Introduction:
Barry Gibb, 74, and Stephen Gibb, 46, recorded a live jamming session back in March 2020 and streamed the medley for lucky Bee Gees fans.
The pair gave a stripped-back acoustic performance of three of the band’s most famous songs: ‘Stayin’ Alive’, ‘Words’ and ‘How Can You Mend A Broken Heart’.
Recorded at Barry Gibb’s house in Miami – a property the Bee Gee made his permanent home in 1974 – the duo sounded effortless as they duetted.
Stephen, a musician in his own right, has been touring as part of his father’s band since 2013.
The first-born son of Linda and Barry Gibb, Stephen graduated from music school and cut his teeth in bands across the US including Black Label Society, Crowbar, Kingdom of Sorrow and The Underbellys.
A very talented musician, Stephen joined his father as his lead guitarist and went on the remaining Bee Gees’ first solo tour, Mythology, in 2013, and since then Stephen has played regularly for his father as his lead guitarist and also for the Bee Gees’ charitable causes.
The Mythology Tour – Barry’s first as a solo artist – tour saw Stephen and Maurice Gibb’s daughter, Samantha, join Barry in regular performances.
Extraordinary performances include Stephen Gibb singing ‘Stayin’ Alive’ with Barry and Samantha, a beautiful duet of Samantha singing ‘How Can You Mend a Broken Heart’ with her uncle, and performing ‘You Win Again’ as Barry watches on.
2017 saw Stephen and Samantha Gibb form their own band, The Gibb Collective, bringing together the talented offspring of brothers Barry, Maurice, Robin, and Andy Gibb.
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The band released their first album Please Don’t Turn Out The Lights, on May 19th, 2017, featuring ten reimagined covers of Bee Gees classics, showcasing a contemporary perspective on the timeless tunes that defined an era.
In 2020, Stephen Gibb opened up about his battle with drug-addiction and how he managed to turn his life around.
The 46-year-old revealed how his drug addiction led him into a spiral of homelessness and scavenging for food. Stephen recalled that he came to a crossroads and turned his life around, knowing that if he carried as he was he faced ‘death, prison or a mental institution.’
Speaking on his recovery podcast, Addiction Talks, the performer said: “The first time I drank I was probably 14 and I downed an entire bottle of Jack Daniels [and] blacked out.”
He went on to describe his spiral from having regular work to losing everything.
“After I lost my gig with my band I was homeless, they throw away so much good food in studios and I remember eating out of the dumpster at the record plant praying nobody would see me,” he says.
“I remember thinking ‘This sucks’.’I was living in my van or wherever I could land. If somebody let me crash on a couch I was fortunate.
“The thing for me that was mind blowing was the old saying, from Park Avenue to park bench.”
Once he turned his life around and got sober, Stephen Gibb went back to performing, writing music and regularly playing the guitar with his dad, however, the threat of addiction has sadly been rife in the Gibb family.
The youngest Gibb brother, Andy Gibb, died in 1988 aged just 30 due to heart problems caused by cocaine addiction.
Samantha’s father, Maurice Gibb, was a recovering alcoholic who died after a cardiac arrest in 2003 aged 53, and Robin Gibb died in 2012 after a long battle with cancer.
Following on from the release of the Bee Gees documentary How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, Barry Gibb went on the record to say he won’t watch the film because he couldn’t handle seeing the loss of his family.
Speaking to CBS Sunday Morning in January 2021, the 74-year-old said: “I can’t handle watching the loss of my family. I just can’t handle it.”
“Who would? I think it’s perfectly normal to not want to see how each brother was lost, you know? And I don’t want to address it. I’m past it.”
Touching upon the loss of his brothers in the interview, Barry described it as “incredibly, incredibly hard”.
“We’ve never not been together,” he said. “The first year after the last brother passed, Robin, that was the most difficult period for me.”
“And people have said, ‘He had a breakdown.’ You know, I didn’t have a breakdown, actually.”
The singer continued: “I just didn’t know where to go. I didn’t know what to do. And I didn’t know how to be perceived. I didn’t know how to perceive other people’s opinions.
2024 saw the remaining Bee Gee honoured for his lifetime artistic achievements at the Kennedy Center Honors.
Barry joined fellow honorees Billy Crystal, Queen Latifah and Dionne Warwick, for the event, where Dolly Parton, Lionel Richie, Barbra Streisand and Paul McCartney appeared in pre-recorded messages for Barry, before country band Little Big Town sang the Bee Gees’ ‘Lonely Days’.
At the end of his speech, Barry paid tribute to his late brothers, saying: “Thank you all, this is the most incredible honour of my life.
“Without my brothers, I wouldn’t be standing here. I salute Maurice, Robin, and Andy. We were a family of music and a family of love.”
