The Bee Gees

Formed by Barry Gibb with his younger twin brothers Robin and Maurice, the Bee Gees have had an astonishing career. From Beatle soundalikes, they reinvented themselves with falsetto harmonies and pounding beats to become the voices of the 1970s disco boom on the back of their Saturday Night Fever movie soundtrack. They retained popular appeal through the ensuing decades to become a pop institution that still survives despite the 2003 death of Maurice Gibb. In 1958 the Gibb family emigrated from the UK to Australia, where they first started performing as the Rattlesnakes and, by the early 1960s, they were appearing regularly on Australian TV as the Bee Gees. They returned to Britain in 1966 and had their first hit with the dramatic New York Mining Disaster 1941. Other classic hits like To Love Somebody, I Started A Joke and Words followed and when the wind changed, they changed with it, moving to the US to triumphantly ride the new disco wave.