Both died of cancer within a week of each other . Of the four brothers, only one is left—the tanned one. Arguably, the Bee Gees and Donna Summer were the efflorescence of disco.
If you had a bone to shake in the 80s and didn’t shake it, you didn’t have ears. This is from 1983:
And an early Bee Gees song featuring Robin, recorded live in Melbourne in 1974:
Great Bee Gee video. Love the hair and the fashion of the 70s
I prefer the early BeeGees stuff.
BTW, is “I started a joke” really about JC?
It’s sad the Donna Summers’ religious beliefs caused her to disavowal some of earlier music. There are many other black American artists whose creativity is being hampered by their religious beliefs.
The Bee Gees are definitely one of the most underrated bands. Their songwriting and performances from the 60’s were really great.
Tangential disco-related anecdote:
Nile Rodgers of Chic tells the story when he was queueing up outside Studio 54, hearing some of the dance anthems he had co-written, performed and produced; the bouncers wouldn’t let him in, he assumed because he wasn’t beautiful enough or the wrong colour.
He was so angry that he went away and wrote ‘Le Freak’ – ‘Aaaaah, freak out!’. The original lyrics had the ‘f’ and the ‘k’, but had a more anglo-Saxon imperative.
Life would be so much poorer without the talents of persons like Donna Summer and Barry Gibb.
My thanks to them for the pleasure of the music they made.
I noticed a few weeks ago, while Robin Gibb was in a coma, the local golden oldies station had Stayin’ Alive in rotation and playing quite often.
That’s so sad, I didn’t know Robin was ill. They don’t make old bones, those Gibb boys. Poor Barry, so unfortunate to have so many brothers and still be alone so young. Their music was brilliant.
Yes, it’s sad. These are big losses. At least the ABBA four are still going strong*.
*And don’t be dissing on ABBA. We ABBAites are putting the finishing touches on our religion’s Hell, so don’t push it! 😉
Any particular reason you decided to take note of her death and not Dietrich Fischer-Deskau’s?
Beg to differ. Disco sucks.
It sucked back then–I was there–and it still sucks today.
Did you know that it’s possible to dance to music that has some meaning, sophistication, honesty, artistry, and/or integrity? It’s true!
Condolences to the families, friends, and fans of the departed, but they were performers rather than artists. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, just that people who really ‘had ears’ back then were into other stuff.
(I do admit to kind of liking a few pre-disco songs by the Bros. Gibb, from back when they were Beatles imitators.)
(Yes, I’m an insufferable musical-elitist asshole. But I used to be worse.)
Robin Gibb wasn’t an artist? A man who wrote,composed and produced thousands of songs with his brothers,who never relied on a single cover song on any of of their studio albums(they recorded their first when they were teenagers) wasn’t an artist? Claiming to be an elitist puts you into a status where you don’t belong,because you’re both clueless and a cloth-eared moron that wouldn’t know the first thing about music if it slapped you in the face.
And as far as sophistication and artistry goes,most disco music produced in the 70’s was produced using some of the finest session musicians,using full horn and string sections,which tended to cost a lot of money and proved damn near impossible for local clubs to re-create that sound.This wasn’t some local mall recording sessions.
Try and do some research next time,moron.