Music Club Records
2004
The Bee Gees Songbook
About This Album
Universal appears singularly uninterested in giving listeners upgrades of the Bee Gees' albums -- they're too busy providing outtakes of the Gin Blossoms' second album and adding irrelevant tracks onto the soundtrack albums Easy Rider and The Big Chill. So Music Club International has done the next best thing, giving listeners this 17-song collection of Bee Gees songs recorded by other artists, ranging from the Staple Singers ("Give a Hand, Take a Hand") in 1971 to Boyzone ("Words") in 1996, with some artists -- obviously Andy Gibb ("An Everlasting Love") -- closer to the group than others. The annotation by Fred Dellar might be the best account of the group members as composers that this reviewer has ever read, and is a dazzling panorama of 1970s and 1980s pop, as seen from the creative orbit of the Gibb brothers. As to the music, it sort of speaks for itself, across a multitude of styles and approaches -- Al Green's "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" is the highlight for this reviewer, followed closely by the Love Unlimited Orchestra's version of "Night Fever" (which is sort of a no-brainer in terms of linking an artist and a song), but even the Tom Jones/Paul Anka version of "Nights on Broadway" -- incongruous as those two seem, linked to each other -- is worth more than one listen. The sound throughout ranges from very good to excellent, utilizing whatever the best extant masters are on each track, and only serves to highlight in vivid terms the woeful neglect of the group's own music by their record label. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
Track List (try tracks 4,6,8,12 and 14)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
14.
15.
16.
17.
17.