The Story of the Bee Gees: Children of the World

The Bee Gees had nine number one hit songs on the Billboard Top 100 chart—more than any group except the Beatles and the Supremes. In a career that spanned more than four decades, they sold an estimated 220 million records worldwide, and they influenced groups such as the Moody Blues and Oasis. But Stanley (Let’s Do It: The Birth of Pop Music) asserts that they did not garner the respect they deserved—a situation he seeks to rectify with this well-written biography. Until the late 1950s, the Bee Gees (formed of older brother Barry and twins Robin and Maurice) lived in Manchester, England, where they were singing and recording before they were teens. The author chronicles the group’s ups and downs—up in the 1960s, down in the early 1970s, then back up when Barry discovered his falsetto and Saturday Night Fever introduced them to disco. They were awarded the Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award and royal honors from Prince Charles. Sadly, their music stopped with the deaths of Maurice (1949–2003) and Robin (1949–2012).