The Bee Gees - Acoustic Hits Live (2001)

Mike is back from a well-deserved break in the good ole US of A, and his latest effort is a collection from a band that very rarely let you down, The Bee Gees. Over to Mike... 

I'm back. and this time around I have an acoustic concert that I created of the Bee Gees Greatest Hits - Live. Who'da thunk it but it turns out that there have been a ton of acoustic performances made available of the group playing acoustically since they formed back in 1960. And I listened to everyone! But before I could start I had to set up strict guidelines to pick which of the many versions out there that I would include. My criteria was very, very strict! I based it on one single note. If they hit that note strong then the whole show was a keeper. If not, and their voices cracked or wavered even the tiniest bit, I ditched the whole show! We all know the note… it's the one everybody uses when they are “attempting“ to demonstrate what makes the Bee Gees, well…the Bee Gees. I said “attempting to hit”, as no one ever hits that note, it's just too damn high! The note is in 'How Do You Mend A Broken Heart' and it happens just after the first verse and before the chorus. Trust me, it's high! With that said, this acoustic concert has a bunch of great soundboard sources including the VH1 Storytellers concert from 1990, two fantastic unplugged shows from 1981 and 1983, a couple of performances from Las Vegas in 1997 and a wonderful A&E Live By Request presentation from 2001. Their harmonies during each are stellar and their performances are almost flawless. I say almost because in one place... well, youʼll hear on track 24. Besides that one rare live flub (always fun to see people are human), I've also added as bonus cuts two incredible extras. One is a writing session where the guys are just sitting around a piano working out the details of one of their classics 'How Deep Is Your Love?', and the other is well, just indescribable...at least in the presence of ladies and all the good folk who are my fans. So here it is. I hope you enjoy my version of an Album I Wish Existed: The Bee Gees Acoustic Greatest Hits - Live!

Track listing

01 I've Got To Get A Message To You
02 To Love Somebody
03 I Started A Joke
04 Lonely Days
05 How Do You Mend A Broken Heart?
06 Jive Talkin'
07 Stayin' Alive
08 How Deep Is Your Love?
09 Islands In The Stream
10 Heartbreaker
11 Still Waters
12 I Could Not Love You More
13 Words
14 Holiday
15 Guilty
16 Nights On Broadway
17 Too Much Heaven
18 You Should Be Dancing
19 Massachusetts
20 New York Mining Disaster 
21 Paradise
22 Blue Island
23 Three Kisses Of Love 

Bonus tracks
24 How Can You Mend A Broken Heart (false start)
25 How Deep Is Your Love (writing session)
26 To Lose Your Penis - (For The National Addadicktome Foundation)

Sources:
Tracks 1-13 VH1 Storytellers 1990 
Tracks 19-21, 23-24 Capital Radio Studios 1981
Track 22 MTV's Most Wanted 1993
Tracks 16-17 One Night Only MGM Grand Las Vegas 1997
Track 14-15, 18 A&E Live By Request 2001
Tracks 25-26 Unknown

PS. Thanks go out to pj for all his help arranging, editing and general overall tinkering this collection! What started as a Mike Solof production ended up much more a co-project

and I thank him tons and tons for his help!

The Bee Gees - August October (1970)

In March 1969 Robin Gibb announced that he was leaving the Bee Gees to pursue a solo career, and so the remaining brothers Barry and Maurice knew that they would have to start working more closely together in order to keep the group going. Maurice has said that he looked forward to it, as it meant that they could bring anyone they liked into things, and he could see that it would enable him to contribute more vocals to the songs. In May 1969 the brothers started recording their next album, laying down 'Don't Forget To Remember', along with other songs 'I Lay Down And Die', 'Give A Hand, Take A Hand' and 'Bury Me Down By The River'. At the time the band was considering a replacement for Robin, but despite auditioning Peter Mason, who recorded a few test vocals with the group, the brothers decided not to offer him the job, and it was in fact at this time that drummer Colin Petersen was sacked from the band, cementing the line-up as just two brothers. Although Maurice could have stepped in, as he was a multi-instrumentalist and could play the drums, Pentangle drummer Terry Cox was brought it to complete the recordings. At the same time as recording the 'Cucumber Castle' album, Barry and Maurice were making a film of the same name as the record, with filming starting on 11 August 1969, and they returned to the studio in September to record seven more songs for the album. When the film was released, all of Petersen's scenes from the film were cut and he is not credited on the accompanying album, though he does play on some songs. The film itself is very much of it's time, and although it includes a host of respected UK comedians such as Frankie Howard, Spike Milligan, Eleanor Bron, and Julian Orchard, plus musicians Lulu, Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Ric Grech, Steve Winwood, Roger Daltry, and Donovan as well as an appearance by Vincent Price, it's not really a very good film. The plot revolves around two heirs, Prince Frederick (Barry Gibb) and his brother Prince Marmaduke (Maurice Gibb), and their dying father (Frankie Howerd). On his death bed, The King orders his kingdom divided into two halves, the Kingdom of Jelly and the Kingdom of Cucumbers, but before the king dies, Prince Frederick declares himself the "King of Cucumber" and Prince Marmaduke becomes the "King of Jelly". The film intersperses comedy sketches with Bee Gees songs plus performances by Lulu and Blind Faith, and for many years I assumed that the 'Cucumber Castle' album was the soundtrack to the film, when in fact they just share a title and aren't really connected, although some songs appear on both. Because of this I tended to ignore the album, skipping directly from 'Odessa' to '2 Years On', but after listening to a fascinating podcast about the band I've changed my mind. Christiano and Stuart produce a regular podcast looking at the output of the group, and the latest was a dive into Maurice's 'The Loner', which was posted here some years ago. After I'd listened to that I started to work my way backwards and listened to the one about 'Cucumber Castle', and this is what prompted me to re-evaluate the album. At the end of the podcast, both guys picked four songs from Robin's 'Saved By The Bell' album that they would have liked to have seen on 'Cucumber Castle', and that gave me the idea of doing the same, to see what they could have made if Robin hadn't left. Opinions were very similar on which songs to take from 'Robin's Reign', and which ones to lose from 'Cucumber Castle', and so I've sequenced four of Robin's songs into the body of the album, and also added one out-take which was really too good to leave off, which extended a rather short record into a more acceptable 38 minutes. As this breaks the links with the 'Cucumber Castle' film, it no longer needs that title, so it's also renamed (the original title was mooted to be 'Lay Down And Die' but that was deemed a bit too depressing) and I've also housed it in a new cover featuring all three brothers.  

Track listing

01 If Only I Had My Mind On Something Else
02 August October
03 Then You Left Me
04 The Lord
05 Give Me A Smile
06 Lay Down And Die
07 Saved By The Bell
08 Sweetheart
09 Who Knows What A Room Is
10 Bury Me Down By The River
11 Mother And Jack
12 Don't Forget To Remember

Check out Christiano and Stuart's brilliant Bee Gees podcast 'Words' here:  https://link.chtbl.com/mPGE_Iwm?s=09 

Barry Gibb - The Kid's No Good (1970)

As mentioned in the Robin Gibb post, all three brother took time out in 1970 to record solo albums, none of which were ever released. Barry began recording his album on 15th February 1970, completing four songs: 'The Victim', the country-styled 'I'll Kiss Your Memory', 'Moonlight' and 'Summer Ends', with the last two being held back and instead offered to other artists for later release. On 20th February Gibb recorded 'It's Over', also known as 'I Just Want To Take Care Of You', and two days later laid down 'Mando Bay', 'Born', 'Clyde O'Reilly', and 'Peace In My Mind'. On 9th March he recorded 'What's It All About', 'This Time' and 'The Day Your Eyes Meet Mine', and a couple of weeks later he recorded the last two songs, the upbeat pop number 'One Bad Thing' and the soft ballad 'Happiness'. 'I'll Kiss Your Memory' / 'This Time' were released as a single but didn't chart, and a follow-up was mooted in 'One Bad Thing' / 'The Day Your Eyes Meet Mine', but Atco's initial batch of this were destroyed, and the few surviving copies are now considered collectors items. Before the album could be released Barry reconciled with Maurice and the two of them recorded the 'Cucumber Castle' album as The Bee Gees, and so both this record and Maurice's 'The Loner' were shelved. Of the two posts so far, this is the more varied, with the songs including some nice pop/rock numbers, whereas Robin's album was rather heavy on the ballads. 

Track listing

01 Mando Bay
02 One Bad Thing
03 The Day Your Eyes Meet Mine
04 Happiness
05 Peace in My Mind
06 Clyde O'Reilly
07 I Just Want to Take Care of You
08 I'll Kiss Your Memory
09 The Victim
10 This Time
11 What's It All About
12 Born

Maurice Gibb - The Loner (1970)

Towards the end of the 60's, following the release of their three classic pop albums and the experimental 'Odessa', the Bee Gees broke up, after all three brothers decided that they wanted to release solo albums. Robin recorded some songs for his 'Sing Slowly Sisters' album, Barry did the same for his 'The Kids No Good', while Maurice's album was to be called 'The Loner'. The first song to be recorded was 'Railroad' which was also released as a single, and although it didn't fare that well, he carried on recording until he had enough material for an album. In the end none of the three albums were ever released, after Maurice and Barry reunited as The Bee Gees for the 'Cucumber Castle' album, with Robin also re-joining them later, but songs from each proposed record have leaked onto the net, and so it's just possible to piece together what the albums might have sounded like. For Maurice's album, the songs were scattered over a number of sites, and while some were easy to find, I'd almost given up ever tracking down the opening instrumental 'Journey To The Misty Mountains' until I stumbled upon it on one of the very last sites I tried, and discovered that it actually segues into the title track, which I hadn't realised from the other recordings of it that I'd found up to then. We have a rough track listing, and so I've managed to find nearly all the songs, apart from one instrumental, and by substituting two other songs from the same period, and adding one that he wrote for a 1970 stage musical starring Barbara Windsor, I've pieced together a 40 minute reconstruction of what the album could have sounded like. The cover doing the rounds on the bootleg version (no longer available) was awful, making his nose look massive, and showing way too many teeth, so I've used the sleeve of the single version of the title track, which is still not great, but much better than the other one. 

Track listing

01 Journey To The Misty Mountains (Instrumental) >
02 The Loner 
03 Please Lock Me Away 
04 I've Come Back
05 Soldier Johnny
06 She's The One You Love
07 Ping Pong
08 Railroad 
09 Laughin' Child
10 Something's Blowing 
11 Silly Little Girl
12 Insight
13 Danny
14 Till I Try
15 Touch And Understand Love
16 This Time

This is an upgraded version of the original post, with a slightly different track listing and better sound quality on some songs. 

Maurice Gibb - The Loner (1970) UPGRADE

I've been sent a rip of this complete album including bonus tracks, courtesy of TheLazenby, and so I now have the two missing instrumentals that I couldn't find earlier, and also some additional bonus tracks to flesh out the running time. 'Danny' and 'Till I Try' were both recorded in 1971 after Maurice announced that he'd been offered the chance to score the Richard Harris film 'Bloomfield'. However, the film's musical director Johnny Harris denied this, and said Maurice could submit one song, so he chose instead to re-record 'The Loner' as his contribution, and these two songs remained unreleased. I've now realised that I had the wrong version of 'Silly Little Girl', being the one which had been amalgamated with parts of 'Danny' by producer Stephen Morgan, and I've removed the track from the 'Sing A Rude Song' musical, as I've since discovered that even though Maurice sang on it, he didn't write it, so it didn't really belong here. Lastly, I've boosted the bass on a couple of the thinner sounding songs so that they better match the rest of the album, so all in all this is a major upgrade on my original post, and even if you've already grabbed it then it's worth upgrading to this version.

Track listing

01 Journey To The Misty Mountains (Instrumental) >

02 The Loner 

03 Please Lock Me Away 

04 I've Come Back

05 Soldier Johnny

06 She's The One You Love

07 Ping Pong

08 Railroad 

09 Laughin' Child

10 Something's Blowing 

11 Silly Little Girl

12 Insight
13 Danny
14 Till I Try

15 Touch And Understand Love

16 This Time

Barry Gibb - The Kid's No Good (1970) UPGRADE

TheLazenby has noticed that my original post of this album seemed to be running as the wrong speed, resulting in some of the songs being in the wrong key, so he's very kindly sent me a replacement copy, ripped from the original master tapes. Some of the differences are quite noticeable, so it's worth upgrading to this copy if you've already got this one.

Track listing

01 Mando Bay
02 One Bad Thing
03 The Day Your Eyes Meet Mine
04 Happiness
05 Peace in My Mind
06 Clyde O'Reilly
07 I Just Want to Take Care of You
08 I'll Kiss Your Memory
09 The Victim
10 This Time
11 What's It All About
12 Born

The Bee Gees - A Kick In The Head Is Worth Eight In The Pants (1973) UPGRADE

Thanks once again to TheLazenby for providing me with a major upgrade to this Bee Gees album, again from the master tapes. As with the Barry Gibb album, some of the songs were running at the wrong speed, and others were a bit muffled, so this version is as pristine as it can be.

Track listing

01 Elisa

02 Wouldn't I Be Someone

03 A Lonely Violin

04 Losers And Lovers

05 Home Again Rivers

06 Dear Mr. Kissinger

07 Jesus In Heaven

08 Harry's Gate

09 Rocky L.A.

10 Castles In The Air

11 Where Is Your Sister

12 It Doesn't Matter Much To Me

13 King And Country

14 (Life) Am I Wasting My Time

The Bee Gees - A Kick In The Head Is Worth Eight In The Pants (1973)

At the end of 1972 The Bee Gees had recorded enough songs for two new albums. The first to be released, in January 1973, was 'Life In A Tin Can', with 'Saw A New Morning' being issued as the lead single. This wasn't as big a hit a some of their previous offerings, only reaching No. 94 in the US chart, and the parent album didn't fare much better, peaking at No. 69. When the time came to release the second of the two records, a single was floated as a taster, but 'Wouldn't I Be Someone' was no more successful than its predecessor, and so Robert Stigwood and RSO Records decided not to issue the record. Some tracks have since appeared as b-sides or singles in their own right, but the album as a whole has only ever been heard on leaked bootlegs. Although the band have confirmed that it will never be officially released, it's really not that bad, and has a number of fine songs on it. Obviously it doesn't reach the dizzy heights of their trio of late 60's albums, but fans of the group deserve to be able to hear it and make up their own mind.

Track listing

01 Elisa
02 Wouldn't I Be Someone
03 A Lonely Violin
04 Losers And Lovers
05 Home Again Rivers
06 Dear Mr. Kissinger
07 Jesus In Heaven
08 Harry's Gate
09 Rocky L.A.
10 Castles In The Air
11 Where Is Your Sister
12 It Doesn't Matter Much To Me
13 King And Country
14 (Life) Am I Wasting My Time

Robin Gibb - Sing Slowly Sisters (1970)

Towards the end of the 60's, following the release of their three classic pop albums and the experimental 'Odessa', the Bee Gee broke up, after all three brothers decided that they wanted to release solo albums. Maurice recorded 'The Loner' album, Barry did the same with his 'The Kids No Good', while Robin's album was to be called 'Sing Slowly Sisters'. In the end none of the three albums were ever released, but songs from each proposed record have leaked onto the net, and so it's just possible to piece together what the albums might have sounded like. Robin seemed to progress faster than his brothers, and had an album pretty much ready to go in 1970, but then Barry and Maurice got back together as a duo for the 'Cucumber Castle' album and accompanying film - if you get a chance to watch this on Youtube then do spare the time as although it is very, very bad, the cast list is stellar, including Frankie Howard, Spike Milligan, Vincent Price, Lulu, and all of Blind Faith, as well as uncredited appearances from Mick Jagger, Donovan and Marianne Faithful. Although 'Cucumber Castle' wasn't one of their best albums, it did well enough to tempt Robin back into the fold for the follow-up '2 Years On', and once that happened then the solo albums were permanently put on the back-burner. Robin's album is fairly easy to piece together, and so here it is, as it would have sounded back in 1970.

Track listing

01 Life
02 I've Been Hurt
03 Irons On The Fire
04 Cold Be My Days
05 Avalanche
06 It's Only Make Believe
07 All's Well That Ends Well
08 A Very Special Day
09 Sky West And Crooked
10 Sing Slowly Sisters
11 C'est La Vie, Au Revoir

The Bee Gees - The 1st Horizontal Idea (1968)

I love the Bee Gees' early work, and their first three UK albums are among the best pop records of the late 60's. Like a lot of bands of this era they tended to put new songs on the B-sides of their singles and EP's, and the Bee Gees in particular also recorded a lot of completely unused songs which were stored in the vault. It was therefore relatively easy to compile this collection of non-album tracks just from the period 1967-1968, which covered their first thee albums - '1st', 'Idea', and 'Horizontal' (you can now see where the title came from). I added in the hit single 'Words', as this also never appeared on an album until their hits collections. 

Track listing

01 Gilbert Green
02 House Of Lords
03 I've Got To Learn
04 All Around My Clock
05 Mr. Wallor's Wailing Wall
06 Out Of Line
07 Ring My Bell
08 Mrs. Gillespie's Refrigerator
09 Deeply, Deeply Me
10 Chocolate Symphony
11 Bridges Crossing Rivers
12 Completely Unoriginal
13 Gena's Theme
14 Jumbo
15 Singer Sang His Song
16 Barker Of The U.F.O.
17 Words
18 Sinking Ships
19 Sir Geoffrey Saved The World