By any rubric, the stretch of songwriting success from 1977 to 1979 enjoyed by Barry Gibb, in conjunction with his fellow Bee Gees and his brother Andy Gibb, stands out as staggering. Now consider that The Bee Gees had risen to that point after being written off by much of the music world.
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The Bee Gees and Barry put together a series of incredible chart-topping streaks in those three years. We probably won’t see the likes of it again.
Brothers Work It Out
The Bee Gees were seemingly heading for the has-been file for much of the early 70s. Their favored style of orchestrated pop balladry had fallen out of favor. But these guys showed enough savvy to reset. They understood that music was headed in a grittier, more urban direction. Wisely, they tailored their songwriting to match it.
“Jive Talkin’”, released in 1975, turned it around for them. It gave them a huge comeback single that went all the way to No. 1 in the US. A year later, “You Should Be Dancing” took them back to the top of the charts.
They were prepping an album for 1977 when their manager, Robert Stigwood, told them about a movie he was producing. Entitled Saturday Night Fever, the film would need a killer soundtrack. The Bee Gees rose to the occasion, thus beginning one of the most incredible chart runs in history.
“Fever” Pitch
As Saturday Night Fever became a runaway hit at the box office, the songs within the movie by The Bee Gees took off as well. “How Deep Is Your Love”, “Stayin’ Alive”, and “Night Fever” each vaulted to No. 1. It gave the band unstoppable momentum that would carry them over the next few years.
Their 1978 album Spirits Having Flown yielded three more chart-toppers in a row with “Too Much Heaven”, “Tragedy”, and “Love You Inside Out”. Were it not for a failed single released under their name from the ill-advised Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band film, they would have posted six No. 1 pop hits in a row. But Barry Gibb nonetheless grabbed a piece of another record-breaking streak in the middle of all that.
In addition to churning out material for themselves to record, The Bee Gees were also writing for other artists. Most notably, Andy Gibb, the youngest Gibb brother, ripped off three straight No. 1 hits himself, all at least partially written by Barry. That’s not to mention “If I Can’t Have You”, penned by The Bee Gees and recorded by Yvonne Ellman for Saturday Night Fever, which also went to No. 1. (In case you’re wondering, a Barry and Robin Gibb composition, Samantha Sang’s “Emotion”, topped out at No. 3 in 1978.)
An All-Time Hit Streak
That streak we referenced? “Stayin’ Alive”, Andy Gibb’s “(Love Is) Thicker Than Water”, “Night Fever”, and “If I Can’t Have You” hit No. 1 consecutively, with no other song interrupting that stretch. Barry Gibb was a credited writer on every one of those songs.
The incredible span broke a record held by John Lennon and Paul McCartney from the early days of The Beatles. Four in a row, and 10 No. 1s in three years. Quite the tally for The Bee Gees and Barry Gibb, the songwriters who held the pop world on a string in the late 70s.
Photo by Robin Platzer/Getty Images
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