Robin Gibb

Robin Gibb (2008)

Robin Hugh Gibb ( CBE ; born December 22, 1949 in Douglas , Isle of Man , † May 20, 2012 in London ) was a British-Australian singer , composer and lyricist . He was best known as the lead singer of the pop group Bee Gees , which, with more than 200 million records sold, is one of the most commercially successful bands in music history. Robin Gibb composed most of the hits that made it to the UK charts. In 1994 he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame . In 2004 he received an honorary doctorate in music from Manchester University .

Life

Robin Gibb was born the third of five children on the Isle of Man. His mother was a singer, the father led a small orchestra. Together with his sister Lesley (* 1945), his brothers Barry (* 1946) and Andy (1958–1988) and his twin brother Maurice Gibb (1949–2003), who was born 35 minutes later, Robin Gibb grew to be his age seven in Manchester . At the age of six, he and his brothers made their first public appearances. In 1958 the family emigrated to Australia and settled in Cribb Island, a suburb of Brisbane . All family members received Australian citizenship. In 1966 they returned to Great Britain.

Musical career

→ Main article : Bee Gees

Robin Gibb became known from the mid-1960s as the lead singer of the Bee Gees , which is listed in the Millennium Edition of the Guinness Book of Records as "the most successful family band in the world".

Robin Gibb appears on Dutch television (1973)

Robin Gibb during a concert in Leipzig (May 2009)

As a result of a dispute, he left the group in 1969 to devote himself to his solo career. With more than a million copies of his debut single Saved by the Bell sold , he achieved a worldwide hit in October of the same year. In 1970 his first solo album Robin's Reign followed , which was able to place in the top 20 of the German charts. A second album, also recorded in 1970, entitled Sing Slowly Sisters , remained unreleased until 2015. It appeared on the 3-CD compilation Saved By The Bell along with the debut album Robin's Reign with three bonus tracks. CD 3 contains rarities, including moderated live performances, Italian versions, Christmas carols and historically important demo versions.

After a 15-month separation, the brothers reunited as Bee Gees and celebrated a number of international successes in the 1970s, including the score for Saturday Night Fever . When it was musically quieter for the trio at the beginning of the 1980s, Robin Gibb released his second solo album, How Old Are You (1983). It reached number six in the German charts. The single Juliet took the top position for six weeks in the same year and is one of the best known solo titles of the artist. With Secret Agent (1984) and Walls Have Eyes (1985) two more records followed, but they could not match the sales figures of their predecessor. With their number one hit You Win Again in 1987, the Bee Gees made a globally successful return to the music business.

More than fifteen years after his last release as a solo artist, Gibbs' fifth album, Magnet , was released in January 2003 , and once again placed in the top 10 of the German charts. Together with the orchestra of the Neue Philharmonie Frankfurt , he completed a concert tour through Germany in 2004. Various recordings were then summarized on a live CD and DVD. The further course of the tour took him to Russia and Asia. In collaboration with other British artists, Robin Gibb took part in the One World Project music project in January 2005 , which collected donations for the victims in January 2005 on the occasion of the 2004 flood disaster in the Indian Ocean . A benefit concert at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff was followed by the common single Grief Never Grows Old , which climbed to position four in the British charts . In 2006 the sound carrier My Favorite Carols was released with the original composition Mother of Love and ten Christmas carols. In 2007, Gibb re-recorded the title Too Much Heaven, which was first published in 1978, with the band US5 , and the following year he published the song Alan Freeman Days . This is dedicated to the BBC radio presenter DJ Alan Freeman, who supported the Bee Gees in the 1960s and Robin Gibbs' solo single Saved by the Bell in Great Britain in 1969. Freeman was an Australian who came to England in 1958 and was a presenter on Radio Luxemburg until the 1970s .

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic , Gibb composed the one-hour requiem The Titanic Requiem together with his son Robin-John . It premiered on April 10, 2012 in Westminster Central Hall by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra , but Gibb was unable to attend the premiere due to his health condition.

As President of CISAC , which is committed to protecting the copyrights of composers and lyricists, Robin Gibb represented a total of 222 authors' societies from 118 countries from 2007 to 2012.

Private life

family

In 1968 Robin Gibb married the secretary Molly Hullis, with whom he had two children (son Spencer, * 1972 and daughter Melissa, * 1974). The marriage ended in divorce in 1980. Since 1985 he was married to Dwina Murphy Gibb for the second time, from this connection the son Robin-John (* 1983) comes. In addition, Gibb had a daughter (* 2008) with his former domestic worker Claire Yang.

Robin Gibb was vegan and lived with his family on The Prebendal House in Thame in Oxfordshire, UK . He was co-initiator of a memorial planned in London for British air fighters of the Second World War , which is controversially discussed in Great Britain and Germany in the public and the media.

Illness and death

Due to an intestinal obstruction , Robin Gibb had to undergo an operation in August 2010. After his preliminary recovery, he performed in New Zealand and Australia, but canceled his tour of Brazil in April 2011 due to renewed health problems. In October 2011 it was announced that Gibb had colon and liver cancer . As a result, he underwent multiple chemotherapy and surgical procedures.

In February 2012, Gibb announced that he had overcome cancer. Together with the British band The Soldiers , he gave his last appearance in the London Palladium that same month . He was no longer able to take part in the premiere of his Titanic Requiem on April 10, 2012. Robin Gibb died on May 20, 2012, a few weeks after he had made his supposed cure public, as a result of his cancer. He was buried on June 8, 2012 in St Mary's Parish Churchyard in Thame.

Awards

• 1994: Induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame
• 1997: Induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Bee Gees
• 2001: CBE - Commander in the Order of the British Empire
• 2004: Honorary Doctorate in Music from Manchester University
• 2005: Steiger Award
• 2010: Honorary Award of the German Sustainability Award

Discography

→ Main article : Robin Gibb / Discography

literature

• André Boße: Robin Gibb and the Bee Gees . Hannibal Verlag, Höfen 2010, ISBN 978-3-85445-333-8

Web links

Commons : Robin Gibb  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Robin Gibbs website
• Bee Gees website
• Robin Gibb in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Robin Gibb on RateYourMusic.com

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Robin Gibb: Lonely Bee Gee on Tour Focus Online , May 1, 2009, accessed April 15, 2012
2. ↑ Robin Gibb turns 60 n-tv.de , accessed on April 15, 2012
3. ^ Schwering, Stephan: Bee Gees . In: Pop-Archiv International 10/2001 of October 15, 2001, supplemented by news from MA-Journal up to week 20/2012 (accessed via Munzinger Online ).
4. ↑ Chart source ( Memento of the original from December 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Musicline.de , accessed on April 15, 2012 
5. ↑ World premiere Titanic Requiem musik-heute.de, April 10, 2012, accessed on April 15, 2012
6. ↑ Robin Gibb in the hospital: The premiere of his Requiem missed Welt Online , April 11, 2012, accessed April 15, 2012
7. ↑ Robin Gibb visits GEMA Supervisory Board ( Memento of the original from December 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. gema.de , January 2009, accessed April 15, 2012 
8. ↑ Robin Gibb celebrates child from Affair Spiegel Online , February 11, 2009, accessed April 15, 2012
9. ↑ youtube.com: Robin Gibb Prebendal House Thame Oxfordshire
10. ↑ Coventry city chief wants bomb memorial  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. sz-online.de , September 8, 2010, accessed April 15, 2012  
11. ↑ Robin Gibb defeats cancer bz-berlin.de , February 5, 2012, accessed April 15, 2012
12. ↑ Robin Gibb live at London Palladium ( Memento of the original from May 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. the-soldiers.co.uk, February 8, 2012, accessed April 15, 2012 
13. ↑ Dieter Bartetzko in FAZ from May 22, 2012, All I have to give are words; On the death of trumpeter Robin Gibb, page 25
14. ↑ London: Titanic Funeral Mass under Bee Gee Aegis , April 11, 2012, accessed December 3, 2017
15. ^ Robin Gibb, Member of Bee Gees, Died at 62. ABC News , May 20, 2012, accessed May 21, 2012 . 
16. ↑ sueddeutsche.de Robin Gibb is dead: melancholic with a mind of his own
17. ↑ stern.de Robin Gibb succumbs to cancer
18. ↑ knerger.de: Robin Gibb's grave
19. ^ Report on the funeral