Barry Gibb - Summer Staff Picks

Our summer tradition at Here’s the Thing continues, as staff members choose their favorite conversations from the archives for our Summer Staff Pick series. This week, we revisit Alec’s conversation with Barry Gibb, the last surviving member of the legendary Bee Gees. Barry reflects on the group’s rise from childhood dreams of stardom to becoming one of the best-selling music acts of all time. He speaks with Alec about the brothers’ signature “blood harmony,” their songwriting legacy, and navigating the highs and lows of fame and family. Barry also shares how he continues to honor the Bee Gees’ music—most recently through the HBO documentary How Can You Mend a Broken Heart and his Nashville-inspired album Greenfields: The Gibb Brothers Songbook (Vol. 1). See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:32Alec Baldwin?

  This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing from iHeart Radio. It's summer, and that means it's time for our tradition at Here's the Thing, where the staff share their favorite episodes from our archives in our Summer Staff Picks series. Next up is producer Zach McNeese.

• 1:53Speaker 05

  Thanks, Alec. There are a few musical acts in history less polarizing than the Bee Gees. I can't recall anyone at any time in my life saying they weren't a fan. It's impossible not to sing along with mega hits like Stayin' Alive, How Deep Is Your Love, More Than a Woman, Night Fever. The list goes on and on. I was excited to have Barry Gibb on with Alec, and the conversation was wide-ranging and full of surprises. Here's Alec with Barry Gibb from 2021.

• 2:37Alec Baldwin?

  The recently released HBO documentary, How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, mentions the term "blood harmony" or "bioharmony," that unique blend when siblings sing together. Think The Beach Boys, The Jackson 5, The Everly Brothers, and The Bee Gees.

• 3:07Alec Baldwin?

  My guest today is Barry Gibb. With his younger twin brothers, Robin and Morris, The Bee Gees conquered the world with their ethereal harmonies. Today, Barry misses his brothers. Morris died in 2003, Robin in 2012. I wanted to know if he'd ever considered what kind of solo career he might have had.

• 3:31Speaker 06

  Well, I don't know. I know what I wanted. I wanted to be a pop star or a rock star or whatever it is that goes through our heads at that point. At some point in your life, you wanted to be an actor, you know? All I know is that the moment that my brothers began to do individual things and I didn't know about them, then I thought, well, it's OK. I can do individual things too. But I never did that before they did. And once that began, I thought, oh, wow. They've gone and done this on their own. Morris has done this, or Rob has done this. And it's pretty good, you know? Wow, I didn't know that they did that without even a question. So I figured, well, it was OK. And once Barbra Streisand came along, I just grabbed the bar, you know? I thought, this is a wonderful opportunity,

• 4:16Speaker 06

  and I love her. And the idea of working with her, I learned so much from that. And I think you learn things from just about everyone you work with. You just pick up something that you didn't know before.

• 4:29Alec Baldwin?

  Who brought you and Streisand together? Was it a producer?

• 4:32Speaker 06

  No, it was Barbra calling me up about 81, 82. And she just called up and said, will you make an album with me? And so after I got up off the ground, I told my wife and I told everybody in my family that I'd just had this call from Barbra Streisand. And of course, everyone's going, you gotta do it, you gotta do it. And I was terrified. So I came to the conclusion that if I call Neil Diamond, you don't bring me flowers, that he might give me some advice. So I called Neil Diamond. And I said, what is she like? What is it? What's the experience like working with her? He just said, don't worry about it. Just go do it.

• 5:15Speaker 06

  You know, everything falls into place if the stars align. Don't worry. He said, she's terrific and she's changeable, but that's fine. Just go with her, you know?

• 5:25Alec Baldwin?

  When you recorded with her, were you in the same studio for some portion or all of it or not?

• 5:30Speaker 06

  All of it. We cut all the tracks in Miami at Criteria, which is now the Hit Factory. The interesting thing about Barbara was that if she sang something, she considered it to be sung. She didn't think she had to sing it again. And that's old school, you know? It's like that's how she grew up. And I would say, you know, especially on Guilty, first song she sang, I said, can you give us about four or five tracks? And she says, well, I just sang it. And I said, no, no. Can you give us choices? Can you give us four or five tracks so that we can pick and choose which are the best moments? But I just sang it.

• 6:09Alec Baldwin?

  Boy, I'm gonna try that when I go to work. I'm like, well, that's it. It's, I'm like Bob Hope. I'm like, it's one take, fellas. Hope you got it. Was it in focus? I hope so.

• 6:17Speaker 06

  Hit the spot, say the words and get out.

• 6:19Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah. You talk about, you know, wanting multiple tracks to choose from. When you were recording with your brothers, was that a rule you had where you had unanimity about what the take was and what worked?

• 6:30Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 6:31Alec Baldwin?

  Or was there a decider there? Was there a producer there that you all entrusted the decision to?

• 6:35Speaker 06

  Um, myself, but really also adhering to my brothers' opinions. We never did anything where it was two out of three. It wasn't a democracy, you know? We had to be in total agreement about everything we were doing. So if we loved something, we were all one, you know? And, okay, what do we do next? What's the next step? Yeah, we need a lead guitar on this. We need something here, we need something there. But we were always in agreement. Real life is very different. So, you know, we didn't live together, but we did have the van. We did have the minivan with the Bee Gees on the side, you know.

• 7:12Alec Baldwin?

  People talk about the documentary has introduced, at least as far as I'm concerned, it might have existed somewhere else, the term bioharmony. And when I first heard that phrase, I was like, my God, I never thought about that, that they sing differently and they interact differently because they're actually related. Do you believe that's true?

• 7:32Speaker 06

  I'd never heard that. I'd never heard that. But yeah, I agree with all of that. And there are many different side stories to all of that. I mean, the Beatles sound like brothers. So there's a lot, there's a lot about where you come from. The Beatles come from Liverpool. They all have the same accent, the same tone, if you like. And so blending together was, was something special for them. You didn't really have to be brothers. And I was talking to Little Big Town yesterday and they are incredible. And they all come from the same basic area of the country. So it wasn't that they were blood. It was that they all had the same dialect, the same kind of tonality, you know? And that's Nashville.

• 8:12Alec Baldwin?

  When you're working with people that are your family.

• 8:15Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 8:15Alec Baldwin?

  And God knows.

• 8:17Speaker 06

  Yes, you have brothers.

• 8:19Alec Baldwin?

  I have brothers. In that way that you want everyone to do well. You know, like I want my brothers to do well and succeed and have what they want. And you realize that the business is fragile, you know, even when you're successful.

• 8:34Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 8:34Alec Baldwin?

  When you're with your brothers and you're recording with your brothers and they've been gone for a while now.

• 8:39Speaker 06

  Yeah, about eight years since Robin left.

• 8:42Alec Baldwin?

  So it's eight years now where both of them are gone. And when, when, when Morris passed away, was it understood between you and, and Rob that you wouldn't continue, just the two of you?

• 8:54Speaker 06

  No, Robin wanted us to, wanted to continue and I didn't. I didn't think it was the right thing to do. I, I, I thought we should suspend the group as it stood. And if we were going to work any more together, we would do it as, as the two, two brothers, you know? We wouldn't do it as the Bee Gees. So, but, but Robin didn't agree with me. He wanted to continue being the Bee Gees. And, but then low and behold, what I didn't know is that Robin was getting ill. And as time went on, he became more and more ill, but he didn't tell anybody. And so you could, you could see that something was wrong. Uh, but you didn't know what it was.

• 9:35Speaker 06

  And he, it wasn't like he was capable of, of really doing anything because in my opinion, he wasn't, you know, he was, he was going very frail very quickly.

• 9:45Alec Baldwin?

  Did you guys, when you went your separate ways, was there always a sense of like the Eagles and like Fleetwood Mac and like CSNY where they profess to have some tension between them, yet they always got back together because that band together whole was the cash cow for them. It was never going to be as successful as that. Did the Bee Gees go through the same thing where you, where each of you had your respective and you had a very successful solo career?

• 10:13Speaker 06

  Well, the background to all of that, what you've just said is really important. The cash cow was not the center of attention because, because for us it was always tough to get paid, always. That's, that's rock and roll, you know? And we didn't really make any real money until Saturday Night Fever. So success equals money. That wasn't happening for us.

• 10:37Alec Baldwin?

  Right.

• 10:37Speaker 06

  So, um, we didn't worry about it. What, what we worried about was getting more hits, making more records, writing more songs, you know? That was what preoccupied us. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, when we were doing Children of the World, they were sitting along, along the wall, four of them, watching us do the vocals. And they were in the next studio. So the greatest thing about all of those days is that the Eagles, Lynyrd Skynyrd were always in the next room or two rooms away. And in those days, you could visit each other. There was no, you know, you can't come in here. There was none of that, you know? And we enjoyed that. I could go in and listen to them. I played with them all night without coming up with anything creative.

• 11:21Speaker 06

  We were just having a blast, you know?

• 11:24Alec Baldwin?

  Was there a sense from you or all three of you that you had something special and that was the hand you wanted to play?

• 11:32Speaker 06

  Well, it was a brand name. Well, you know, then you're dealing with the brand name, which wasn't even called that when we were a group, you know? There was no such thing as a brand name, you know?

• 11:41Alec Baldwin?

  As branding, yeah.

• 11:42Speaker 06

  Yeah. So I've had people come up to me at Clive Davis's dinner a couple of years back. I work for Forbes magazine. I'd like to talk to you about branding.

• 11:53Speaker 06

  I didn't know anything about branding.

• 11:55Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah, he got me there.

• 11:56Speaker 06

  We just became a group. You know, so it wasn't really this is the cash cow. This is what we got to do. I think it was that way for a lot of people. But I remember the time when RSO, the company, took away our song copyrights without telling us. And so suddenly they owned all of our songs.

• 12:17Alec Baldwin?

  How were they able to do that?

• 12:19Speaker 06

  By forming a company in Holland and playing all kinds of tax games. They managed to acquire all of our copyrights without us knowing. And that caused really like World War Three. I mean, so you look at the period when the Bee Gees were in trouble. Look behind the scenes, you know, there was something else going on that was intense.

• 12:38Alec Baldwin?

  Were you able to get the rights back?

• 12:40Speaker 06

  Got them all back. But that took a lot of energy out of me. It took me about a year or two to finally get things back in in our own ownership. I told Robert Stigwood that I would never write another song if he didn't give back the songs. And Morris and Rob, they didn't really want to fight. They were still too naive. They just sort of, you know, it's we're having success. Let's not, let's not argue with it.

• 13:04Alec Baldwin?

  But did that fall on you to be the more the business mind in the trio? Would do the other two were more pure artists and they were like, hey, man, I really don't have the stomach for that.

• 13:14Speaker 06

  Well, I couldn't, I couldn't stomach the idea that someone could take away your songs. I just couldn't live with that. So if they were OK with that, it wasn't really a matter of that's how they felt. It was more a matter that Robert Stigwood and RSO played divide and conquer. You know, so they would nurture and be nice to Robin and Morris. And Robin and Morris wouldn't worry about it, you know?

• 13:37Alec Baldwin?

  Right.

• 13:37Speaker 06

  So it's all about that. It's people whispering in your ears. It's the same with every group, you know? There's always going to be someone in the industry that thinks they can make something out of you if you don't have your brothers. And that was said to Robin, was said to Morris and was said to me.

• 13:55Alec Baldwin?

  I want to do a movie about your career. I want to do a narrative film. And I want to play the record executive who gets each of you alone in the same evening. And says, you know, Morris, if you just unloaded these two losers, you have no idea.

• 14:08Speaker 06

  That's right.

• 14:09Alec Baldwin?

  The heights we could hit. And listen, Robin, these guys are just dead weight around your neck. I mean, your brother. I mean, we've seen every color they have. Barry, I mean, come on, these guys are just dragging you down, man, you know?

• 14:21Speaker 06

  All that stuff.

• 14:21Alec Baldwin?

  Divide and conquer.

• 14:23Speaker 06

  But industrial, yeah. Not the families, not the wives, but the people who sought to gain from something. Or to, or in fact to screw Robert Stigwood. You know, so it was, it was a huge industrial game. Ahmed Ertican, who was the head of Atlantic Records and Robert began to fall out. Because jive talking in the movie Saturday Night Fever, Robert only used the live version of jive talking so he wouldn't have to pay the extra. You know, and Arif Mardin and Ahmed went berserk because they didn't have a record in Saturday Night Fever. They didn't know it was going to be successful. In fact, most of the time, I think they doubted us anyway. So when that happened, they were unhappy. They were really unhappy.

• 15:08Speaker 06

  And so I think that was the cause of a lot of, a lot of crisis points for us as well as Robert.

• 15:20Alec Baldwin?

  I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. If you love conversations with legendary singers, be sure to check out my episode with the incomparable Barbra Streisand. We shared lunch and talked about our love for food and Barbra's early dreams of fame.

• 15:39Speaker 07

  I read Nancy Drew mysteries. I read movie magazines, you know, and dreamed that someday maybe I could be famous.

• 15:49Alec Baldwin?

  Did you have that dream then, when you were young?

• 15:52Speaker 07

  I would have my pint of coffee ice cream, Breyer's, and sit in my bed and dream. Go to the movies sometimes on a Saturday afternoon, The Lowes Kings, where they had the greatest ice cream. And we also, well, yeah.

• 16:09Speaker 08

  Hear the rest of my conversation with Barbra Streisand at hereisthething.org. After the break, we talk about disco and how the Bee Gees soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever in 1977 brought them near total domination of the music charts and the dance floor.

• 16:38Speaker 09

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• 17:26Speaker 08

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• 17:46Speaker 10

  I'm like a kid when I play music and I make music and I'm constantly asking questions. You know, whether it's an instrument I haven't played, or it's a melody that seems foreign. You know, there's every night you play a show and it's the same set, but it's not the same show. At a certain point, your brain kind of goes on autopilot. When I'm in the studio, or if I'm making music, that's where that curiosity kind of comes back, you know? I haven't lost it yet, but I'm also on my sophomore album, so. And you, you obviously are an expert here.

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• 18:56Alec Baldwin?

  I'm Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing.

• 19:08Alec Baldwin?

  The Bee Gees distinguished themselves vocally with their lush harmonies. Robin had his distinctive vibrato, Morris anchored the melody, and then like an ace pitcher discovering a slider, Barry found his falsetto.

• 19:29Speaker 06

  Well, it first happened on a song called Please Read Me, that I did a few different falsetto harmonies to that song, basically because of the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson. And I forgot all about that. So we were recording nights on Broadway, and Arif Marden, our producer at that point, said, can anybody scream like Paul McCartney? We all looked at each other and said, well, how do you mean? He said, well, you know, like, I saw her standing there and how Paul suddenly screams a high note. Can anyone, can any of you guys do that? And I said, well, I've, yeah, I'd done something like that way back. I said, but I became the volunteer. Nobody else really wanted to take a shot at that. So I went out there and...

• 20:14Speaker 06

  Just discovered it. At first, it was tentative and nervous and, and I didn't know what it was. And then it just began to get stronger and stronger.

• 20:23Alec Baldwin?

  With you and your brothers, there's such a quotient of beauty inside the music. There's so much sensitivity inside of the lyrics and the singing. And I'm wondering, when you would perform live, what was your ritual? If you had one, on the day of a live show, did you coddle your voice? How did you prep for a show?

• 20:47Speaker 06

  I would wake up singing because after a show, you lose your voice. It's gone. So the next morning, you just hope and pray that it's gonna come back again, you know? So when you wake up, you start warming up. So I'd be, I'd be doing a lot of this, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. Different range stuff. One set of principles for the falsetto, another set of principles for the real voice. Check out your highest note, do it all day. And it comes back, if you're lucky.

• 21:16Alec Baldwin?

  And how much before you would do a live show? How much would you rehearse prior to going on the road?

• 21:21Speaker 06

  Rehearsal would, would usually be about a month with weekends out. So you could work your chops back again. And that way you develop strength and you develop confidence. And these days, I have these three ladies that are amazing. And so any song where Robin might have sung, they cover me and they do those things. But there's actually nothing like walking from the dressing room to the stage. Nothing like it in the way.

• 21:49Alec Baldwin?

  Really?

• 21:49Speaker 06

  I think Bruce Springsteen said it. There's, there's something magical about hearing the crowd two minutes before you walk on the stage.

• 21:56Alec Baldwin?

  Coming, you're getting closer to them.

• 21:58Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:59Alec Baldwin?

  Music occupies such a unique place in people's lives and really dwarfs film and television.

• 22:07Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 22:08Alec Baldwin?

  Because film and television is something you have to make an appointment with. You have to sit and watch it. Where music is something that you can have in your life.

• 22:15Speaker 06

  You can have anywhere.

• 22:16Alec Baldwin?

  You can be driving, you could be having sex, you could be at the gym.

• 22:20Speaker 06

  All of the above.

• 22:21Alec Baldwin?

  You could be jogging. Music is in your ears at will, whenever you want it to be.

• 22:25Speaker 06

  That's true.

• 22:26Alec Baldwin?

  And therefore, I think when people, I always say the same line. When you die, you don't remember an episode of Seinfeld. You remember, how can you mend a broken heart? You know what I mean?

• 22:37Speaker 06

  Yes, I do. And then the question then becomes why? Why does music and harmonics and vibrations and notes mean so much to us? You know, I love Frank Sinatra as much as I love Pavarotti. I love the distant past, the immigrant music, as much as I love country music. I don't have categories, you know, I just love what I love and if I, it's not turning me on. But why? Why do we all do this, you know? What is the need in us? So I want to do something about that. I want, I'd love to do a program about trying to understand that.

• 23:11Alec Baldwin?

  I mean, this is a corny question, but like, have you ever stood there and you were gonna sing a lyric? There was a particularly exquisite lyric of one of your most famous songs? And you thought you were gonna break down crying?

• 23:25Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 23:26Alec Baldwin?

  Have you ever been almost overwhelmed by the music you're singing?

• 23:30Speaker 06

  Yes. We wrote a song called Wish You Were Here for Andy. Cause he passed away at the age of thirty. And we wanted to do it on stage. And we never could. So, you know, we got through about two or three lines and then looked at each other. And we can't do this. We just can't do this. It's, it, it makes, it just makes me cry. I just can't sing it. At least the song is there, you know? But yes, that was a moment, that was a moment. It's all part of it. You're, you're, in a way, you're sort of acting. And you're pretending to be someone that you probably don't believe you are anyway. You know? Um, the songs always move me. How Deep Is Your Love moves me and and Immortality, the song that Celine Dion.

• 24:14Alec Baldwin?

  I can't believe you said that. Every time I hear that song, I think, I would break down if I sang that song. Cause just the meaning of that song, you, you wrote that song?

• 24:22Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:23Alec Baldwin?

  What is that song about in your mind?

• 24:26Speaker 06

  Well, I think it's, uh, it's at some point in your life, you reflect on who you are and what you are. And, and the culmination of your opinion. And if you can do that, then everything's okay, you know, so. So for me, it's like, so this is who I am. This is all I know. And I must choose to live for all that I can give, the spark that makes the power grow.

• 24:47Alec Baldwin?

  But I also find it's kind of a poem, if you will, about being a famous artist. You know, like inside some of those lyrics, I hear someone sitting there going, there's no turning back for me now.

• 24:58Speaker 06

  That's right. That's right. But we don't say goodbye. And that, to me, is the key part of the song. It doesn't matter whether I'm here or not. There are no goodbyes, you know? And it was written for Robert Stigwood wanting a song for the stage version of Saturday Night Fever. And we'd already come up with the song. But he wanted the guy in the show to sing it. And I thought, but this is a woman's song. It's a woman's song. Some songs are for women and some songs are for men, you know? So there's a masculinity in some music and there's a femininity in music. That's why I worked with Barbara. That's why I worked with Diana Ross. The ability to.

• 25:35Alec Baldwin?

  Celine.

• 25:36Speaker 06

  Celine, to lock in to the feminine side, you know, and understand that. Barbara Streisand still doesn't quite understand what woman in love means. You know, it's.

• 25:51Speaker 06

  It's a right I defend.

• 25:52Alec Baldwin?

  We'll have to call her and get a rebuttal. We'll have to get a rebuttal.

• 25:54Speaker 06

  She says, it's a right I defend, which is in the song. She says, what does that mean? It's a right I defend. And I did spend some time explaining before the Me Too movement that women can fall in love too without telling anybody. It's not all down to the guy, you know? And I had to sort of talk her through that. Kenny Rogers still doesn't know what Islands in the Stream is about. Come on, Kenny.

• 26:21Alec Baldwin?

  Well, let's, let's, let's throw your cards on the table here. What songs that you've immortalized, do you not really know what they're about? Come on. It's, it's time for you to fess up. What song have you sang that you don't really get the meaning of?

• 26:32Speaker 06

  Uh, we never recorded a song that we didn't understand, you know? There were some very abstract songs. Lemons Never Forget, I think is a very abstract song and not everybody's favorite. Everything had a purpose to it. We began to learn from the Beatles that you could write about anything. You could write about life itself, you know? So you had paperback writer and you had Yellow Submarine and. And it was okay, you know, you can write about these things. It doesn't all have to be about having your heart broken or falling in love or. They went through that, but then they understood, they understood something about life. That's where Sergeant Pepper reached its point.

• 27:12Speaker 06

  The culmination of the peak of creativity that these guys were giving us, you know.

• 27:18Alec Baldwin?

  Well, when you you mentioned Sergeant Pepper.

• 27:20Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 27:20Alec Baldwin?

  And I think when you go into Saturday Night Fever. And when you're inside that experience and you're recording the music to that. Did they show you cuts of the film? Did you see some footage of the film or the whole film? To inspire you to go write the music or you had to write the music without any cinematic reference point?

• 27:40Speaker 06

  Uh, Robert sent us a script, but we didn't read it. We just, we just listened to his verbal describing what it was, which to him it was.

• 27:47Alec Baldwin?

  So you didn't see the film finished and then write the music?

• 27:50Speaker 06

  No.

• 27:51Alec Baldwin?

  Wow.

• 27:51Speaker 06

  He sent us a script, but we didn't read it. And we just said, tell us what you want, tell us what you think it's it is. And he said, well, it's Tribal Rights of a New Saturday Night. Okay, and that was an article by Nick Khan and.

• 28:03Alec Baldwin?

  Right, in New York Magazine.

• 28:05Speaker 06

  Right. And he said, but I need a better name for the film. And I says, well, what about Night Fever? And he said, no, that's too pornographic. I said, okay. Um, but then in the end it turned into Saturday Night Fever and I didn't know.

• 28:21Alec Baldwin?

  So when you're inside that experience of making that music.

• 28:25Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 28:25Alec Baldwin?

  Do you kind of know that you're on to something or you had no idea what that was going to become?

• 28:30Speaker 06

  We had no idea what it was going to become. And we were trying to reinvent ourselves anyway. We just mixed a live album that we'd done in L A. And then Robert called up and said, I need five or six songs for this film. With this new gentleman named John Travolta, so. Okay, all of that in itself is exciting enough. It sort of kick-started the ideas and staying alive was one of those ideas, more than a woman. If I can't have you, how deep is your love, obviously, and Night Fever. So, um, we just started writing. We were fifty miles outside of Paris. We didn't have, you know, television. We didn't have any of those distractions, if you like. And we just got on with it.

• 29:13Speaker 06

  And about three weeks, two or three weeks, and then we got serious when we got back to Miami and made the records for real.

• 29:20Alec Baldwin?

  Well, I just want to say as a reference point that I am in Washington DC. I went to college down there first. Uh, my then girlfriend, who was very much of a nightclub dancing.

• 29:32Speaker 06

  Right, right.

• 29:32Alec Baldwin?

  Uh, she and her roommate, I think it was like three couples. We go see the movie Saturday Night Fever. And we said to ourselves, I mean, the guys are looking at each other going, Jesus Christ, look at this. You think I'm gonna get up there and do that in a room full of people? Like, she wants to go to clubs and go dancing like this. I said, that's never happening.

• 29:52Speaker 06

  Right, right, right.

• 29:54Alec Baldwin?

  Within two weeks, I had the platform shoes. I had my hair blow dried to death. My hair was blow dried like it was some French pastry. I put more hairspray. My hair was all poofed out and blown out. And, uh, the shirt, I got the shirt open right to below my sternum. I'm ready, I'm ready to go. It was a tsunami. Saturday Night Fever was a tsunami.

• 30:22Speaker 06

  Yeah, whether you liked it or not, it was gonna, it was gonna stay around. It was gonna stay around.

• 30:26Alec Baldwin?

  We liked it. It was just everywhere.

• 30:28Speaker 06

  Well, the, my story is that we were starting to shoot Sergeant Pepper, the movie. Right? And, and we had, Peter Frampton had his own Winnebago. And we had one Winnebago between us. And about two weeks into shooting, the same time Fever came out. And all of the dancers in the movie were suddenly dancing to this music at the lunch breaks. And we could hear it from our Winnebago, like, what's, what are they doing? Why are they playing Saturday Night Fever? You know? Because at that point, it hadn't taken off, you know? And within about a week, we had our own separate Winnebago. So there's Hollywood right there.

• 31:08Alec Baldwin?

  I don't do it. Nothing like success.

• 31:11Speaker 06

  But we made that movie, the soundtrack to that movie. We're the only other group to record the whole of Sergeant Pepper with George Martin.

• 31:18Alec Baldwin?

  Right.

• 31:19Speaker 06

  So that's something, that's something I'm proud of.

• 31:21Alec Baldwin?

  How would you describe that experience? You're performing somebody else's music.

• 31:25Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah, but we were learning so much.

• 31:27Alec Baldwin?

  Legendary music.

• 31:28Speaker 06

  Yes, legendary music, and we wanted to perform that music. And George Martin was happy to show us the different tricks that they would all get up to. You know, the song Sun King or Because. They all sang the same melody once, and then they would sing the harmony all together. Same thing again, all singing the same melody, and then they do the third harmony, and they'd sing all that together. So that you've got three guys on three tracks, singing each harmony, not three-part harmony. And then you play that back, and it's mind-blowing.

• 32:03Alec Baldwin?

  Yeah.

• 32:04Speaker 06

  So we just learned stuff. We learned stuff.

• 32:06Alec Baldwin?

  Whose idea was it to do the documentary?

• 32:10Speaker 06

  Well, it was Frank Marshall, Nigel St. Clair. And they had done the Sinatra documentary, they'd done a couple of others that they were very proud of. The Beatles, Eight Days a Week, I think they did that. The day that we signed with Capitol was the day I met Frank Marshall. And Steve Barnett, the president at that point, introduced me to Frank Marshall. Frank Marshall said, we're going to do this documentary. And tell us, tell us something about how it began for you guys. And I did, I told him a story, and he went, OK, we're going to do this documentary. And that's how it began. But it was, it was two years, two and a half years before we saw anything. And the first cut didn't fly very well.

• 32:54Alec Baldwin?

  Why?

• 32:55Speaker 06

  There were too many untruths, too many misconceptions that were, everyone was saying, well, that's true, but it really wasn't. So I had to take issue with some of the things. And I know that in the end, some of those things may still be there. But I never, I could never watch it again because I can't watch my family pass one after the other. That's not fun.

• 33:24Alec Baldwin?

  Barry Gibb. Subscribe to Here's the Thing on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there, leave us a review. When we return from the break, Barry talks about his regrets, and we'll also hear from his son, Steve.

• 33:55Speaker 09

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• 34:43Speaker 08

  Hey, it's Nile Rodgers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by my friend, John Legend. What still makes you just sit down at the piano?

• 35:05Speaker 12

  If you sat down at 9:00 a.m. and then at noon, you had a full song that you recorded and put in your voice recorder or you recorded at your studio, you just created something brand new that didn't exist when you woke up. What a beautiful feeling it is. I'm always excited to write something new. I've been writing for Broadway, which has been a new challenge with new collaborators and amazing performers who are triple threats, who can sing and dance and act and do all these amazing things. And I want to keep feeling that. And so that means not resting on my laurels, going out there and continuing to create something new.

• 35:41Speaker 08

  Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series, on the iHeart Radio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 35:50Speaker 00

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• 36:23Alec Baldwin?

  I'm Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing.

• 36:38Alec Baldwin?

  That is, of course, More Than a Woman from the soundtrack of Saturday Night Fever. It's been a busy time for Barry Gibb. There's the new HBO documentary about the Bee Gees, and earlier this year Barry released an album of Bee Gees songs covered by some of Nashville's biggest names. It's called Greenfields.

• 37:00Speaker 06

  These are people I admired the most. These are country artists that have always been in my blood. So, ever since I was a child, Dolly Parton has been a really important part of art music for me.

• 37:21Speaker 06

  I wanted to get people I admired the most to sing our songs. And maybe it's Volume Two that will happen in the future, I don't know, but this was great fun. And I was more than intimidated, but it wasn't in my hands, it was in Dave Cobb's hands.

• 37:37Alec Baldwin?

  Now, when you say you were more than intimidated...

• 37:39Speaker 06

  Absolutely.

• 37:40Alec Baldwin?

  How so?

• 37:41Speaker 06

  Well, how many people do you truly admire, you know? So when you're in their company, you just feel... When I meet Paul McCartney, I don't know what to say. My mouth won't say anything, you know? All I can say is, "I feel fine."

• 38:01Alec Baldwin?

  And you granted, they must have been intimidated to sing your music as well.

• 38:07Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah, no, it was all the way around. There's no question about that. The only person I think was not intimidated by any of us was Dave Cobb, the producer.

• 38:15Alec Baldwin?

  So he was the decider. He was the decider.

• 38:17Speaker 06

  He was the decider. He was the director.

• 38:19Alec Baldwin?

  Well, the cut you do with Dolly.

• 38:21Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 38:21Alec Baldwin?

  What a beautiful rendering that is of that song. When you hear other people sing your songs.

• 38:28Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 38:29Alec Baldwin?

  What goes through your mind?

• 38:30Speaker 06

  It's a very flattering thing. It's like any time over the years, anyone sang one of our songs, it's someone's covering your song. That's a huge compliment. So I have the same feeling every time and and that goes back a long, long way. So anyone singing our songs is, wow, why did that person sing our song?

• 38:49Alec Baldwin?

  Now, when someone wants to sing your songs.

• 38:52Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 38:52Alec Baldwin?

  Is it open to anybody?

• 38:54Speaker 06

  Anyone who records our song doesn't need to ask us.

• 38:57Alec Baldwin?

  They don't?

• 38:58Speaker 06

  It's just the way it works. No one needs to ask us to sing one of our songs. If you're using one of our songs in a movie or in a in a sync license, like a commercial.

• 39:07Alec Baldwin?

  Right.

• 39:07Speaker 06

  You have to ask and you have to make a deal. But beyond that, anyone can record our songs.

• 39:12Alec Baldwin?

  But they pay you the royalties for you as the songwriter.

• 39:15Speaker 06

  Well, it will be, we'd be paid indirectly by the system that works, like mechanical royalties and and things like that.

• 39:21Alec Baldwin?

  Sure.

• 39:22Speaker 06

  But the only question I ever had was, I don't like commercials about alcohol. I don't like commercials about cigarettes.

• 39:29Alec Baldwin?

  Is it true that you have a, uh, someone's making a feature film about the Bee Gees?

• 39:33Speaker 06

  Yeah, the biopic's in its own process right now. Graham King is in charge of that. He did the Bohemian Rhapsody movie.

• 39:40Alec Baldwin?

  Right. Are you gonna have some participation in that?

• 39:43Speaker 06

  Absolutely. I'm sort of in agreement with Graham, and that is that sometimes the story can be a little different than the truth, but not too much.

• 39:54Alec Baldwin?

  You more than your two brothers, I'll say this only because this is my recollection of it, you know, you guys would get out there and sing. When you watched you sing on film, you know, it's a different story when you're just listening to the music, but when you'd watch you sing, your brothers are pretty straightforward musicians. And here you are, and the hair.

• 40:18Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 40:18Alec Baldwin?

  And the clothes. He was like this preposterously handsome guy. And then you'd open your mouth and you'd sing these like heart-stoppingly beautiful songs. And I want to ask you that when the Bee Gees were at the zenith, when everything was just clicking for you. What was the best part of it? And what was the downside of it for you?

• 40:38Speaker 06

  You know, I, there's a lot of things I regret. Saturday Night Fever wasn't something I regretted. I didn't like people disregarding us after Fever. I thought that was unfair. But, but that's the industry, you know? It's very fragile, as you said earlier. It will, it will turn on you in a heartbeat. And so I think generally, what I regret is that we became overexposed. And I think that that was.

• 41:05Alec Baldwin?

  From Fever?

• 41:05Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah. And everything else was just, having five songs in the top 10 or three songs in the top five, we were becoming pretty tainted, you know? We were beginning not to really appreciate having a number one record. But we equaled the Beatles' record, we had six number ones in a row. And that was all right. I can live with that. I can live with that.

• 41:30Alec Baldwin?

  That'll work.

• 41:31Speaker 06

  That'll work, you know?

• 41:33Alec Baldwin?

  But I mean, my other thing is that I find that the business is that people tend to look at something that's super successful and say, well, if it's successful, then it's like potato chips. It can't be really that great. It's just, it's like a snack food.

• 41:46Speaker 06

  Right.

• 41:46Alec Baldwin?

  If it's something that appeals to the general public, to masses of the general public. If you're selling tens of millions of records, it can't really be that good.

• 41:53Speaker 06

  It's too commercial, right.

• 41:54Alec Baldwin?

  Right. Right. You got a whiff of that?

• 41:57Speaker 06

  Yes. But I, you know, I look back a long way and I see the final year of Elvis's life, the final year of the Beatles, Michael Jackson, and how they began to fragment, you know? And because nothing ever really lasts.

• 42:13Speaker 06

  A group is not a natural state to be in, unless you're relatives, unless you're brothers or sisters. So I see all that. I see that in the end, people like Elvis, Michael, Beatles, began to make records that weren't quite up to the scratch that Sergeant Pepper was.

• 42:30Alec Baldwin?

  Well, when the disco inferno, if you will, dies down, what happens to your songwriting when you realize that's petered out, that wave?

• 42:40Speaker 06

  Well, because of the backlash, we didn't base our lives on Fever. We just sort of, well, back to the studio, you know. We were, you know, I've been married for 50 years now. Last September was 50 years. And, and, and I've had a wonderful time, you know, I, I love that woman and we've been together for that long. And so I, I always had her at my back. I always, I never, I never had to be out there on my own.

• 43:06Alec Baldwin?

  You had a home.

• 43:07Speaker 06

  A family. So at the end of Fever, we were starting to raise kids, you know. And so the distractions were plentiful. They were plentiful. And, you know, even when that happened, you think to yourself, I know, I thought to myself, well, maybe that's it. That was warm. That was great. That was wonderful. Maybe go back to Australia. Maybe go back to England. And you start to question your life. And if it's time to change your life, that was the moment you could have done it.

• 43:36Alec Baldwin?

  Speaking of family, your son plays with you from time to time, correct?

• 43:41Speaker 06

  Yeah, Stevie. Yeah, he's right here.

• 43:42Alec Baldwin?

  Your son Stevie plays with you. And he also plays some other types of music. He's like into heavy metal or something?

• 43:48Speaker 06

  Absolutely.

• 43:49Alec Baldwin?

  Right. We need Stevie to come on just for one second, tell us, does he get the bends when he goes from the music of Barry Gibb to the music of Metallica or whatever you're doing? What's the seam in between that kind of music?

• 44:03Speaker 13

  You know, I grew up watching the Bee Gees. I stood on the side of the stage as a kid and I thought my dad was the coolest guy on planet earth, you know, I really did. But what happened was is there was a band called Kiss that came out around a similar time. And that was my introduction into hard rock and heavy metal. And I was always fascinated with the guitar. So, you know, when I saw a guitar that was on fire, I said, okay, I, I don't know how or when I'm going to get to do that, but I got to figure out how to do that. And I knew enough to know that being a musician and being Barry Gibb's son was probably a terrible idea. And I knew that from a young age.

• 44:47Speaker 13

  So I followed my joy with the guitar and that took me a lot of places. I, I, you know, I've played in a bunch of heavy metal bands over the years, like Black Label Society, Crowbar, Kingdom of Sorrow. And the thing is, is that I figured it made me different enough that I could maybe carve out a career and not be compared to my dad.

• 45:10Speaker 06

  Right, you're singing, you're singing good now.

• 45:12Speaker 13

  Well, what happened is my dad and I have always kind of, you know, messed around a little bit, you know, writing songs and stuff like that. So, you know, I, I got to learn about songwriting from the best, you know, and I got to watch the Bee Gees write many times over my, you know, the course of my life. So I'm, I've been a student of theirs. But, you know, when, when Robin passed away, Dad was clearly struggling to figure out where to go in life. And at that point, I was like, Dad, you gotta channel this into music. Like, you can't sit here and, and mourn forever. You know? And he said, okay, well, let's do, let's do a show.

• 45:53Speaker 13

  And I said, yeah, you should do that. And he goes, well, I only want to do it if you do it with me. I mean, I definitely didn't feel like I could step into those roles that Robin and or

• 46:02Speaker 06

  You're stuck in your own role.

• 46:03Speaker 13

  Had. But

• 46:04Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 46:05Speaker 13

  Over the course of a few years, you know, with his patience and, and kindness, I found my place with him, you know? I, I sometimes joke that I'm his emotional support animal. But the fact of the matter is, is we've come to understand that even, especially recently, now I know how to harmonize with him, which I didn't really know how to do. I began to learn that really by being thrown in the fire with him. And to be honest, it's been probably the greatest gift of my life to come full circle and actually be with him making music.

• 46:41Speaker 06

  We toured Australia.

• 46:42Speaker 13

  Yeah.

• 46:42Speaker 06

  We toured England. We toured America. And that was an incredible year of just finding yourself again.

• 46:50Alec Baldwin?

  Stevie said that he thought his father was the coolest guy. Let me tell you something, Stevie, your father is the coolest guy. Your father reminds me of Nat King Cole.

• 47:01Speaker 06

  Oh, I love Nat King Cole.

• 47:02Alec Baldwin?

  Your father reminds me of a guy that could sing and just bring you to tears. He was so beautiful and the songs were so beautiful. And he sang them perfectly. And then when you'd watch him on film, you go, my God, he's also the coolest guy I've ever seen in my life. Look at this guy.

• 47:21Speaker 13

  You know, I don't know that anybody will ever be able to relate to this because I do feel a little unique in that I've had this experience. But I think that for me, we all have great memories throughout our life, whether it's the, you know, the birth of our children or, or, you know, that first big accomplishment that you make or whatever it is in life. But I have to tell you that I was talking about that show that we did after Robin died. And there was a moment where he was singing and I was off to his right on, on stage. And, and he was really in a, I have to say, he was kind of transcending into another level in front of my eyes.

• 48:03Speaker 13

  I was like, I could not, I was reduced to tears while I was on stage watching him sing because, you know, I remembered being a very small kid, standing on the side of the stage going, hey dad, you know, I'm over here type of thing. And then to, you know, 30 something years later, I'm standing on stage with him. And there was a moment where he took a breath and just looked at me. And it was, he winked at me and there was the most pure expression of love with no words between a father and son in that moment. And I remember thinking to myself, I'll never forget this moment for the rest of my life.

• 48:44Speaker 13

  Because there are no words for that kind of love between a son and a father. And I tell him this all the time. I said, Dad, it's okay that you don't think you're the greatest of all time, but just don't ever forget that there isn't a second that I don't believe that you're the greatest of all time. Just be true to yourself and, and do what you love because his love is pure and his expression of it is incredible and I'll never get tired of it.

• 49:17Alec Baldwin?

  Listen, I say this only because it's true and I feel that we all are seekers of the truth here, truth and beauty. And that is, Stevie, your father knows full well that he's the greatest of all time. He knows. And this modesty thing is just a part of an act. It's a part of a public. It's always like this, oh, thank you. Oh, God, that's so nice of you to say that. Oh, thank you. No, no, please. No, no, please. Your father is fully aware of who he is and what his towering achievements in the music industry are, him and his brothers and him on his own for that matter. I want to say, I have loved you and I have loved your music. I mean, I'm, good music is good music. And I

• 49:57Alec Baldwin?

  have loved you and I have loved your music forever. I mean, I have so many Bee Gees albums. So every now and then I gotta hear, I Can't See Nobody. I play that song and I'm like, oh, my.

• 50:11Speaker 06

  You know, I Can't See Nobody was written in a dressing room with strippers.

• 50:15Alec Baldwin?

  I thought it was, you were like in church.

• 50:20Speaker 06

  It was one of, it's one of my greatest memories, you know. Bare bums and here's a song, you know.

• 50:28Alec Baldwin?

  Let's stop right there and let me just say, I'm so grateful to you. You are one of the greatest musicians that ever lived and one of the greatest vocalists that ever lived. And I never get tired of listening to your music. Never.

• 50:42Speaker 06

  You're very kind.

• 50:43Alec Baldwin?

  Thank you both for making time to do this. This has been a joy. This has been a real joy.

• 50:47Speaker 06

  It's been a real joy for us too.

• 50:53Alec Baldwin?

  I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.

• 51:26Alec Baldwin?

  We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Kerry Donahue, and Zach McNeese. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Thanks for listening.

• 51:52Speaker 14

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