April 14, 1967—Just before psychedelic rock gained
irresistible momentum with the Summer of Love, a
last beachhead was secured by the British Invasion with help from a group from the far
side of the Commonwealth: the Bee Gees,
who released their first international hit, “New York Mining Disaster 1941.”
A running joke in Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories involves fans telling his filmmaker protagonist
Sandy Bates, “I like your early, funny ones.” You’ll find similar, perhaps even
more, divisions among pop music aficionados. Do you prefer the Moody Blues
through Seventh Sojourn, or after?
Eric Carmen as part of the power-pop group The Raspberries, or mellower all by
himself? Bruce Springsteen before or after discovering The Darkness on the Edge of Town?
The mid-to-late 1970s success of the Brothers Gibb,
climaxing with the soundtrack for Saturday Night Fever—which,
for a time, held title as the bestselling LP of all time—would seem to resolve
any such disputes decidedly in favor of the group’s disco-era sound. Perhaps
there are even those who like all of
their music.
Maybe it’s just me, but am I part of an underground
but hardly unsizable contingent that prefers their early work—a string of hits
stretching over five years, including “I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You,”
“Massachusetts,” “I Started a Joke,” “Words,” all the way to “Run to Me”? You
can keep “Stayin’ Alive,” “Night Fever,” and most of the hits from 1975 on.
They’re all just jive talkin’ to me.
I’ll stick with the early songs, thank you very
much. You can keep the disco beat they rode to the top of the charts. I’d
rather play a CD of their greatest early hits and leave the rest to whoever wants
them.
It surprised me to learn that the Bee Gees, like the
Rolling Stones, celebrate their golden anniversary in show business this year.
True, there is an age differential between the Bad Boy Brits and the band of
brothers (Watts, Jones, Jagger and Richard were born between 1941 and 1943;
Barry Gibb was born in 1946, and twins Maurice and Robin three years later).
But the real reason why I associate the Stones with a (somewhat) earlier time
owes to when the world took notice of them. Even though the Bee Gees had recorded
since 1962, their work had been covered overwhelmingly by fellow Australians,
not the outside world. It was this situation that they aimed to rectify in late
1966 when they contacted Beatles manager Brian Epstein and planned to move to the U.K.
Epstein passed along the request to friend and colleague Robert Stigwood. The youths’
father might not have been crazy about their journey from Down Under, but their
great commercial success starting in 1967 triumphantly bore out their hopes.
There are a few noteworthy things to remember about “New
York Mining Disaster 1941”:
· *
The
group was not inspired to write by an actual mining disaster.
The song came to life as a metaphor, with the brothers sitting in the dark on
stairs at the studio of Polydor Records and likening it to a mine.
·
* There
was no “New York” disaster in 1941. There was in 1939, but changing the year made
no sense historically or in terms of the song structure.
· *
If
there was a mine disaster referred to, it was Aberfan mining disaster in Wales,
less than six months before the song’s release. The
death toll in that incident reached 144, 116 of whom were children. Emotions were still raw. Displacing the event to a moment in the past enabled the Bee
Gees to write, from the perspective of a trapped miner, without being accused
of exploiting tragedy.
·
*The
song’s instrumentation evoked the Beatles at an evolutionary, rather than
revolutionary, stage of their career. With the John
Lennon-penned “Tomorrow Never Knows,” the Fab Four had already taken a step toward
psychedelic rock, and not long after “New York Mining Disaster 1941” they would
move even more forcefully toward this trend with Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Stigwood’s marketing
strategy for the Bee Gees’ first British single was clever: "New York Mining Disaster 1941" featured the kind of unusual instrumental experimentation the Beatles began to employ with "Yesterday"--in this case, the use of a string quartet, jew's harp, and a guitar with Hawaiian tuning. Stigwood sent the tune to
record stations with a white label with only the song title—no group name.
Deejays assumed it was made by the Beatles and played the song continually
until it became clear that the Beatles hadn’t made this. The ploy worked: the song peaked at #12 on the U.K. charts and #14 in the U.S.
As I write this, Robin Gibb lies in a coma. This would seem to bring to an end a family saga marked by enormous success and terrible tragedy (Maurice and younger brother Andy predeceased him). Despite my misgivings about the later direction of the Bee Gees' career, the group undoubtedly made a huge impression on the musical scene with their trademark falsettos. At their best, they were very, very fine indeed.
As I write this, Robin Gibb lies in a coma. This would seem to bring to an end a family saga marked by enormous success and terrible tragedy (Maurice and younger brother Andy predeceased him). Despite my misgivings about the later direction of the Bee Gees' career, the group undoubtedly made a huge impression on the musical scene with their trademark falsettos. At their best, they were very, very fine indeed.
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