After a slow, poorly selling series of albums in the early 1970's, a change of direction was instigated by Barry Gibb, and the brothers fused their new, distinctive falsetto vocals with a R & B flavour in favour with many black disco artists at the time. "Main Course" LP includes "Nights on Broadway", later covered by Candi Staton. This album also contains the chart-topping "Jive talking" and "Fanny".
A surprisingly underground sounding disco album, "Children of the world", contains the excellent "You stepped into my life", covered by Melba Moore. This album will be best remembered for the disco classic "You should be dancing", which launched a million John Travoltas in white suits onto disco floors in the late 1970's. Also on this album are the funky disco tracks "Boogie child" and "Lovers".
The film Saturday Night Fever came out at the tail-end of 1977 and the Bee Gees were given the task of producing the main original tracks for the soundtrack. In the end, it did better than anyone expected, and the album was the best selling album of all time - only superseded six years later by Michael Jackson's "Thriller". The single "Night fever" was a multi-platinum single in it's own right and topped the US charts for 8 weeks. "Stayin' alive" became a classic disco anthem which sums up the mood and feel of the disco era of the 1970's. This album also includes the two Bee Gee's tracks "How deep is your love" and "More than a woman".
Still riding high, their next LP "Spirits having flown" contained the platinum-selling "Tradegy" and also bonus disco tracks such as "Search, find" and "Too much heaven". However, as the disco era drew to a close in the early 1980's, the Bee Gee's were cruelly parodied and it was some time before they could sell records again.
The Bee Gee's are on record as being the only pop group to have had UK chart hits in the 1960's, 1970's, 1980's and 1990's. (Not even the Beatles managed this).
Barry Gibb was also a disco producer in his own right, and worked with artists such as Barbra Streisand, Jimmy Ruffin, Yvonne Elliman and Teri DeSario. Also, the fourth brother, Andy Gibb produced several recordings in the late 1970's.
You should be dancing (RSO 12" RS 853, 1976) -
blank b-side You should be dancing (RSO 4-track EP PRO 013, 1976) w/
"Boogie Child", "You stepped into my life" and
"Subway" Saturday night fever special disco version (RSO 5-track EP
PRO 033, 1977) w/ "Stayin' alive", "Night fever", "More
than a woman", "You should be dancing" and Yvonne Elliman track
Sgt. Pepper's lonely hearts club (RSO LP sampler RPO 1003, 1978) Tragedy (RSO
3-track EP RPO 1008, 1979) w/ "Search, find" Best of Grease and
Saturday Night Fever (RSO LP sampler RPO 1011, 1979) - w/ "Stayin'
alive", "Night fever" and more