Robin Gibb Dies - The Fight For The Bee Gees' Legacy

I heard the news about Robin Gibb yesterday without even reading his name or that of the Bee Gees. On holiday in Bali, I borrowed a friend's iPhone and checked my Facebook for the first time in a couple of days and saw I had dozens of notitifications of condolences. The first one I read said "I heard the news and I thought of you instantly," and in that instant, I also knew immediately they would be talking about Robin.

In a way I feel honoured that when people hear the Bee Gees they might think of me. I have always worn my love of the brothers Gibb on my sleeve and have shamelessly preached their good news with a kind of evangelical fervour. To be linked with them in people's minds is something I'm thankful for. Because in the history of popular music, only John Lennon and Paul McCartney have had more success as songwriters than Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb.

Ever since Robin's cancer was revealed (and particularly when he went into a coma) I've been thinking about the mother of the Bee Gees, Barbara Gibb. This is a lady who in her 92 years has outlived not only her husband (with Hugh passing away in 1992) but also three of her sons: Andy in 1988, Maurice in 2003 and now Robin in 2012. The sacrifices that this family have made to bring this music to the world are enormous. On the one hand Barbara Gibb can feel pride and gratitude in everything her sons achieved, but was it worth it for all the heartache?

But life isn't meant to be lived thinking about things beyond our control. Robin recently said that maybe the tragedies his family have faced is some sort of karmic balance for all their incredible successes. Maybe. Though I don't believe the universe operates that way. The rain falls on us all.

Indeed, it is the challenges that in many ways shaped the Gibbs in terms of songcraft and even their legacy. If they hadn't fallen on tough financial times (and the boys weren't getting into a few scrapes with the law), they would have probably never left the UK and moved to Australia in the 1950s. If the brothers hadn't struggled to make friends in school, they wouldn't have had the same singular and insular drive. If even though Barry was the most in demand songwriter in Australia in the mid-60s (despite still being in his teens), they initially could barely get hits themselves, they probably wouldn't have gone back to England in 1967.

If infighting hadn't driven the brothers apart in the late 60s, it wouldn't have paved the way for the timeless emotion of songs like Lonely Days and How Can You Mend A Broken Heart. If their career hadn't hit a brief stylistic rut in the early 70s, they wouldn't have reinvented themselves as mid-late 70s R&B Gods. If American radio hadn't turned their back on them in the 80s, they may not have written full albums for the likes of Barbra Streisand, Jimmy Ruffin, Dionne Warwick, Kenny Rogers and Diana Ross.

Those challenges gave them the drive to never give up. In 1987 the had the biggest hit in all of Europe for the year with You Win Again, deciding it was time to be "The Bee Gees" again. They even returned to the US top 10 in 1989 with One - more than a decade after Fever. Their 1993 hit For Whom The Bell Tolls not only hit the UK top 5, but went number one across South America. And best of all, their 1997 album Still Waters sold millions around the world, including the States - the same year they won a Brit lifetime achievement award and were inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.

Barry once said the Bee Gees were the "enigma with the stigma." When you consider this is a band who sold over 200 million records, who wrote 21 different songs to make US or UK number one, who had massive hits in five consecutive decades, who've been covered by everyone from Nina Simone to Richard Ashcroft, who could write ballads (Massachusettes), soul (To Love Somebody), country (Islands In The Stream), rock (Idea), gospel (Bury Me Down By The River), blues (When The Change Is Made), folk (Sun In My Morning), funk (Love You Inside Out), R&B (Stayin' Alive), disco (Night Fever), Motown-pop (Chain Reaction), Euro-pop (Embrace), orchestral symphonies (Be Who You Are) and of course, pure, brilliant pop (Alone), it is ridiculous that this was ever true.

No other act has had to fight as hard for their legacy than the Bee Gees, but it was worth the fight and in my mind, informed some of the pathos (not to mention innovation) that is at the heart of the best Gibb songs. The statistics are staggering and you can read more here about their scarcely believable triumphs (like having five songs in the US top 10 in the same week), but for now, let's focus on the music. Robin and Barry were the tension and the spark and Maurice was the glue. Their voices have a familial blend, though individually were remarkably different. Just as Barry's falsetto is one of the most recognizable in music, Robin's soulful vibrato is virtually without peer.

Here is the song which many Bee Gees fans feel is the finest work they released in the 90s. So much of what makes the Bee Gees great is to the fore: An unforgettable title; a massive chorus, with unusual verse and bridge structures; Barry singing in both falsetto and natural voice; three part background harmonies topped with a powerful Robin lead. And unlike the parody Meaningless Songs In Very High Voices, this song really does means something:

When the lonely heart breaks
It's the one that forsakes
It's the dream that we stole
And I'm missing you more
And the fire that will roar
There's a hole in my soul
For you it's goodbye
And for me it's to cry
For Whom The Bell Tolls



Robin Gibb: 1949-2012

Donna Summer Dead At 63 - Her Finest Forgotten Song

Yet another music great has died and died too soon with Donna Summer succumbing just a few hours ago to cancer at the age of 63. In a refreshingly un-rock star finale, her life ended as a happily married grandmother with a devout Christian faith. But make no mistake, Summer was a rock-star, with a huge voice, sex appeal, urban cool and above all, she was a pioneer.

She wrote many of her own songs when even two decades later that was rare amongst females in the industry and the sonic textures of much of her dance material (with producer Giorgio Moroder) were also years ahead of their time. Listen back to I Feel Love now and the music is Daft Punk 20 years before the fact. It still sounds astonishing.

She was the Queen of Disco, but my favourite Donna Summer song, just beating out the likes of Bad Girls and Sunset People, is her early 80s We Are The World pre-cursor State of Independence. Originally by Jon & Vangelis, Summer's version of this ode to a utopia really becomes something truly special in the final 90 seconds when she's joined by an all-star choir featuring the likes of Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Michael McDonald, Dionne Warwick, Kenny Loggins and others. It wasn't the biggest hit she ever recorded (though still a UK top 20), but it makes a strong case for being the finest ballad of her career.

Donna Summer had 20 US top 40 hits, 14 making the top ten and four number ones. In all she released 17 studio albums (the last as recent as 2008) and won five Grammys over a 20 year period. Truly one of the greats of American music. Here is State Of Independence:

"The GC" - Feeling Sorry For The Cast

I watched the second half of New Zealand's answer to Jersey Shore, The GC last night, knowing I need to be up with the play on all things pop-culture in my line of work but also not wanting to lose too much IQ in the process. If you're not a Kiwi, The GC has become the most controversial New Zealand TV show of the decade as it follows a group of young Maori making their way in Australia's Gold Coast.

Returning to the storm that is "I can't believe the tax-payer helped fund a show about Maori culture in Australia that's really about drinking and sleeping around," I now feel kind of sorry for the cast. I never had a problem with the show being made, just that New Zealand On Air gave it nearly half a million bucks. But reading through all the "if you don't like it don't watch it," bluster that clearly misses the point, some intelligent and provocative pieces have been written about The GC and more-so, the public reaction to it.

Have a read of the blog KiwiPolitico where the writer argues much of the fuss is due to implicit racism. Is middle New Zealand so used to seeing Maori portrayed in a negative light that when presented with a group of successful Maori living it up (and doing so not in New Zealand) that they can't handle it? There could be some truth to that, though it overlooks the two worst and most dominant things about The GC: it's boring and phony. Beyond some artificial angst, almost nothing happens. Not even much of the debauchery we're meant to be so upset about.

That said, some of the themes KiwiPolitico discusses are bang on. The cast of The GC are all employed and with a couple of them property investors with sizeable portfolios, wealthy by anyone's standards. Maori get criticized for having a hand-out, grievance mentality in New Zealand but what do they get when they leave the country and get jobs? More criticism and this time from all sides, including the burden of being told you've abandoned your culture. The point was made that a successful Maori businessman gets attacked for not sharing the wealth with his people, while the Maori businessman who squanders the money in bad deals is seen as reverting to type.

Aside from race, another underlying reason for the extent of the backlash could be New Zealand sensitivities to the exodus to Australia. Despite being told the election before last that it was Labour's fault so many Kiwis were jumping ship, the numbers leaving have increased under National - more than 50,000 left in 2011 alone. This cuts right to the heart of our vulnerable national psyche and it's why so many New Zealanders are sensitive to any criticism of the country. If a tourist or migrant comes here and dares admit to not loving everything about it, they invariably get hit with a tsunami of abuse so strong to send them right back where they came from.

We know the economy is perennially glacial (even in good times), salaries are mediocre, the cities aren't as exciting as Australia's, anything built in the 90s leaks, the ground shakes and the weather can be iffy. So if we aren't the most beautiful country on the planet, what do we have? Of course we have plenty and plenty is overlooked, but scratch the surface and sometimes it feels like everyone has at least considered moving to Australia. So you get a national dichotomy of thinking of leaving and resenting those who have. And in the mean time, missing out on the joys of living in New Zealand.

So why feel sorry for the cast? Well, 15 minutes of episode three of The GC combined with an interview some of the cast gave to TV3 made it plainly obvious so much of this "reality" show is scripted (and poorly so). Interviewed on TV and they seemed like shy, modest Kiwis. They were natural, if nervous, and likable. They explained they thought they were part of a documentary and that they aren't being paid.

Like I said in my earlier blog on The GC, bad TV has existed since the start of TV. But even bad actors should get paid.

Lionel Richie - "Tuskegee Volume Two" Track-list

Lionel Richie is riding high in the charts with his first US number one album since 1986's Dancing On The Ceiling, Tuskegee. Richie's album of countrified duets of 13 of his most famous songs is described as a return to his country roots, though any true fan knows those roots have always been pretty close to the surface, even in his Commodores days (think Sail On, Easy or Sweet Love). Solo hits like My Love, Stuck On You and Deep River Woman kept the Alabama in him to the fore and when you couple this with his pop sensibilities and earlier funk and soul credentials, you realize why his place in the pantheon of great songwriters is without question.

Despite writing a record nine US number one hits in nine consecutive years and selling over 100 million albums, the success of Tuskegee has surprised even Richie himself. His previous album Just Go featured outside songwriters giving the master second-rate R&B ballads; the album before, Coming Home, was a mixture of outside mediocrity and Richie-led beauty. Both only sold about half a million copies, but reaffirmed to me that while it is flattering so many modern writers want to work with Lionel Richie, Lionel Richie is much more interesting when he is singing his own songs - invariably because his work is so vastly superior to what anyone could give him.

Tuskegee isn't new material and it isn't even a re-imagined Greatest Hits, but it has some of the best love songs of the last 40 years in duet-form with the likes of Kenny Rogers and Willie Nelson as well as newer country stars like Tim McGraw, Rascall Flatts and Darius Rucker. While what I really want for Richie is to rejoin the Commodores for a new album (and this 20-year-old rumour is still a distinct possibility), initially I might have to settle for second volume of Tuskegee. To contradict myself, the only time Richie has been as good as himself in the hands of other songwriters was when he was a Commodore so any time he wants to sing a Ronald La Pread song (Look What You've Done To Me, Zoom, Say Yeah) or Thomas McClary (Slippery When Wet, Girl I Think The World About You, Celebrate) he's welcome.

But.....Tuskegee Volume Two is almost certainly his next project. So Lionel, if you are reading this, here is your track-list. Duet partners are up to you and I am sure they are lining up. So DO IT! And then get back with the Commodores.

Lucy (Commodores)
Still (Commodores)
How Long
Tonight Will Be Alright
Truly
Love Will Conquer All
Oh No (Commodores)
Just To Be Close To You (Commodores)
Sweet Love (Commodores)
Three Times A Lady (Commodores)
Heroes (Commodores)
Old Fashioned Love (Commodores)
Zoom (Commodores)
Don't Wanna' Lose You
Penny Lover
My Destiny
Love Oh Love

So there are 17 songs, some more country than others. Lionel you can cull four, but not Lucy. The best song from the Commodores 1981 album In The Pocket, here is the original:

HIV-Positive Child Told To Stay At Home - The Story Of Paul Michael Glaser, The Original Starsky

Paul Michael Glaser

Last night on Newstalk ZB we not surprisingly discussed the disturbing story of the four-year old boy in Whangerei told to stay at home from his childcare centre for being HIV-positive. While the centre has refuted some of the allegations against them (including saying he was never expelled and that his removal was to get a "care plan" in place), what is undeniable is that our attitudes to people with HIV and AIDS have somehow reverted back to how they were in the 1980s.

Why do we let our ignorance drive our fears and choose not to arm ourselves with facts? The family of this child have been suffering what sounds like a good old fashioned witch-hunt, with fliers breaching their privacy being sent out to the community and some parents allegedly even harassing the older siblings of the child regardless of the fact they aren't even HIV-positive.

But what if they were? Does anyone in this community care that in the history of the world (a phrase I'm not adverse to using to when it suits) that there are no recorded cases of child-to-child infections of HIV at childcare centres? Fact. Though facts sometimes get in the way of a good moral panic and with permanent markers already drawn and placards waiting for ill-informed slogans to be written, this community in Whangerei has rightfully become a national embarrassment.

The one good part of the story is that it reminds the pessimistic that sometimes things in this world do get better. Rates of mother-to-child HIV infections are reducing around the globe and those fortunate enough to have access to the right HIV medications are no longer facing a death sentence. An unexpected result of this is that we have become complacent in the need to educate people on the realities of this disease.

I mentioned on my show how in broadcasting you have the unique opportunity to do things with either a positive or negative influence. On a station like Newstalk ZB, you have a pretty big megaphone and without being too earnest, and I try to remind myself of that. It would be easy to get disillusioned how some people in the industry, namely former mayors of medium-sized towns, forget just how privileged they are to have a voice and to use that only for destructive ends is un-empathetic, narrow-minded and to what benefit?

With that in mind, I reminded people of the work of Paul Holmes in the 90s in bringing the story of Eve van Grafhorst to the mainstream. A young Australian girl who ultimately succumbed to AIDS, Eve and her mother Gloria were virtually forced to abandon Australia, such was the prejudice against them. Relocating to New Zealand a quarter of a century ago, they found a public willing to replace their fears and ignorance with knowledge. As the country's pre-eminent broadcaster, Holmes brought Eve's courageous story to the public consciousness and changed attitudes to HIV and AIDS in New Zealand in the process.

In the years since though, I guess some of us forgot. Or maybe, some of us were born too late. So kudos to the Campbell Live team for breaking this story, kudos to Paul Holmes for educating anyone with a TV in the 90s and extra kudos to the original Starsky (from Starsky & Hutch) Paul Michael Glaser. Alongside his wife Elizabeth Glaser, the two of them were at the forefront in America in the 80s and 90s in raising HIV awareness and some have even gone so far as to say they did more than anyone in the States in leading the dramatic reduction of mother-to-child infection rates.

It's a story I've told a few times on-air, but in case you haven't heard it, click here to read my feature article about my time in LA in 2006 with Paul Michael Glaser as he discussed losing not only his wife to AIDS, but his daughter as well; amongst the most important interviews I've ever done.

John Banks On His Cabbage Boat - Proof At Last

This photo is thanks to Newstalk ZB listener Ben Cunningham who heard me say on last night's episode of The 2 (with Pam Corkery) that someone needed to photoshop John Banks onto a cabbage boat. Ben sprung into action and produced this photo, which with benefit of the doubt to both Ben and Banks, may in fact be real.

One thing's for certain, if Banks' memory is so shot he can't remember helicopter rides to $30 million dollar mansions, we must forgive him if he also forgets that hypothetical cabbage boat cruises were indeed real. Maybe Kim Dotcom sorted him a discount on the cabbage boat? Receipts will be published soon.

Just in case you've missed the (cabbage) boat on all this, when refusing to answer any of Paul Holmes' questions on Q&A regarding the Kim Dotcom / anonymous donation scandal, Banks decided to make up a saying on the spot: "I think you think I came up the river on a cabbage boat."

"The GC" - Shame On You NZ On Air

Shame, shame, shame on you New Zealand On Air. Like everyone with half a brain in this country, I find it appalling that New Zealand On Air used tax-payer money to fund a show as disastrously vacuous at The GC. A misplaced point mentioned by some on my Newstalk ZB talkback show was, "if you don't like it, don't watch it." I agree! Bad TV shows have existed since the beginning of TV, but what is different is that New Zealand On Air funded The GC to the tune of $420,000.

The GC is yet another Julie Christie production that instead of aiming to enhance New Zealand culture arguably subtracts from it; just think of the Christie-led decline of This Is Your Life with its nadir being a tribute to rugby legend Jonah Lomu in the form of the less than golden triumvirate of NZ Idol winners Lummis, Vai and Saunoa singing a third rate Faith Hill song There You'll Be that had nothing to do with him. Of course viewers deserved better, but so too did the most famous rugby player we've ever produced.

And if people watch these shows and they can sell advertising around it, then we are all the dumber for it and who can blame them for making television that makes them a profit. So let them make a pseudo-reality show (pseudo because large chunks are clearly scripted) about young Kiwis partying and sleeping around on the Gold Coast, but for crying out loud, don't help with the funding.

Worst of all, here is how the show was originally explained by NZ On Air:

"The TV3 series will explore emigration from a Maori perspective and how Tikanga Maori supports them as they adapt to life in a new country."

Compare that to TV3's recent publicity: "The GC follows the lives of a group of talented and attractive young Maori as they work hard and play even harder in Australia's favorite playground, the glittering Gold Coast."

New Zealand On Air has lost its way and in the same year that TVNZ7 is getting the chop, it is more vital than ever it gets an overhaul.



UPDATE - MAY 17:

Oh my gosh! The dust is settling! The show still sucks, but I feel sorry for the cast. On top of that, the reaction to The GC has become infinitely more interesting than the show itself - read about it here.