Bee Gees, Barry Gibbs vocals?

Cafe Society
1

The only other singer I have heard that sounds like Barry Gibbs is Geddy Lee from Rush, and based on dates I’m fairly sure he did not inspire Barry.

Was Barry Gibbs inspired by any predecessors? I’m just wondering where he got the inspiration for high singing voice, which is genius and totally works with their songs but seems to come out of nowhere aside from Rush.

2

Slight nitpick: It’s Gibb. Gibbs would be more than one Gibb.

3

Different approaches. I think Geddy Lee is singing full voice; with Barry Gibb, his move to using his falsetto only came about when they got back together in the early '70’s and did songs that ended up being part of the Disco craze.

To my knowledge, he was encouraged to move to his falsetto by his producer at the time (can’t recall) and by his manager Robert Stigwood. I don’t recall Barry naming any one major influence on his falsetto - I assumed he looked old R&B and soul singers…

4

Off the top of my head I think both Frankie Valli and Lou Christie came before the Bee Gees.

5

Barry Gibb actually used three distinct voices when singing lead. A big full sound, a breathy higher pitched sound and the falsetto. How Can You Mend a Broken Heart uses the first for the verses and the second for the chorus. And as WordMan pointed out, the falsetto came later at the urging of his producer.

6

I think his younger brother Andy Gibb sounded like him very much when hitting the falsetto. Valli, Lee and other singers mentioned hit falsetto but did not sound like Barry. Andy could pass for him, but Robin and Maurice were different.

7

The famous Gibb falsetto was first introduced when producer Arif Martin asked if any of the brothers could “scream in tune”, during the recording of the song “Nights On Broadway”. All of them could do it, but Barry did it better than the others.

And the rest, as they say, is history…

8

If I had to guess, I’d say that the early Bee Gees were strongly influenced by the harmonies of the Everly Brothers, and that Barry’s falsetto was originally his attempt at imitating Phil Everly.

Remember, the early Bee Gees were more of a folk group than a soul or rock group.

9

And Geddy Lee does not sing falsetto. “Falsetto” is a specific vocal technique, not a tonal range.

10

Barry definitely changed his use of falsetto when the band veered toward R & B in the mid-Seventies, but he’d been singing falsetto on songs like “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” for may years before that.

11

Ding ding ding, correct. This is how I heard Barry himself explain the move to falsetto. He didn’t stick solely to that style though.

12

I remember that during live performances of the song “Nights On Broadway”, Barry would sing the baritone part, and Maurice would do the falsetto line.

13

I’m not up on my Bee Gees timeline, but would the success of the first Michael MacDonald era Doobie Brothers album have been an influence? Takin’ it to the Streets came out in 76. The movie, Stayin’ Alive came out in 77. But were the Bee Gees falsettoing prior to that?

ETA - never mind. Turns out Nights on Broadway came out in 75. So let me ask this - what other 70s era falsetto vocalists were there?

14

The Stylistics :

Robert John (he had a fantastic, soulful falsetto, and really should have had more hits, IMHO:

Leo Sayer :

15

That’s-a-funny. My last pupil, she got a falsetto teeth.

16

Thanks!

I’m sorry if I incorrectly attributed Geddy Lee’s voice to falsetto, it was the closest to
Barry Gibb’s I could name,.