Stayin Alive

Last night I attended a Bee Gee’s concert.

Well, not exactly.

It was a tribute band playing the Bee Gee’s songs.

The Bee Gees, short for “brothers Gibb,” were a group of three siblings from Australia whom I idolized in the late 1970’s, amid the explosion of disco music and dancing.

The movie Saturday Night Fever which premiered in 1975 propelled its lead actor John Travolta to stardom but the Bee Gee’s already famous in their own right, to another level entirely; a worldwide phenomenon as the writers and performers of the film’s wildly popular songs.

Their talent as lyricists and unique harmonizing ability was unparalleled. It is said they wrote the entire soundtrack for Saturday Night Fever in a weekend, while away at a studio in France, all songs skyrocketing to the top of the charts shortly thereafter.

I remember the days when my Cousin Barbara and I would practice our moves to a new dance sweeping the nation called “The Hustle.” We spent hours in the often futile attempt to get the steps just right. Despite our commitment, we never quite matched the skill of John Travolta who was said to have practiced 5 hours a day to perfect his dancing for the film.

Though I guess it mattered little to a thirteen and fourteen year old girl, each resigned to the fact that we’d never quite reach professional status. So instead, we danced our hearts out, singing the lyrics to each other as we shuffled, clapped, stepped and spun to the Brother’s Gibb, in the narrow basement of Barbara’s Lynbrook, Long Island home.

But it was the songs.

Those beautiful heart wrenching songs which I would sing along to in abandon when they came on the radio… The soulful, “How Deep is Your Love,” the earnest and romantic “More Than a Woman” The comforting “Run to Me” where oldest brother Barry promised to protect you from the ills of the world and the frenetic “You Should be Dancin” which pulsated in every New York nightclub of the era including the infamous Studio 54 which we frequented in later years once of legal age.

Perhaps one of their most famous hits was “Staying Alive,” also featured in Saturday Night Fever to which a confident and carefree John Travolta struts down the Brooklyn boulevard in the movie’s opening scene to the rhythmic chorus of, “ah, ah, ah, ah, Stayin Alive, Stayin Alive, ah, ah ah…Stayin Alive.”

And when the era of “Down With Disco” arrived, brutal and heartless, I cried for the Bee Gee’s and this time in life ultimately fading and soon to be no longer. But it did not fell those fantastic trio. They went on to become song writers to some of the most famous artists around; Barbara Streisand, Dion Warwick, Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton to name just a few. Their talent was endless and their ability to resurrect themselves always a given.

When Andy Gibb died at age thirty of a weakened heart, my own heart that day, broke a little too. Though never a member of the Bee Gees, he was the youngest of the brothers, and came to fame later in life, enjoying several hit singles. Andy was gorgeous, charismatic and modest. Like his brothers, he caught the hearts of everyone teen girl the world over and likely women of a certain age as well, likely men too. A bronze memorial plaque at his final resting place is said to carry the immortal words of one of his songs, and reads simply “An Everlasting Love.”

Last night at the tribute concert, I sat in the audience and sang along to the songs I love.

Slipping downstairs during intermission for a glass of wine, the music of the Bee Gee’s soundtrack continued, pulsating throughout the lobby. As my very favorite song, “More Than A Woman,” came on, I happened to meet the eyes of a woman standing next to me. It took little, if no prompting. We clearly had the same idea. And linking arms we danced together to an impromptu version of “the hustle” amid the cheers of the bartender and small crowd who had gathered nearby.

Whether the performance was wine fueled or from simple nostalgia I can’t say for certain. Though I was pleased those endless days of practice in cousin Barbara’s basement, proved not to be in vain.

I will always love the music of the Bee Gee’s and that wonderful time of life their songs evoke. After more than nearly fifty years, they have once again succeeded in resurrecting their fame but this time in a new generation, who shuffle, clap, step and swing to their music, during wedding celebrations the world over.

Janet, my best friend since the first grade, too shares my love of the group. To this very day we have a ritual. When either of us call on the phone to catch up on life, rather than saying hello, we instead, sing to each other the first line of our favorite Andy Gibb song, “I Just Want to be your Everything.”

“Darlin for so long. You and me been finding each other for so long…”

A tribute to friendship. An everlasting love.