Robin Gibb — who lost his long battle with cancer on Sunday at age 62 — sang with a great shake, one that brought the melodrama of the Bee Gees’ early hits to their emotional zenith.
While Barry became the group’s focal point and biggest star during their “Saturday Night Fever” juggernaut of the late ’70s, Robin fronted many of the group’s best-known initial hits in the ’60s.
In a smash like “Holiday,” Robin’s plaintive voice made its quavering melody ache. His hesitant and forlorn style could border on the maudlin. But it epitomized the group’s frilly, Edwardian arrangements and gave their songs grandeur.
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Robin did equal wonders on the elegant hit “Massachusetts” as well as the borderline desperate “I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You.” In both performances, his nervous delivery nailed the songs’ urgency. Still, it was “I Started a Joke” that captured Robin at his most ornate and individual. An over-the-top song about existential loneliness and shame, only a voice as elaborately sad as Robin’s could make it real. The dramatic pace of his phrasing — the spaces he left, the way he lowered his voice in key moments — gave the song the flair of high theater.
Robin had a rivalry with brother Barry for the group’s lead spot. They traded that role on early hits, which led to the younger brother leaving the group for a brief spell in the early ’70s. But his solo career didn’t take off as he’d hoped, and that was probably for the best. Robin’s voice achieved many of its greatest flights in tandem with his two brothers. His glowing harmonies, closely constructed with his siblings, can be heard throughout the group’s sterling catalogue.
Robin and his brothers often argued that they deserved to be seen beyond the disco trend which they rode to power. Surely, the soul of their songs from that era made that case. But the paramount commercial clout of that time did the group a disservice, if only by obscuring their long string of early hits, songs delivered in a very different style. Go back and listen to those finely shaped songs now, from “New York Mining Disaster 1941” to “Run to Me,” and you’ll hear some of Robin’s greatest contributions — ones that deserve far more attention than the white suits, hairy chests and gold medallions of their media peak
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/appreciation-bee-gees-robin-gibb-undervalued-voice-pop-music-article-1.1081897#ixzz1vWtG4Kth
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