Yep, I've been a Bee Gees fan since 1970 or so. I originally preferred them to the Beatles as well. The original Bee Gees greatest hits from 1969/70, along with Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison is why I'm a musician now.
The Saturday Night Fever disco stuff was OK (I love Children of the World and Main Course), and I went off them a bit when Spirits came out. But a few years back I collected nearly everything on CD. I still prefer the 60s/early-to-mid-70s material, but everything they turned their attention to has fabulous things hiding in it.
And Robin... :( ... I prefer Barry's songwriting, but Robin's voice was absolutely it as far as I was concerned. I got into rock music later but Robin's voice, and what he got out of it, has always haunted me ever since I started writing songs and singing lead vocals. And he could have been a rock vocalist - listen to "Paper Mache Cabbages and Kings" on "To Whom It May Concern" or "I Can't See Nobody", or the middle break in "Can't Keep a Good Man Down" - when I was getting into rock singers, it was always "oh he's singing like the stuff Robin Gibb does..."
He used to do these "emotion-drenched" middle eights. There'd be one or maybe two on each album. When I was younger and I had "favourite bits" on records, those were the favourite bits on the Bee Gees records. I'm not really aware of any other recordings by any other artist that have affected me emotionally as those bits did and still do.
He's also why I grew my hair - nothing to do with the rock stuff I ended up being involved in, I already had the long hair when I showed up as a Rainbow, AC/DC, Motorhead, Rory, etc fan in 1980 or so.
I don't feel as sad as I was expecting to, I've known it was coming for some time, but I'm pretty bluddy sad about this.
I've got all these tunes going round in my head with Robin's voice on.
RIP Robin.
