Description:
Maurice Ernest Gibb, CBE (22 December 1949 – 12 January 2003) was a musician, singer-songwriter and record producer. He was born in the Isle of Man to English parents, the twin brother of Robin Gibb and younger brother to Barry. He is best known as a member of the singing/songwriting trio the Bee Gees, formed with his brothers. Their younger brother Andy was a popular solo singer. The trio got their start in Australia, and found major success when they returned to England. The Bee Gees became one of the most successful pop groups ever.
Biography
Born Maurice Ernest Gibb to Barbara (née Pass) and Hugh Gibb (d.1992) on th
Maurice Ernest Gibb, CBE (22 December 1949 – 12 January 2003) was a musician, singer-songwriter and record producer. He was born in the Isle of Man to English parents, the twin brother of Robin Gibb and younger brother to Barry. He is best known as a member of the singing/songwriting trio the Bee Gees, formed with his brothers. Their younger brother Andy was a popular solo singer. The trio got their start in Australia, and found major success when they returned to England. The Bee Gees became one of the most successful pop groups ever.
Biography
Born Maurice Ernest Gibb to Barbara (née Pass) and Hugh Gibb (d.1992) on the Isle of Man, Maurice was the fraternal twin brother of Robin Gibb, and the younger of the two by 35 minutes. The fourth-born of five children, he had one older sister, Lesley (b. 1945), and three brothers, Barry (b. 1946), twin Robin (1949–2012), and Andy (1958–1988). In the 1950s, the family moved to Chorlton-cum-Hardy in Manchester, England, then in late 1958, they moved to Brisbane, Australia, settling in one of the city's poorest suburbs, Cribb Island, which was subsequently demolished to make way for the Brisbane Airport.
Gibb was married to the Scottish pop star Lulu from 1969 to 1973. Their careers and his heavy drinking forced them apart and they divorced, childless, in 1973.[1] Gibb later stated they both drank: "We didn't have any responsibilities, we'd just party." [2] He married his second wife Yvonne Spencely on 17 October 1975. They had two children: Adam and Samantha. Their marriage lasted until his death.[3]
Maurice's alcoholic nadir came when he pulled a gun on his wife and kids after a month long bender.[2] She left him and immediately went over to brother Barry's house, refusing to come back until he had done something about his drinking. Maurice went into rehab, calling Yvonne telling her he was going to stay because he really wanted to stop drinking. She said that was the call she had been waiting for.[2]
Gibb said he had battled the booze since the seventies when John Lennon gave him his first drink, which was a Whiskey and Coke: "If he had given me cyanide, I would have drunk the cyanide, I was so in awe of the man."[2] With Ringo Starr as his neighbour the two of them would go out drinking. It got to the point where he became unreliable and prior to going onstage would have to feel his way along the wall to get there, according to Barry.[2]
After rehab Maurice started to rediscover his family again, spending quality time with them. To celebrate this, he and Yvonne renewed their wedding vows in 1992. The ceremony was attended not only by many members of their families but many of the friends Gibb made whilst at the rehabilitation centre.[2]
Gibb also loved the sport of paintball, and had a team which he called the Royal Rat Rangers, a reference to his being named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), and to his time at the Little River AA group, where the members referred to each other as "river rats." He promoted the sport at every opportunity, and opened a paintball equipment shop, "Commander Mo's Paintball Shop," in North Miami Beach, Florida.
Death
Maurice Gibb died at a Miami Beach, Florida, hospital on 12 January 2003 of complications resulting from a twisted intestine (volvulus).[4] His brothers Barry and Robin retired the name Bee Gees for a time, declining to perform as a group.[5] As time passed, they decided to perform occasionally under the Bee Gees banner.[6] On 20 May 2012, his fraternal twin Robin Gibb died of liver and kidney failure[7]. Older brother Barry is now the sole surviving member of the famed Bee Gee brothers.
Career
Maurice Gibb's role in the group focused on melody and arrangements. He sang harmony and backing vocals, and played a variety of instruments. Very early on in 1965 and 1966 he played lead guitar, but as early as 1966 he was playing other keyboard and string instruments in the studio. Bee Gees records from 1967 to 1972 are dominated by Maurice playing piano and bass guitar, along with mellotron ("Every Christian Lion Hearted Man" and "Kilburn Towers"), rhythm guitar (along with Barry), and other parts. The piano on songs like "Words" and "Lonely Days" is the Maurice Gibb sound. On stage he usually played bass guitar, with an additional musician taking bass when Maurice switched to piano. Maurice was less influential in the disco Bee Gees sound of 1975 to 1979, when he played mostly bass guitar.[8] After that time for the last 20 years of his life he played primarily electronic keyboard instruments on stage and in the studio, but occasional lead guitar (including the acoustic guitar given to him by John Lennon, which Maurice used on "This Is Where I Came In", 2001).[9] In the reunited Bee Gees from 1987 onward, Maurice was the group's resident expert on all technical phases of recording, and he coordinated musicians and engineers to create much of the group's sound.
As a songwriter, Maurice contributed mainly to melody, with his brothers writing the lyrics that they would sing on the finished song (for the most part). It is difficult to identify his contributions because the songs were so shaped to the singer, but his brothers' continued writing collaboration with him on solo projects shows how much they relied on him. Maurice sang lead on average one song per album. He was sometimes known as "the quiet one" for his less obvious contributions to the group, but privately he was a good teller of stories who immensely enjoyed talking with fans. His reputation as a mild-mannered stabilising influence with two very ambitious brothers continued through his life.[10] His comic personality shone on stage during Bee Gees concerts when the brothers would perform an acoustic medley. Many times during the song "Holiday", Maurice would mock Robin while he was singing or pretend he was bored (Maurice did not sing on the original record).
Away from the Bee Gees, Maurice recorded an unreleased solo album called The Loner in 1970. He also appeared in a short-lived West End of London musical, Sing a Rude Song written by Caryl Brahms and Ned Sherrin that same year. In 1972, Maurice produced Jimmy Stevens' album Don't Freak Me Out (called Paid My Dues in the United States).[10] During the Bee Gees hiatus in the mid-1980s, he worked with both Barry and Robin on their solo projects, and did some instrumental writing and recording including the soundtrack for the film A Breed Apart. In 1986, Gibb produced and co-wrote an entire album for Swedish singer Carola. Of these and other projects, the only work released under his own name were two singles: "Railroad" in 1970 and "Hold Her in Your Hand" in 1984.[9]
Maurice's last project was to produce an album's worth of songs written and sung by his daughter Samantha, which finally appeared in 2005 under the name M E G—Maurice's initials.
Awards
[citation needed]
In 1994, Maurice Gibb was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and in 1997 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.[12] His catalogue is published by BMG Music Publishing.
In 2002, Maurice was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), along with his brothers, but the awards were not presented until 2004, after Maurice's death; his son Adam accompanied Barry and Robin to Buckingham Palace for the ceremony, representing his father.[13][14]
On 10 July 2009, Maurice was posthumously made a Freeman of the Borough of Douglas. The award, was also bestowed on Robin and Barry, therefore confirming the freedom of the town of their birth to all three brothers.[15]
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