This post has been welling up in me since my Blogspot days in 2009. I’ve not known how to address it, but today, I’ve decided to simply jump in. This will be an ongoing commentary regarding my favorite group, The Bee Gees: Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. They were icons from my analog radio days of childhood. If I could get the knob to lock in on Z-93 in 1977, chances were there’d be a Bee Gees song in rotation. I’d have been 10-11 years old, and how my heart would leap! That falsetto. Those harmonies. Those handsome brothers. And in a couple more years, when baby brother Andy hit the scene in Tiger Beat and songs of his own, my fandom was in full force. I’ll be delving into what this family came to mean to me, on a dirt road in rural McDonough, Georgia. For right now, let me share one of my early Bee Gees memories.
Christmas, 1977. Saturday Night Fever was a box-office sensation and had permeated our social culture. The soundtrack for that movie, largely comprised of Bee Gees performed and written tunes, was a must-have in a collection. The gold standard, of course, would have been to have the double album, complete with the fold out poster and all the album art and photo collages of stills from the movie. However, my parents with 3 girly-girls, either couldn’t afford the entire album or didn’t know that that would have been the standard, gave me the 45-rpm single of “How Deep Is Your Love.” My mother found an old box, put the little single in its paper sleeve in the bottom of the box and stuffed old sheets and towels on top of it. I had to dig to get to it. When I did get to it, sheets flying, I clutched it to my skinny chest and started crying. And then, so did my parents. I know I must have played that song a thousand times. Memorizing every lyric, every lilt, every nuance of that song. It’s tied indelibly to Barry Gibb and to my 11-year old notion of whatever “Love” might mean. This is my all-time favorite song by my all-time favorite group. Thank you, Brothers Gibb. My love is deep. So, so deep.
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