Shortly after joining NEMS, I found myself embroiled with another great artist; he and his brothers must certainly rank in the top five pop writers and artists of the sixties and seventies. The man I am talking about was Robin Gibb, of the Bee Gees.
I received a call from Vic Lewis, asking me to pop up to see him in his luxuriously appointed office on the first floor of Hill Street. I sat down and was poured the ever-ready cup of tea in a fine bone china teacup. Vic was always pedantic about being surrounded by and using the best. Not I may say in a flash way, but as a point, of course. He asked me if I was interested in managing Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees. He had left the group acrimoniously a few months earlier, and wanted to pursue a solo career.
The Bee Gees had ranked as one of the three great bands of the late sixties, along with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, with hits such as ‘Massachusetts’ and ‘I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You’. There had been a period of about a year when the Bee Gees nearly eclipsed the Beatles in popularity, but now they had split up. The reasons for Robin’s departure from the band were legendary. Only the laws of libel forbid me from recounting the conversations I had with Robin Gibb and his portrayal of the internal machinations, which involved sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll.
It transpired after further conversation that Vic Lewis had taken on Robin’s management and had been attempting, without very much luck, to gain a publishing deal for him. His question was simply, could I take over and try to obtain one for him? By his own word, Vic was not a publisher, and knew nothing about it.
‘What’s been the problem?’ I asked Vic.
‘Well, simply, I’ve been to two or three of the major publishing houses and asked them for a deal on Robin. Each one, without a second’s hesitation, has turned the project down, saying that the Bee Gees are finished and therefore so is Robin Gibb.’
‘Crap, absolute crap,’ I replied, leaning forward and banging my fist heavily on Vic’s etched-leather, Georgian desktop. (It wasn’t quite like that, but it reads well, and a little bit of drama never goes amiss.) ‘You’re talking about one of the greatest writers in the world today. You’re talking about the man who wrote “Massachusetts”, “I Started a Joke” and “New York Mining Disaster”.’
I was definitely interested in taking on Robin Gibb and I couldn’t understand why no one else was. At this juncture, I think I should explain the categories of songwriters.
The first category of songwriter is a journeyman of some talent who, in the course of his career, if he’s lucky, will have a sudden flash of inspiration and write one or two good songs. Rarely do these writers ever achieve a song that attains ‘Evergreen’ standard. The Evergreen being a tune to stand the test of time, the song of songs. One that will crawl over the backs of generations. This is the genius of such greats as the Beatles, George Michael, Elton John, and their ilk.
Freddy Bienstock, one of the world’s great music publishers, told me many years ago that if you ever got to own three Evergreens, you were a) very lucky, and b) made for life. Freddy has published many Elvis Presley songs, as well as countless others, so he knows what he’s talking about.
The second category of songwriter is a man or woman of exceptional talent who over the course of years will write several very good songs. I suppose they could be labelled as Premier Division. Names like Geoff Stevens, Don Black, and Les Reed, whose songs include ‘Winchester Cathedral’, ‘Born Free’ and ‘It’s Not Unusual’, which exemplify their status.
Finally, we have the true genius, a songwriter who over a period of years will continually produce magical songs. For me the mantles of excellence would go to Lennon and McCartney, Elton John, Sammy Cahn, Henry Mancini, Lerner and Lowe, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Bacharach and David. I would also like to include in my list Andrew Lloyd-Webber. These are some of the all-time greats.
These men have written the truly great songs of each generation, songs such as ‘Yesterday’, ‘Three Coins in the Fountain’, ‘On the Street Where You Live’, ‘Moon River’, ‘Imagine’, ‘Candle in the Wind’, ‘The Look of Love’, and ‘Memory’. These gems, hacked from the human mind, express a quintessential composite of life in one exquisite message. It is this that has fuelled my ongoing desire to find that one pearl in that one elusive oyster.
And here I was being presented with one of the geniuses. It was inconceivable to me that others in the music industry were not aware, as I was, that the very fibre of Robin’s soul was the creation of music and songs.
‘No problem, Vic,’ I said. ‘I’ll get you a deal in a couple of weeks.’
It turned out that my belief was not shared by others. Over the next two months, I traversed the steps of nearly all the major publishing houses in the USA and England, and they were universally of one opinion. Robin Gibb and the Bee Gees were finished.
‘Bryan,’ they would say, ‘their last two records have bombed out. There’s no future.’
I was incredulous, and began to realise what a totally useless bunch the music industry were in those days. It was no wonder that by the time we got to the end of the seventies, music publishers had seen their share of the cake cut down to a few crumbs. They were to get only what they deserved. Nothing more in most cases than mere collection deals, non-creative; simply accountancy and banking.
I would hasten to add that I have specifically mentioned music publishers here, as I don’t believe that record companies had fallen into this category. Indeed, the opposite is true. In the past, the publisher of a song was the instigator, the creator of the written song. During the thirties, forties and fifties, the publisher was the hub of the music industry.
A writer would compose a song, and the publisher would contact singers in an attempt to get them to perform the composition at their shows; then he would go to the record companies and persuade them to release the track. His next action was to print the sheet music for the song. This was one of his most important functions, there being a lack of national and virtually no local radio stations, as the big bands were the means of getting new music into the public domain.
The record companies were more of a distributor of the product. But by the seventies, most publishers had become virtually moribund, and the record companies were now not only the distributors, but the creators of music.
After my soul-destroying trawl of the world’s music publishers, I finally called Robin into the office and, without wanting to bruise his ego too much, explained that times were hard and that deals weren’t growing out of barren ground. It was a week or two after I’d given him this bad news that I had the idea of offering Robin my own deal.
We would set up a new company called Robin Gibb Music. He would own fifty per cent, I would put £20,000 into the company, which I would pay him as an advance, and Vic Lewis and I would share the other half, twenty-five per cent each. This idea was jumped upon by Robin, and the various contracts and obligations were put in place. I then suggested to Robin that he set about writing some new songs.
His first solo single was a song that I never particularly liked, but had a certain mundane commercialism about it. It was called ‘Saved by the Bell’, which proceeded on its release in July 1969 to climb all the way to number 2 in the UK. He had also finished recording a solo album but, again, they were the songs of a man under pressure and not in free flow. But now his life was becoming more stable. A year earlier he had got married to Molly Hullis, the receptionist at 3 Hill Street, whom I assume he had fallen madly in love with. The songs he was writing now were getting back into the groove of the great old days.
Through all of his success, Robin had earned and spent an absolute fortune and I found it quite remarkable that he had nothing to show for it other than his stretch Mercedes. I spent a not inconsiderable amount of time persuading him to buy a house, at least to have some bricks and mortar. This he did shortly in Virginia Water.
But further success proved elusive for Robin and his brothers. Robin’s next two singles failed to crack the Top 40. Meanwhile, Barry and Maurice had continued to record as the Bee Gees but, after a year without a hit, the group was about as dead as the proverbial dodo. By the summer of 1970, Robin was under increasing pressure to reunite with his brothers, and he took on the mantle of gentle persuader. Many meetings took place and after a particularly successful one at the end of the summer, in a sauna bath in Dover Street, it was finally agreed that they would write and record together again.
I soon became very involved with Barry and Robin and it wasn’t long before they came up with the song – an Evergreen if ever I’d heard one. The title was ‘How Can You Mend a Broken Heart’.
First the Bee Gees released a comeback single, ‘Lonely Days’, which became a major hit for them in the States. Then in June 1971, they put out ‘How Can You Mend a Broken Heart’. Within weeks of its release in America, it had shot to number one. In a relatively short space of time, it would become an American classic, clocking up over one million airplays on American radio.
I was taken by surprise at the speed of the record’s climb to the top of the charts in the US, as I was holidaying in Australia at the time. On being telephoned and given the news, I immediately caught a flight for the West Coast of America to repay a few debts. More poignantly, to rub salt in a few wounds.
A black-on-black limo had pulled up outside the arrivals door at LA airport and after a twenty-hour flight it was a very necessary accoutrement. Along with the stretch limo was an immaculately turned-out chauffeur who, with a deft hand, pointed out what was a fairly new custom at the time. One that has now grown out of all proportion. Lying in a champagne bucket was a bottle of Dom Perignon surrounded by steadily melting chunks of ice, a small pot of caviar and some toast. The ultimate. It was star time.
More recently, while going to a Wham! concert in Los Angeles in the mid-eighties, we had to squeeze our way round a fairly large table that took up the majority of the space in the limo, but there it was – a full-blown Chinese meal. I couldn’t eat for laughing. I suppose the next step will be not only food, but a couple of waiters sitting in the back with you.
The driver put his foot down and we glided from the airport towards the Sunset Strip and the Beverly Hills Hotel. A touch on the electric window brought a wave of warm air into the car, and the stereo blared out with a choice of 120 rock stations, which all confirmed that you were in LA, the City of Angels, if you didn’t already know.
After we arrived, I told the receptionist at the Beverly Hills Hotel to page Mr Bryan Morrison at the pool ten times in the next hour, the purpose being to announce that I was in situ should the odd film producer wish to meet me; a very necessary process while staying at the hotel. One hour later, I retired to my suite to take a shower before sallying forth to the various publishers and record companies, whom I knew would be as sick as dogs for not having signed Robin.
One by one I visited their offices, the air-con pumping out a cooling eighteen degrees.
Always the same chat. Refraining from mentioning the Bee Gees, until came the moment when, sheepishly, they had to congratulate me on having a hit, while kicking themselves for not doing a deal months before. I thoroughly enjoyed my four days on that particular trip.
Prior to the release of the record, Vic Lewis had asked me if I wanted to buy his twenty-five per cent of Robin Gibb Music. Vic was a promoter and agent and had little interest in being a music publisher, so this I did, and now became equal partners with Robin.
In January 1971, after only eighteen months at NEMS, I was bored and decided to leave the company. I resigned as a director and returned to my old offices at 14–16 Bruton Place, where I still ran my publishing companies Lupus Music and Robin Gibb Music, and my furniture design business, OMK Design (of which more later), and Cora Jackman came with me as my personal assistant.
Even though Robin Gibb was now married, he soon resumed his old ways, and one morning a young lady turned up at our office. Cora came in to inform me that she was waiting outside and needed to speak to me about Robin Gibb business. Having a million things to do, and as the girl had no appointment, I asked Cora to tell her to come back the next day.
I thought nothing more about it until two or three o’clock that afternoon, when Cora came in, ashen-faced, telling me that there were now two young ladies, who were hurling all sorts of verbal abuse at her, including what they might do to Robin and me if they didn’t see me post-haste.
‘Tell them to go away, Cora. I’ll see them tomorrow.’
Another hour or so went by, when Cora knocked again and walked into my office. This time, however, her face was as white as the pearls hanging around her neck, and she was visibly shaking.
‘There’s two giant men with them, Bryan, and if you don’t see them now, they said they’re going to come in anyway.’
‘Who? Which giant men?’
‘You know, the two girls who have been trying to see you since this morning.’
As the whole episode was by now getting quite exciting and out of control, I told Cora to usher them in. The chaps were indeed very big. Their story was simple and plaintive, although I had no idea if it was true or not. A week earlier, the young ladies had been requested by Robin to organise a gathering of about fifteen people, who then partook in some school-time fantasies, complete with uniforms.
Apparently, it was a lot of fun, or so they told me, the only problem being that they hadn’t been paid, and this was what they wanted, the readies. It could have been a complete scam and Robin may well have done nothing of the sort, but, discretion being the better part of valour, I decided not to kick up a fuss and handed over the cash. Another major crisis was averted.
But that was nothing compared to what happened next.
• • •
The story of Robin Gibb and his split from the Bee Gees had started in February 1969 with the release of their single ‘The First of May’. Robin had wanted his song ‘Lamplight’ to be the A side. He had written the group’s three biggest hits, ‘Massachusetts’, ‘I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You’ and ‘I Started a Joke’ but, according to his wife, Molly, Robin felt he was not getting enough credit for their success. This was because their songs were always attributed to the three brothers – B.R.&M. Gibb – which also meant that he was missing out on two-thirds of his songwriting royalties.
Barry Gibb was talking about going into films in Hollywood and Maurice was beginning to produce other artists, so Robin felt ignored, and, in his words, ‘something snapped and I went off’. For several weeks, his brothers insisted he was suffering from ‘nervous exhaustion’. But then their manager, Robert Stigwood, announced that Robin was still under contract to the Bee Gees, and he was issuing an injunction to prevent him making any solo records.
Eventually, an agreement was reached and, in June 1969, Robin released his first solo single, ‘Saved by the Bell’, which peaked at number 2 in the UK charts.
A few weeks later, he signed a new management deal with Vic Lewis at NEMS Enterprises and set up his own publishing company, Robin Gibb Music, with Lewis and Bryan Morrison. Finally, he agreed to give up his share in the Bee Gees publishing company in exchange for his full release from the Robert Stigwood Organisation.
But solo success proved hard to achieve. In January 1970, he released his first album, Robin’s Reign, but it failed to sell, as did the subsequent two singles, ‘One Million Years’ and ‘August October’. That summer, the Robin Gibb Fan Club was closed down, citing a lack of new members. The Bee Gees’ latest single, ‘I.O.I.O’, had bombed on both sides of the Atlantic. The writing was on the wall. Record Mirror revealed that the brothers were talking once again.
In August, the three brothers met at Robert Stigwood’s office to finalise plans for an official reunion. It was reported that Stigwood had to pay £50,000 to NEMS to release Robin from his management contract. However, he would retain his publishing company with Bryan Morrison, for the time being.
Soon afterwards, Barry and Robin reunited for their first writing session in nearly two years, which resulted in two songs, ‘Lonely Days’ and ‘How Do You Mend a Broken Heart’, that would go on to be million sellers in the USA. The Bee Gees were back together, but the legal battle was far from over.