Bubbling Under: Bee Gees- "Charade"

Or: Before the Brothers Gibb went disco.

Welcome to Bubbling Under. Each edition I cover an artist that charted outside the Hot 100 on Billboard's Bubbling Under chart. This week: Bee Gees

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Also, My friend

PeDupre

of

The Twelve Inch

recently covered The Bee Gees’ disco career in a great piece you can read here.

By 1974, it looked as if the Brothers Gibb were finished. They hadn’t scored a Top Ten since 1971’s #1 smash “How Do You Mend A Broken Heart”. Their last Top 40 hit had been “Alive” at the end of 1972. By 1974, they were lucky to score chart entries in the lower tier of the Hot 100.

There was some light at the end of the tunnel when they were paired with legendary producer Arif Mardin for their next album, 1974’s Mr. Natural. This proved a smart choice, as their next album, 1975’s Main Course, was the start of their enormous 1970s comeback.

By 1973, the brothers had recorded an album titled A Kick in the Head Is Worth Eight in the Pants. The intended lead single, “Wouldn’t I Be Someone” flopped, causing their manager and label boss Robert Stigwood to shelve the album.

Robert Stigwood didn’t want to give up on the group but knew their increasingly dreary ballads had fallen out of favour. It was suggested to Stigwood through Atlantic Records’ Jerry Wexler and Ahmet Ertegun that they work with Arif Mardin. Mardin’s influence is essentially where their change in direction to a more blue-eyed soul and later disco sound started.

Despite Mr. Natrural not being much of a hit, three singles emerged from the album.

Mr. Natural was the album’s debut single. This reminds me a lot of the tracks off Main Course and as I mention later in this piece regarding “Charade”, it likely could have been a hit had they saved it. It’s an upbeat pop number with some of Mardin’s R&B flourishes. Had they not been regarded as has-beens by this point, this would have been a lot more massive than #93. To be fair, this was their highest chart placement since “Alive”. It also got them a spot on the then-popular Mike Douglas Show.

The second single, “Throw A Penny” is an upbeat pop number, not unlike the stuff the group had been churning out. Some tune changes remind me of their more Beatles-influenced numbers such as “Lonely Days”. There were some noticeable differences, though. The intro and slower bits remind me a lot of “How Deep Is Your Love”. Around the 3:53 mark, there’s one final tune change into a funk number which leads to a segue into the following track funk-rocker “Down The Road”. The segue feels like another hint of what was to come when the brothers embraced disco.

“Charade” is a ballad, but Mardin’s influence is very noticable. It leans more towards the Blue Eyed Soul sound they were starting to adopt. The production is, for lack of a better word, dazzling. Had they kept “Charade” for the Main Course album, it could have been a hit. It sort of has a similar feel to their overlooked 1975 hit “Fanny Be Tender With My Love”.

“Charade” whimpered to #103 and that might have been the last anybody heard of the Brothers Gibb until they started playing around with something called “Drive Talking”.

The rest, as they say, is history. For the rest of the decade, the brothers re-emerged as one of the biggest musical acts in the world. By the 1980’s they hit another bump in the road but continued to score infrequent chart entries until the end. That, however, is a story for another week.

Sunday: Beyond The Guess Who returns with a look at Molly Johnson's bands Alta Moda and the Infidels.