we started that in
2010 and finished it in 2012 with the debut at Westminster Hall. But we had
actually been working on some popular songs before that and we had planned
to after the requieum as well. We had songs like "Instant Love," "One-Way
Love," "Syndey," about his brothers, which I actually did the production on
after he wrote it himself. There's another one that we had actually written
for the Titanic requiem that was added later, "Don't Cry Alone." So there
are four songs that we wrote together that will be on the album, but apart
from that I did the final production. Pete Vettese and him started the
production back in 2008 and then I started a couple of years ago and we just
finished last year. Number 50, Saint Catherine's Drive in the Isle of Mann
was the first house my father lived in. It was actually the house he was
brought back to from the hospital immediately following his birth. This was
a project he wanted to do because he wanted to team back up with Barry.
Barry wasn't feeling well at the time but when he was feeling a bit better,
they were going to get back together, so he shelved the album. So for about
four years, it just lay dormant and then when it came back up that Warner
wanted to put it out, we went into the studio and finished the production.
MR: Can you tell us more about that Titanic requiem, like how that came
together and what everybody's part was?
RG: Sure. My father and I had alwasy wanted to come out with an album
together, we were working on popular stuff as I said but the thing is I was
classically trained. When I started I was playing violin, trumpet, I then
went on to play guitar and keyboards and that's what I use to compose now,
but my father had always adored classical music, we both loved Mozart and
Schubert, so we teamed up with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. We decided
to do a requiem because it was the hundredth anniversary of the sinking of
the Titanic and we decided to do it as a tribute to the fallen of the
Titanic. It debuted at Westminster Hall, sadly he never made the opening as
he'd fallen into a coma and this was after going into remission about four
times, so this was after a long, hard battle. I think the requiem kept him
going for a long time as well because he had something to strive for.
Although he did come out of the coma after the debut...we played the
confutatis from the Titanic requiem and he woke up. He actually said to me
he could hear the song playing, it was actually incredible. We thought we
weren't going to see him again, they'd pretty much written him off. He had
been expected to sing that night at the debut, he was going to sing "Don't
Cry Alone," but as he sadly couldn't attend, they played a recording of the
vocals and the Royal Philharmonic played along. It was the first time I'd
ever seen at a purely classical concert people giving a standing ovation for
a recorded vocal. But, of course, I think that's the last time they thought
they were going to hear him.
MR: How did that experience leave you? You must have been riding high.
RG: Yeah, of course. I didn't know if that was the last time I would hear
his voice played in a musical hall or at a venue. We always had hope for
him, as I said he had gone through four remissions already, it was a hard
battle and he was a hard fighter. As a realist, I knew what could happen and
of course I think he also knew as well--he didn't write himself off but he
knew what could happen and I think that's what made him strive to do so many
things in the last few years. He knew he had cancer for about two and a half
years. We accomplished a lot, after the requiem we wrote a lot of popular
music together as well, those will be coming out at some point as well, he
was making films as well in the garden, it was unbelievable. He's made a few
comedy sketches, he was always into the Goons--Peter Sellers and Spike
Milligan. He had a sharp wit, a very dry sense of humor, a very admirable
sense of humor. I don't think I'll ever meet anyone like that again.
MR: To me, The Bee Gees seemed like they were Australia's most popular
export. Is that how Australia saw them?
RG: Well, yeah. He was born on the Isle of Mann and his parents were from
Manchester. He went back to Manchester and they grew up the first part of
their childhood there, but then they moved to Australia when they were about
nine or ten. That's when they started--my father said, "We've sung in some
of the best toilets in Australia,"--because they used to go to the toilets
to hear the echo for harmonies. Then they started playing for pennies at the
race track and they were picked up by a DJ over there who backed them up.
That's when they had their first number one, "Spicks & Specks." When they
came back to England their father had gotten in touch with Robert Stigwood
and the rest is history, really. They've always had a strong connection with
Australia, even now. Their sister stayed in Australia and she very much
considers herself Australian. A part of them always, I guess, considered
themselves British but another part considered themselves Australian.
MR: Ambassadors, maybe.
RG: Definitely.
MR: I think when you looked at the three of them I think even if Barry was
the overt ladies man, Robin seemed to really pop out as the backbone of the
band. How did the brothers function together as far as laying out
responsibilities?
RG: I think Barry had the image as the ladies' man and I think my father had
the boyish, angelic vocals and Maurice was the tech man, very good with
music. When my father even did a solo album it was Maurice who helped with
the music as well. You know, "Juliet." I just think Maurice was the music
mastermind, my father was the vocalist and Barry could work the crowds and
had a great voice when it came to some of the more modern stuff they got
into at that time, which was sort of the start of modern house music, the
disco era.
MR: Yes, a lot of people forget that. Were they as surprised as everyone
else that they conquered the world in that format?
RG: It started in France, really. They had written these blue-eyed soul
tracks, which is what they were calling it at the time. They had delved into
the new dance music and they tried their hand at it and just came up with
these tracks. Basically, they had taken one of their engineers at the time,
Blue Weaver, put a heartbeat monitor on him and were listening to the beat
and then they made one of the first drumloops by splicing together the tapes
around the room. This was the way they created these dance tracks with the
"thump thump thump," the four beat that you hear in a lot of modern house.
They didn't know what to do with it really, they were just experimenting.
Then Robert Stigwood said, "Look, I've got this new film coming out, it's
got no backing, no advertisement, do you guys have anything to put on it?"
They said, "Well funny enough we've just been playing around with dance
music if you want to hear what we've done in France." I think the cows
outside this small chalet were the first ones to hear "Stayin' Alive."
MR: [laughs]
RG: They sent it over to him and he said, "Wow, this is great." They took
about nine of the tracks and put them on and without any advertising, just
word of mouth, it got around. Disco was already around but I think this
completely revolutionized the way it was done.
MR: Yeah. A lot of the older disco records had the emphasis on repetetive
parts, extended dance mixes and all that, whereas The Bee Gees had a more
lyrical, traditional song-like structure that they really deeply understood.
RG: Yes, and they applied that to the four beat dance feel. I agree. We were
talking about some of the older tracks and coming out of Australia and
"Spicks & Specks." On 50 St. Catherine's Drive there are three potential
singles and one of them is actually, "I Am The World," which was the B-side
of "Spicks & Specks." The original version of the song was released in 1966
as the B-side of the hit. My dad decided to record a new version for the new
album, he wrote a new middle eight for it. He loved the song because it was
one of the first songs he actually wrote. There's another one, "Days Of Wine
& Roses," where the song itself is actually a reverse. He played it
backwards from a song, "Broken Wings." He played that song backwards and he
came up with "Days Of Wine & Roses," which is another potential single for
this album. But the third potential single is the song we wrote together,
"Instant Love," which is quite poignant because it's the last time we
actually sang together. It's father and son together, sing a verse each and
then duetting on the chorus. "I Am The World" is definitely coming out as a
single but the other two are the ones people should look for as singles
promoting the album.
MR: "Days Of Wine & Roses" is an Oscar Wilde reference. How did that
particular inspiration come about?
RG: My father and I both had a lot of respect for Oscar Wilde because he's
one of the best wits of the nineteenth century. He didn't have many plays,
but I think what he was actually remembered for in society and what people
wrote about him was what he would actually say to people. My father always
respected great witty comedy and I think that's probably what drew him to
Oscar. A lot of his plays are not as witty as I would say he was in his
private life and what people have written about him and their experiences
with him as a person. I love his plays though, I love him as a literary
giant definitely. It was Ernest Dowson, the poet who had originally penned
the phrase, "They are not long, the days of wine of wine and roses." Oscar
Wilde used the quote when his literary peer Ernest Dowson died. My dad did
admire him for his wit as we were just saying, but I think when he found the
phrase as an ode to his friend it kind of reminded him of Maurice and of
others he'd lost. I think it was kind of poignant thing because it also
talks about the days when they were young and coming up in the world and
remembering all the beautiful things in the past. I think it struck a note
with him.
MR: "Wherever You Go" was originally called "Wing & A Prayer" and there's a
story behind that. The title originally came from the World War II patriotic
song?
RG: Yes. "Wing & A Prayer" was actually a song that The Bee Gees wrote
together. My father realized that people would remember it a lot easier if
it had an original title, so "Wherever You Go" was the new title. It was
changed to avoid confusion, basically. The original title came from the
famous American second world war patriotic song by Harold Adamson and Jim
McHugh. They wrote a song about a plane struggling home from combat, "Comin'
In On A Wing And A Prayer." My father and myself have always loved military
history, my father started helping the Bomber Command Memorial Fund which I
still support now as well because Bomber Command here was the outfit that
lost more troops than any other outfit. God, there were over fifty five
thousand killed and they never put a monument up for them, they tried to
distance themselves from them. They didn't realize the strategic importance.
It wasn't just retaliation bombing that they were doing. Even Churchill,
before he distanced himself, said, "It's the bombers that will win the war,"
because they brought one million Wehrmacht off the frontlines, brought them
into the cities, and also brought all of the 88-millimeter flak guns into
the cities to protect them. It took them off the frontlines and allowed the
allies to advance. They also took out the entire Wolfpack in dock--the
U-boats. But they were never recognized. He campaigned, it was one of the
last things he did--and we did it as a family, really, as well. We
campaigned to get the monument put up in Green Park, it's now one of the
most visited monuments in London.
MR: What's the backstory on "Alan Freeman Days"?
RG: Well he was an Australian, he was a celebrated radio disc jockey in the
United Kingdom in the sixties, seventies, and eighties. He's someone that my
father truly kept in his heart and admired and he loved the man over a long
period of time because he had a special memory of Alan dating back to the
late 1960s when The Bee Gees had temporarily split up. Soon after the split
my dad released his first solo album called Robin's Reign. Probably, the
most famous solo song that my father wrote was "Saved By The Bell." Alan
Freeman, who was known as Fluff, told my father that there were certain
entities who wanted the Bee Gees to get back together. My father did want to
get back together as well with The Bee Gees but a lot of people didn't
realize this was the case.
When my father came out with a solo album because he wanted to keep working
they thought it was going to stop The Bee Gees from getting back together.
My dad just wanted to work in the mean time until The Bee Gees got back
together. What they did was they tried to put spanners in the works and they
asked the DJs--or tried to backhand the DJs not to play my dad's song
thereby reducing the chances of it becoming successful. But Alan Freeman was
the only DJ who said no. He wouldn't take any backhands and he stood up
against these entitites and decided that "Saved By The Bell" was a number
one hit, it should be out and it should be heard and he was going to play it
regardless of the pressure. It went on to become a hit. It didn't become a
number one hit in England, it reached number two, but it's still remembered
as a classic.
My father never forgot what Alan did for him and he frequently communicated
with Alan and visited him when he was sick and being cared for him at
Brinsworth House which was a home for retired actors and others in the
entertainment industry. So as president of the Heritage Foundation, which
was where support of the whole Bomber Command Memorial came about he decided
that Alan should have a blue plaque. Anyone who's alive gets a green plaque
if they're being honored, say outside the building where they used to work,
but they get a blue plaque if they've passed away. After Alan passed away he
pushed and insured for Alan to have his blue plaque at Brinsworth house
acknowledging Alan's contributions, not just to him but to music in general.
He was one of the great DJs of the sixties to the eighties. My dad wrote the
song in honor of Mister Alan Freeman.
MR: What do you think your dad's legacy is going to be? And what do you
think the legacy of The Bee Gees is going to be?
RG: Well I think they've already proved themselves as one of the greatest
acts of the twentieth century, they have one of the most extensive and most
successful catalogs out there. There are people like Mozart who was
basically honored for his accomplishments long after his death and there are
people like my father who were honored during their lifetime. I think their
legacy doesn't matter either way. If you write amazing music, whether you're
honored during your lifetime or not these contributions to music will stick
and people will try to emulate them and people will always be compared to
people like The Bee Gees or to entities like them. They set the standard,
really.
MR: Well, during the lifespan of the group, they contributed so much that it
already mattered a lot.
RG: That's right. I also think that what we all do is make something
eternal, something that lasts long beyond our deaths. That's why I said it
didn't matter if they were recognized after or during because that's what we
all strive to do is make our stamp on the world and to make something that
people will love and cherish and to make people feel happier about
themselves through music and just to make something eternal. That's the only
way we live forever is through our work and what we leave behind.
MR: That's so true. What are you personally working as an artist now?
RG: Myself? I will continue to make classical works but at the same time I'm
producing my own album at the moment which is a popular music album. I'm
also working on house music and trance music for Ibiza. You'll see not only
this dance music that's going to Ibiza but I'll also be coming out with an
actual popular album that I've been working on for the last year and a half.
Apart from that I'm also a mentalist, a psychological magician really. I've
been doing this kind of work since I was fifteen but I've really just
decided to push it forward into the professional scene in the last two
years. I've known quite a few mentalists during my lifetime including Uri
Geller, he's a close friend of the family. I've always been interested in
this type of magic, psychological ideomotor response using hypnotics and
neurolinguistic programming. It's used to bring about effects that either
make peope do what you want to do or make it seem like they're happening.
Basically, you could call it a type of magician or illusionist. But I'm
doing Children In Need at The Savoy Hotel this October, which is being
hosted by Terry Wogan. That's the first big gig I'm doing as a mentalist.
But apart from that I'm coming out with my popular music album and I'm doing
another project in Ibiza as I said with dance music. And I studied for seven
years under Andy Hinds at Classic Stage Ireland, so I'm also an actor. I'm
currently in that sphere, I have an agent for acting. I've always been
interested in the performing arts, which is where mentalism comes into it as
well, because it is a performance art. That's really where I am right now.
MR: RJ, what advice do you have for new artists?
RG: I would say never let anyone bring you down or tell you that what you're
doing isn't good enough, believe in yourself, learn from your mistakes and
always make music that you would buy. Don't try and emulate everyone, don't
try and be another clone, there's so many of the same out there but there's
only one you. The world hasn't seen you yet, so who knows if you could be
accepted or not as another entity in that field. Also, a lot of people have
a lot of material hanging around for a while and to them it gets old, but no
one's heard it before. To everyone else, it's new material.
Back to topDate: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 01:22:17 -0400
From: Cecelia M Rasile <cleomio@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: A Conversation with RJ Gibb
Thank you so much for sharing this interview.
Chris Mathis wrote:
http://alturl.com/hz384
A Conversation with RJ Gibb
Mike Ragogna: RJ, 50 St. Catherine's Drive is the last project your dad was
working on before he passed away, so that must have been an incredibly
challenging task for you to complete because of the emotional bond you had
as father and son.
RJ Gibb: Yeah. He had started work on this project in 2006 to 2008, that's
when the recordings had taken place. I had at that time also composed a
couple of popular songs with him. We composed the Titanic requiem together
with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. That was later, we started that in
2010 and finished it in 2012 with the debut at Westminster Hall. But we had
actually been working on some popular songs before that and we had planned
to after the requieum as well. We had songs like "Instant Love," "One-Way
Love," "Syndey," about his brothers, which I actually did the production on
after he wrote it himself. There's another one that we had actually written
for the Titanic requiem that was added later, "Don't Cry Alone." So there
are four songs that we wrote together that will be on the album, but apart
from that I did the final production. Pete Vettese and him started the
production back in 2008 and then I started a couple of years ago and we just
finished last year. Number 50, Saint Catherine's Drive in the Isle of Mann
was the first house my father lived in. It was actually the house he was
brought back to from the hospital immediately following his birth. This was
a project he wanted to do because he wanted to team back up with Barry.
Barry wasn't feeling well at the time but when he was feeling a bit better=2C
they were going to get back together, so he shelved the album. So for about
four years, it just lay dormant and then when it came back up that Warner
wanted to put it out, we went into the studio and finished the production.
MR: Can you tell us more about that Titanic requiem, like how that came
together and what everybody's part was?
RG: Sure. My father and I had alwasy wanted to come out with an album
together, we were working on popular stuff as I said but the thing is I was
classically trained. When I started I was playing violin, trumpet, I then
went on to play guitar and keyboards and that's what I use to compose now=2C
but my father had always adored classical music, we both loved Mozart and
Schubert, so we teamed up with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. We decided
to do a requiem because it was the hundredth anniversary of the sinking of
the Titanic and we decided to do it as a tribute to the fallen of the
Titanic. It debuted at Westminster Hall, sadly he never made the opening as
he'd fallen into a coma and this was after going into remission about four
times, so this was after a long, hard battle. I think the requiem kept him
going for a long time as well because he had something to strive for.
Although he did come out of the coma after the debut...we played the
confutatis from the Titanic requiem and he woke up. He actually said to me
he could hear the song playing, it was actually incredible. We thought we
weren't going to see him again, they'd pretty much written him off. He had
been expected to sing that night at the debut, he was going to sing "Don't
Cry Alone," but as he sadly couldn't attend, they played a recording of the
vocals and the Royal Philharmonic played along. It was the first time I'd
ever seen at a purely classical concert people giving a standing ovation for
a recorded vocal. But, of course, I think that's the last time they thought
they were going to hear him.
MR: How did that experience leave you? You must have been riding high.
RG: Yeah, of course. I didn't know if that was the last time I would hear
his voice played in a musical hall or at a venue. We always had hope for
him, as I said he had gone through four remissions already, it was a hard
battle and he was a hard fighter. As a realist, I knew what could happen and
of course I think he also knew as well--he didn't write himself off but he
knew what could happen and I think that's what made him strive to do so many
things in the last few years. He knew he had cancer for about two and a half
years. We accomplished a lot, after the requiem we wrote a lot of popular
music together as well, those will be coming out at some point as well, he
was making films as well in the garden, it was unbelievable. He's made a few
comedy sketches, he was always into the Goons--Peter Sellers and Spike
Milligan. He had a sharp wit, a very dry sense of humor, a very admirable
sense of humor. I don't think I'll ever meet anyone like that again.
MR: To me, The Bee Gees seemed like they were Australia's most popular
export. Is that how Australia saw them?
RG: Well, yeah. He was born on the Isle of Mann and his parents were from
Manchester. He went back to Manchester and they grew up the first part of
their childhood there, but then they moved to Australia when they were about
nine or ten. That's when they started--my father said, "We've sung in some
of the best toilets in Australia,"--because they used to go to the toilets
to hear the echo for harmonies. Then they started playing for pennies at the
race track and they were picked up by a DJ over there who backed them up.
That's when they had their first number one, "Spicks & Specks." When they
came back to England their father had gotten in touch with Robert Stigwood
and the rest is history, really. They've always had a strong connection with
Australia, even now. Their sister stayed in Australia and she very much
considers herself Australian. A part of them always, I guess, considered
themselves British but another part considered themselves Australian.
MR: Ambassadors, maybe.
RG: Definitely.
MR: I think when you looked at the three of them I think even if Barry was
the overt ladies man, Robin seemed to really pop out as the backbone of the
band. How did the brothers function together as far as laying out
responsibilities?
RG: I think Barry had the image as the ladies' man and I think my father had
the boyish, angelic vocals and Maurice was the tech man, very good with
music. When my father even did a solo album it was Maurice who helped with
the music as well. You know, "Juliet." I just think Maurice was the music
mastermind, my father was the vocalist and Barry could work the crowds and
had a great voice when it came to some of the more modern stuff they got
into at that time, which was sort of the start of modern house music, the
disco era.
MR: Yes, a lot of people forget that. Were they as surprised as everyone
else that they conquered the world in that format?
RG: It started in France, really. They had written these blue-eyed soul
tracks, which is what they were calling it at the time. They had delved into
the new dance music and they tried their hand at it and just came up with
these tracks. Basically, they had taken one of their engineers at the time,
Blue Weaver, put a heartbeat monitor on him and were listening to the beat
and then they made one of the first drumloops by splicing together the tapes
around the room. This was the way they created these dance tracks with the
"thump thump thump," the four beat that you hear in a lot of modern house.
They didn't know what to do with it really, they were just experimenting.
Then Robert Stigwood said, "Look, I've got this new film coming out, it's
got no backing, no advertisement, do you guys have anything to put on it?"
They said, "Well funny enough we've just been playing around with dance
music if you want to hear what we've done in France." I think the cows
outside this small chalet were the first ones to hear "Stayin' Alive."
MR: [laughs]
RG: They sent it over to him and he said, "Wow, this is great." They took
about nine of the tracks and put them on and without any advertising, just
word of mouth, it got around. Disco was already around but I think this
completely revolutionized the way it was done.
MR: Yeah. A lot of the older disco records had the emphasis on repetetive
parts, extended dance mixes and all that, whereas The Bee Gees had a more
lyrical, traditional song-like structure that they really deeply understood.
RG: Yes, and they applied that to the four beat dance feel. I agree. We were
talking about some of the older tracks and coming out of Australia and
"Spicks & Specks." On 50 St. Catherine's Drive there are three potential
singles and one of them is actually, "I Am The World," which was the B-side
of "Spicks & Specks." The original version of the song was released in 1966
as the B-side of the hit. My dad decided to record a new version for the new
album, he wrote a new middle eight for it. He loved the song because it was
one of the first songs he actually wrote. There's another one, "Days Of Wine
& Roses," where the song itself is actually a reverse. He played it
backwards from a song, "Broken Wings." He played that song backwards and he
came up with "Days Of Wine & Roses," which is another potential single for
this album. But the third potential single is the song we wrote together,
"Instant Love," which is quite poignant because it's the last time we
actually sang together. It's father and son together, sing a verse each and
then duetting on the chorus. "I Am The World" is definitely coming out as a
single but the other two are the ones people should look for as singles
promoting the album.
MR: "Days Of Wine & Roses" is an Oscar Wilde reference. How did that
particular inspiration come about?
RG: My father and I both had a lot of respect for Oscar Wilde because he's
one of the best wits of the nineteenth century. He didn't have many plays=2C
but I think what he was actually remembered for in society and what people
wrote about him was what he would actually say to people. My father always
respected great witty comedy and I think that's probably what drew him to
Oscar. A lot of his plays are not as witty as I would say he was in his
private life and what people have written about him and their experiences
with him as a person. I love his plays though, I love him as a literary
giant definitely. It was Ernest Dowson, the poet who had originally penned
the phrase, "They are not long, the days of wine of wine and roses." Oscar
Wilde used the quote when his literary peer Ernest Dowson died. My dad did
admire him for his wit as we were just saying, but I think when he found the
phrase as an ode to his friend it kind of reminded him of Maurice and of
others he'd lost. I think it was kind of poignant thing because it also
talks about the days when they were young and coming up in the world and
remembering all the beautiful things in the past. I think it struck a note
with him.
MR: "Wherever You Go" was originally called "Wing & A Prayer" and there's a
story behind that. The title originally came from the World War II patriotic
song?
RG: Yes. "Wing & A Prayer" was actually a song that The Bee Gees wrote
together. My father realized that people would remember it a lot easier if
it had an original title, so "Wherever You Go" was the new title. It was
changed to avoid confusion, basically. The original title came from the
famous American second world war patriotic song by Harold Adamson and Jim
McHugh. They wrote a song about a plane struggling home from combat, "Comin'
In On A Wing And A Prayer." My father and myself have always loved military
history, my father started helping the Bomber Command Memorial Fund which I
still support now as well because Bomber Command here was the outfit that
lost more troops than any other outfit. God, there were over fifty five
thousand killed and they never put a monument up for them, they tried to
distance themselves from them. They didn't realize the strategic importance.
It wasn't just retaliation bombing that they were doing. Even Churchill,
before he distanced himself, said, "It's the bombers that will win the war,"
because they brought one million Wehrmacht off the frontlines, brought them
into the cities, and also brought all of the 88-millimeter flak guns into
the cities to protect them. It took them off the frontlines and allowed the
allies to advance. They also took out the entire Wolfpack in dock--the
U-boats. But they were never recognized. He campaigned, it was one of the
last things he did--and we did it as a family, really, as well. We
campaigned to get the monument put up in Green Park, it's now one of the
most visited monuments in London.
MR: What's the backstory on "Alan Freeman Days"?
RG: Well he was an Australian, he was a celebrated radio disc jockey in the
United Kingdom in the sixties, seventies, and eighties. He's someone that my
father truly kept in his heart and admired and he loved the man over a long
period of time because he had a special memory of Alan dating back to the
late 1960s when The Bee Gees had temporarily split up. Soon after the split
my dad released his first solo album called Robin's Reign. Probably, the
most famous solo song that my father wrote was "Saved By The Bell." Alan
Freeman, who was known as Fluff, told my father that there were certain
entities who wanted the Bee Gees to get back together. My father did want to
get back together as well with The Bee Gees but a lot of people didn't
realize this was the case.
When my father came out with a solo album because he wanted to keep working
they thought it was going to stop The Bee Gees from getting back together.
My dad just wanted to work in the mean time until The Bee Gees got back
together. What they did was they tried to put spanners in the works and they
asked the DJs--or tried to backhand the DJs not to play my dad's song
thereby reducing the chances of it becoming successful. But Alan Freeman was
the only DJ who said no. He wouldn't take any backhands and he stood up
against these entitites and decided that "Saved By The Bell" was a number
one hit, it should be out and it should be heard and he was going to play it
regardless of the pressure. It went on to become a hit. It didn't become a
number one hit in England, it reached number two, but it's still remembered
as a classic.
My father never forgot what Alan did for him and he frequently communicated
with Alan and visited him when he was sick and being cared for him at
Brinsworth House which was a home for retired actors and others in the
entertainment industry. So as president of the Heritage Foundation, which
was where support of the whole Bomber Command Memorial came about he decided
that Alan should have a blue plaque. Anyone who's alive gets a green plaque
if they're being honored, say outside the building where they used to work,
but they get a blue plaque if they've passed away. After Alan passed away he
pushed and insured for Alan to have his blue plaque at Brinsworth house
acknowledging Alan's contributions, not just to him but to music in general.
He was one of the great DJs of the sixties to the eighties. My dad wrote the
song in honor of Mister Alan Freeman.
MR: What do you think your dad's legacy is going to be? And what do you
think the legacy of The Bee Gees is going to be?
RG: Well I think they've already proved themselves as one of the greatest
acts of the twentieth century, they have one of the most extensive and most
successful catalogs out there. There are people like Mozart who was
basically honored for his accomplishments long after his death and there are
people like my father who were honored during their lifetime. I think their
legacy doesn't matter either way. If you write amazing music, whether you're
honored during your lifetime or not these contributions to music will stick
and people will try to emulate them and people will always be compared to
people like The Bee Gees or to entities like them. They set the standard,
really.
MR: Well, during the lifespan of the group, they contributed so much that it
already mattered a lot.
RG: That's right. I also think that what we all do is make something
eternal, something that lasts long beyond our deaths. That's why I said it
didn't matter if they were recognized after or during because that's what we
all strive to do is make our stamp on the world and to make something that
people will love and cherish and to make people feel happier about
themselves through music and just to make something eternal. That's the only
way we live forever is through our work and what we leave behind.
MR: That's so true. What are you personally working as an artist now?
RG: Myself? I will continue to make classical works but at the same time I'm
producing my own album at the moment which is a popular music album. I'm
also working on house music and trance music for Ibiza. You'll see not only
this dance music that's going to Ibiza but I'll also be coming out with an
actual popular album that I've been working on for the last year and a half.
Apart from that I'm also a mentalist, a psychological magician really. I've
been doing this kind of work since I was fifteen but I've really just
decided to push it forward into the professional scene in the last two
years. I've known quite a few mentalists during my lifetime including Uri
Geller, he's a close friend of the family. I've always been interested in
this type of magic, psychological ideomotor response using hypnotics and
neurolinguistic programming. It's used to bring about effects that either
make peope do what you want to do or make it seem like they're happening.
Basically, you could call it a type of magician or illusionist. But I'm
doing Children In Need at The Savoy Hotel this October, which is being
hosted by Terry Wogan. That's the first big gig I'm doing as a mentalist.
But apart from that I'm coming out with my popular music album and I'm doing
another project in Ibiza as I said with dance music. And I studied for seven
years under Andy Hinds at Classic Stage Ireland, so I'm also an actor. I'm
currently in that sphere, I have an agent for acting. I've always been
interested in the performing arts, which is where mentalism comes into it as
well, because it is a performance art. That's really where I am right now.
MR: RJ, what advice do you have for new artists?
RG: I would say never let anyone bring you down or tell you that what you're
doing isn't good enough, believe in yourself, learn from your mistakes and
always make music that you would buy. Don't try and emulate everyone, don't
try and be another clone, there's so many of the same out there but there's
only one you. The world hasn't seen you yet, so who knows if you could be
accepted or not as another entity in that field. Also, a lot of people have
a lot of material hanging around for a while and to them it gets old, but no
one's heard it before. To everyone else, it's new material.
"Words & Music", Fans Of The Brothers Gibb ( Bee Gees )
http://www.brothersgibb.com
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End words@brothersgibb.com message digest 09/30/2014 03:01 (#2014-278)