The Cellar - Goodbye, Maurice Gibb

I hate getting older...performers I admire keep passing on, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it except to try and honor their memory out of a sense of gratitude for all the enjoyment they've given me.

I don't guess I can even speak of Maurice Gibb without speaking of his other two most famous brothers, Robin and Barry. Together, The BeeGees wove some of the most amazing harmonies ever heard in popular music. If they'd sung any higher, I would have thought them to be throwbacks to the castrati.

I've been a big Bee Gees fan since I was a wee lad. They were huge during the 60's with "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart", "To Love Somebody", "Massachusetts"...all worthy efforts for these three working class lads with extraordinary vocal talents. The Brothers Gibb were also unique in that they, like so many American artists of that era, had to leave their home country to become famous. The only thing was, the BeeGees had to leave England for Australia, while American artists such as Jimi Hendrix had to leave the US for England. Go figure. But from the ashes of the British music hall scene, the boys clawed their way to the top of the popular music heap with sterling vocals and smart, heartfelt music.

By the dawn of the disco era, it appeared that the BeeGees had peaked and faded away...wrong. With the unbelievable success of "Saturday Night Fever", the boys found themselves an entire new audience. For my part, the BeeGees were the only group during the disco era that didn't make me want to puke. The quality of their vocals, arrangements and musical skills showed through even in those, the bleakest musical times of my life. They took a basic dance beat/synth based format, added their shimmering voices and...dare I say?...intelligent lyrics and showed the rest of the dreck out there how good it could be if you had talent. The follow-up album to the "Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack", "Main Course" (featuring "Nights on Broadway") still reigns as my favorite BeeGees album, and that's saying a lot.

The 70's nostalgia revival of the past few years eventually found its way to the BeeGees, and they mounted a very successful tour and subsequent VH1/MTV concert that was astonishingly well-performed. 35 years past their inception as a childhood singing group, they still had most of the vocal range and all of the chops. The three were never so good as when they stood in trio around a single microphone, Barry playing acoustic guitar, and sang like they meant it. If you couldn't feel something listening to them sing in this way, you couldn't feel...period.

I'm saddened that I never got to see them live in person, and saddened that Maurice Gibb passed away today at the age of 53 following surgery to correct an intestinal blockage which contributed to the cardiac arrest which hospitalized him. Too young by far. Too talented by half.

Peace to you, Maurice. Thanks for so much great music.