

According to lore, they were set to lip-sync to a record in a local cinema but as they were going to the gig, the record broke and the brothers had to sing live. The brothers formed that band in the mid-1950s with some friends and in 1957 they began to sing harmony. It was then that it was proclaimed only Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, Garth Brooks, and Paul McCartney have sold more. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. To date, they’ve sold more than 120 million albums.

They won five Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year. Their work on the 1977 soundtrack for the hit movie, Saturday Night Fever, turned them into global stars. In 1967, they emigrated back to the United Kingdom where they began to record and earn worldwide promotion. The band’s early minor hit as the Bee Gees was “Spicks and Specks.” It was their 12th single.

Later, the family moved to Redcliffe in Australia and Cribb Island after that. Later in their career, the trio wrote a number of hits for other artists, including Celine Dion.īorn on the Isle of Man, the brothers moved around a bit while growing up, first moving to Manchester, England, forming a band in 1955 called the Rattlesnakes. With tasty three-part harmonies that became even more recognizable when Barry took it to a high-pitched falsetto, their songs like “Stayin’ Alive” remain ubiquitous today. Origins, Meaning, and Retiring the Name Band Originsįormed formally in 1958 in Australia, the partnership between the three brothers known as the Bee Gees began first in the 1940s in England.Ĭomprised of brethren Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb, the three earned great heights of fame and acclaim in the 1960s and 1970s, especially during the disco craze in the late ’70s.
