Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Music journalist Stanley (Let's Do It!) aims to restore the "misfit" Bee Gees to "their rightful place at the very top of pop's table" in this rewarding deep dive. "Inventive, shape-shifting, writers of death-haunted melodies, with voices that sounded like no one else," the Bee Gees kicked off their career early, with English brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb recording their first single, "The Battle of the Blue and the Grey," in 1963, when Barry was 15 and the twins just 13. After Vince Melouney and Colin Peterson joined the group, the Bee Gees climbed British charts in the late 1960s with such hits as "New York Mining Disaster 1941." Still, they struggled to sustain their success until producer Arif Mardin repackaged their sound to emphasize Barry's falsetto in the early 1970s, giving the music a sexier feel. In 1976, "You Should be Dancing" catapulted the group into the disco stratosphere, an ascendancy cemented by their inclusion on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack in 1977. With the group considered passé by the early 1980s, the Gibb brothers worked as producers and lyricists for such performers as Barbra Streisand and Dionne Warwick. The band reunited after younger brother Andy's 1988 death and hit the charts again in the late 1980s and '90s. Stanley meticulously investigates the chart-busting Bee Gees' paradoxical "outsider status," contending that it partly resulted from a "lack of worldliness" born of their "child-star upbringing," and gives welcome due to their idiosyncratic lyrics and lush harmonies. The band's devotees will celebrate this definitive biography. (Feb.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
The Bee Gees had nine number one hit songs on the Billboard Top 100 chart--more than any group except the Beatles and the Supremes. In a career that spanned more than four decades, they sold an estimated 220 million records worldwide, and they influenced groups such as the Moody Blues and Oasis. But Stanley (Let's Do It: The Birth of Pop Music) asserts that they did not garner the respect they deserved--a situation he seeks to rectify with this well-written biography. Until the late 1950s, the Bee Gees (formed of older brother Barry and twins Robin and Maurice) lived in Manchester, England, where they were singing and recording before they were teens. The author chronicles the group's ups and downs--up in the 1960s, down in the early 1970s, then back up when Barry discovered his falsetto and Saturday Night Fever introduced them to disco. They were awarded the Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award and royal honors from Prince Charles. Sadly, their music stopped with the deaths of Maurice (1949--2003) and Robin (1949--2012). VERDICT This detailed and well-researched biography gives the Bee Gees proper respect. For fans of the group and music memoirs.--Rosellen "Rosy" Brewer
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A tribute to an epic yet underappreciated group in pop music history. British music journalist Stanley, author of Let's Do It: The Birth of Pop Music, offers a comprehensive exploration of the Bee Gees, elevating their public perception from "misfit" group to "major presence on the pop scene for four whole decades." He chronicles the lives of brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb, from poverty-stricken roots, watching their father struggle to buy food, to first harmonizing together as the Rattlesnakes on stage in 1958. Success began to simmer after the family relocated to Australia and the brothers rebranded themselves as the Bee Gees. Their first single was "The Battle of the Blue and the Grey," recorded in 1963, when all three were teenagers, and they followed with the hit songs "Massachusetts" and "New York Mining Disaster 1941." Stardom came calling when Vince Melouney and Colin Petersen joined the group, followed by producer Arif Mardin, whose risky rearrangement of the band's core sound capitalized on the "heightened excitement" of Barry's falsetto. Then came their seemingly endless string of disco hits in the late 1970s and '80s, the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, various celebrity collaborations, and the tragic death of brother Andy in 1988. More revivals followed as the group continued to record until their run abruptly ended with the death of Maurice in 2003. Each of these meticulously researched details pops as Stanley puts his seasoned narrative flair to entertaining use, recounting the group's evolution as a global sensation stemming from the wave of hits they wrote, produced, and performed across every decade. A lengthy discography provides a fitting closer to a fond biography intensively exploring a band who were "inventive, shape-shifting, writers of death-haunted melodies, with voices that sounded like no one else." A bright, informative, essential retrospective for Bee Gees fans. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
