Goode contacted his friend, DJ Bill Gates, and told them about the three young songsters. They played their own compositions, which caught the attention of racing driver Bill Goode.

Toting along Barry’s guitar, they asked permission to play between races. While Hugh was making a living in Queensland as a photographer, Barry, Maurice, and Robin made a serendipitous trip down to the Redcliffe Speedway in 1959. By this point, the family had grown to include baby Andy Roy, born on March 5 of that same year.

The Gibbs arrived to their new home in 1958. When the family decided to emigrate to Australia, Barbara recalled finding the boys performing for their fellow passengers on several occasions over the course of the five-week journey. The brothers renamed themselves Wee Johnny Hays and the Bluecats, and went on to mime and sing more songs in local theaters. We didn’t want to do anything else but make music.” We were very young, but it made an enormous impression. “It was the feeling of standing in front of an audience that was so amazing. The theater manager was so impressed that he sent them to another movie house down the street to play the song again.įrom that moment on, Barry said all the brothers cared about was getting discovered. “We were sort of an instant hit,” he said. What song it was, exactly, no one can remember, but Robin recalls that the kids in the theater loved it. They went on and sang the song with only Barry’s strumming for musical accompaniment. Though only Barry had a real guitar, they decided their debut would not be thwarted. Yet just before their big debut, the sound tech dropped and shattered Leslie’s record. The brothers practiced with two neighborhood friends, Paul Frost and Kenny Oricks, calling themselves The Rattlesnakes. This hobby would lead to the brothers’ very first public performance in 1956 at The Gaumont, a nearby movie theater where children were allowed to pantomime songs on stage before Saturday matinees. By the mid-1950s, the boys were borrowing their older sister’s records-Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers, Tommy Steele-and miming to the music using fake guitars they’d made out of boxes. It might sound corny as hell, but it is the only thing I can attribute my optimism to.”Įarly on, the three brothers showed a strong connection to music, singing in perfect harmony with one another. “That might have made me a fighter or more determined to survive or make it. “Although I don’t remember it, I must have gone through extreme agony at some point,” he said in an interview with David Leaf for the group’s 1979 biography. According to Barry, he accidentally poured a pot of scalding tea on himself when he was just one year old, which he believes may have contributed to his personality. Barry was often quiet, but very ambitious. Maurice was the comedian, while Robin was noted for his vast imagination and penchant for writing. Maurice and Robin were not identical twins and, in fact, all three brothers had very different personalities. First came Robin, then Maurice a half hour later. On December 22, 1949, twins Maurice Ernest and Robin Hugh were born. Barry Alan Crompton Gibb was given the middle name Alan for Hugh’s late brother, and Crompton for Gibb ancestor Samuel “Sir Isaac” Crompton, credited with inventing the spinning mule. It was there, on September 1, 1946, that the eldest member of what would become the Bee Gees was born.

Hugh soon accepted a steady gig playing at a hotel on the Isle of Man, a popular vacation island located in the Irish Sea between Ireland and Great Britain. In 1945, they welcomed their first child, daughter Leslie Barbara. She introduced herself as Barbara Pass and three years later, they were married. When he got a break, he asked her to dance. In 1941, Hugh spotted a young woman dancing in the crowd of a Manchester ballroom. Hugh Gibb, Jr., was a working musician, forming his own Big Band and playing drums in night clubs, hotels and ballrooms throughout England and Scotland. And before any of the Gibb children were born, their father was making his living on stage, albeit on a smaller scale than his superstar sons would decades later. The three brothers displayed a remarkable aptitude for songwriting and their trademark harmonies even as young boys. Though the Bee Gees wrote and recorded music for over 40 years, their origin story begins even earlier.

New bee gees documentary