From Other Guides • Top 40 / Pop Music • Dance Music • Radio

For anyone born in the late Sixties (or afterwards) the Bee Gees were That Disco Band, those guys with the high voices and blown-dry hair who gave the world such "Saturday Night Fever"-era classics as "Staying Alive," "Jive Talkin'," and "You Should Be Dancing." But the recent death of Maurice Gibb - the most talented of the three brothers, from an instrumentalist's standpoint - may just force people to re-evaluate the band's legacy. And they should, because the Bee Gees' contribution to music is perhaps better summed up by a title they had in the Sixties: The Australian Beatles.

That's a name as unfair as it is accurate; unfair because the Brothers Gibb were not just a copycat act, yet accurate in terms of their outstanding ability to craft a song and their genius in adopting others' musical styles to their own sensibility. Indeed, their 1969 masterpiece Odessa is increasingly mentioned in the same breath as other Sixties pop epics like Sgt. Pepper and Pet Sounds. This is not to overlook their immense, almost unfathomable contribution to the disco craze of the late-Seventies (and R&B in general), not to mention the trio's long list of excellent hit songs written and produced for other artists. It is important, however, especially now, to realize that the Bee Gee legacy is much longer, more varied, and even more historically significant than some of us have grown up believing. Espeically since the trio behind the legacy is, technically, no more.

Here's a collection of links to the best websites about Maurice Gibb and the Bee Gees. If you have or know of a site like this that isn't listed here, e-mail me!

Maurice Gibb