ALBUM: Robin Gibb, ‘Saved By The Bell: The Collected Works Of Robin Gibb 1968-1970’
The year was 1969, and the Bee Gees — comprised of Barry, Maurice, and Robin Gibb — had officially called it quits. At this point, the boys had already been making music together for around 10 years, and familial tensions coupled with the stresses and seductions of fame had fractured their dynamic. Everything came to a head when producer Robert Stigwood chose “First of May,” with lead vocals by eldest brother Barry, over the Robin-led “Lamplight” as the single to accompany their album Odessa. “First of May” became the A-side, “Lamplight” was slated as the B-side; Barry was in the limelight, and like that, the Bee Gees were no more.
By this point, Robin was ready to spread his wings and soar like his namesake bird. In an interview conducted by David Wigg (conveniently made available on disc three of this compilation), Robin is quoted as saying that he was in the midst of penning plays and musicals, conducting impressive orchestras, writing a 250- to 300-page “Dickens-type” book, and adapting said book into a film.
Creatively, the middle Gibb was flourishing. He released his solo album Robin’s Reign in 1970, from which the single “Saved by the Bell” came. “Saved” shot up the charts to #2, while Reign stayed fairly stagnant. It was then that Robin had his Brian Wilson moment of sorts, as Wilson’s SMiLE was put on hiatus and only released in full years later; so too was Gibb’s sophomore endeavor, Sing Slowly Sisters, which was fleshed out and recorded throughout 1970 but never officially released.
Well, until now, that is. Saved By The Bell: The Collected Works Of Robin Gibb 1968-1970 is an all-encompassing anthology of both Robin’s Reign and Sing Slowly Sisters, featuring insightful demos, alternative cuts, remastered tracks, and interviews with the BBC. Heck, there are even two songs that Gibb croons in fluent Italian. (Would you expect anything less? This is the overachieving Robin Gibb we’re talking about here, after all.) The release of this compilation, which was masterfully and painstakingly assembled by producer Andrew Sandoval over a 10-year period, provides a plethora of material from what was probably the most prolific period in Gibb’s career. Sandoval compiled long-lost cassettes, acetates, and session reels in an honorable labor of love, the ultimate goal being to bring to light this phase in Gibb’s life and bridge the gap between the Bee Gees’ break up and subsequent regeneration.
The body of work you’ll find in the Saved By The Bell collection is difficult to define, as was Robin himself. This is not the music you’d expect to flow from the mind of a teenager (keep in mind, Gibb was around 19 at the time of recording much of this material); no, this is music that is deeply and utterly tormented beyond its years, often times contrastingly set to the unfeeling, mechanical percussion of an electronic drum machine.
Although too unorthodox to sufficiently categorize, Gibb’s early solo catalog would likely be considered as falling under the general heading of baroque pop. But putting Gibb’s music in a singular, predetermined box feels wrong, as it was highly exploratory and idiosyncratically atmospheric. While some artists’ output is purely a reflection of the period in which it was written, Gibb’s feels more akin to a sonic representation of his unique inner landscape.
If we take a look back in time, we can see that rock ‘n’ roll was dominating the charts in 1969 through 1970: Led Zeppelin’s first three eponymous albums were released; the Beatles’ Abbey Road and Let It Be produced plenty of harder-edged hits; the Stones’ Let It Bleed cut deep; and many other bands were following along in the same vein. Albeit being recorded around that time, Gibb’s Robin’s Reign and Sing Slowly Sisters bear little to no resemblance to the works of his contemporaries, causing one to wonder where Gibb could’ve possibly received inspiration for his odd and oft-unconventional lyrics and melodies. The only potential explanation is that it simply came from the internal workings of his expansive imagination, coupled with a love for historical events and a profound talent for translating his emotions into words.
On the whole, the material making up the Robin’s Reign sessions features lush orchestration, particularly prominent on numbers like “August October” and “Down Came the Sun,” which swell with swooping strings that complement Robin’s soaring vocals. Tracks like “Mother and Jack” and “The Worst Girl in This Town” play with more upbeat tempos whilst exhibiting less-than-lighthearted lyrics. “Saved by the Bell” sweeps in with elegance, the instrumentation gradually building to ultimately burst with Robin’s belted chorus. “Hudson’s Fallen Wind,” clocking in at an impressive 12:20, is the longest track not only of disc one but of the entire collection. A shortened version of the suite became “Farmer Ferdinand Hudson,” a ballad of a man who had non-descriptly “lost much more than he’d won” and, afterward, passed away. “Lord Bless All” is a song that sounds as if the listener has been transported into a bleak, Gothic cathedral where Robin is the cantor at the pulpit; the ease with which the song fades in from the previous “Farmer Ferdinand Hudson” makes it feel as though we are delivered straight from Hudson’s deathbed to his funeral. This track at times is also highly reminiscent of the title track of Odessa, as if the verses of “Lord Bless All” could cut immediately into the chorus of “Odessa (City On the Black Sea).”
Disc two opens with “Sing Slowly Sisters,” an exquisite composition about the first World War and the role that women played in supporting soldiers, showing Robin’s affinity for historical happenings. The tracks that comprise the Sing Slowly Sisters sessions seem more melodically diverse than those on Robin’s Reign; songs like “Life,” “Everything Is How You See Me,” and “Anywhere I Hang My Hat” come across as precursors to grooving numbers like “Mr. Natural,” which Gibb would release with the Bee Gees in 1974. “Irons On the Fire” and “Cold Be My Days” harken back to tracks found on Robin’s Reign: poignant baroque threnodies threaded together with a string of tinkling harpsichord. We hear Robin exploring a more country-esque sound on tunes like “Sky West and Crooked,” “Avalanche,” and the whimsical “Engines Aeroplanes,” a sound that would be developed further in the Bee Gees’ career on a few cuts of Main Course. The songs of Robin’s Reign and the Sing Slowly Sisters disc, although artistic achievements on their own, become even more impressive when juxtaposed with the works they resemble in the Bee Gees’ discography; it puts into perspective how much creative influence Robin had over their sound, and just how capable Robin was at effectuating his visions on his own.
Probably the most intriguing selection of tracks appears on the third disc, aptly entitled “Robin’s Rarities.” A vast collection of demos, interviews, and yes, those two aforementioned tracks sung in Italian, “Robin’s Rarities” gives the listener an aural glimpse into Gibb’s brilliant intellect. Hearing him fully flesh out songs such as “Come Some Halloween or Christmas Day” and “Down Came the Sun” wit
h an unparalleled level of precision leads one to believe that Gibb did a great deal of song orchestration in his mind, merely actualizing it in the studio with his signature timbre layered over physical instruments. The pulsating, triple-meter gems “Alexandria Good Time” and “Love Just Goes” showcase Robin’s perpetual vibrato, delicately overlain in harmony with itself.
Despite his own extensive comprehension of music and his distinctive flair for songwriting, Robin Gibb is still often seen as solely a third of the Bee Gees, one of the two long-haired men backing up Barry on disco tracks in glittery jackets. Gibb’s elaborate, eloquent, and, on occasion, enigmatic solo compositions tend to be forgotten in favor of the band’s uptempo mega hits that dominated the dance floors and the charts in the 1970s. That being said, Saved By The Bell serves not only to fill an empty space in the collections of superfans, but also to make known the unequivocal proficiency Gibb had for his craft. This compilation truly is a testament to Robin’s intrepid finesse in experimenting with novel sounds and subject matter, and it is one that should be regarded as innovative and significant as something like SMiLE. The Saved By The Bell collection paints a vivid portrait of the world as viewed through the tormented, eccentric eyes of Robin Gibb, a man who is best known as being a member of a flashy band of brothers albeit being an understated genius in his own right.
Saved By The Bell: The Collected Works Of Robin Gibb 1968-1970 is available for purchase on Amazon.
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Valie