The courageously stark narrative, inspired by the real-life Aberfan mining disaster in Wales only a few months earlier, gave Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb a first Top 20 hit in both the UK and US in early summer that year.
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“New York Mining Disaster 1941,” released in April 1967, remains one of the most arresting debut hits to start any international career. The brothers auditioned for impresario Robert Stigwood, who in no time was talking about them as the new Beatles, and were in a recording studio by early March. But then things moved incredibly quickly. They literally performed for their passage back to England, paying for their fares by singing on the deck of the Sitmar Line’s Fairsky steamship and arriving in February 1967. There was an incubation period of four years from the first single released in Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb’s adopted home in Australia (1963’s “The Battle of the Blue and the Grey”) to their international arrival. International Year Zero, 1967 New York Mining Disaster 1941 But this primer, overflowing with classics, sets out just some of the unforgettable music they made during a near-35-year chart heyday. Decades on from their first international success, this look at the best Bee Gees songs is a jumping-off point to a songbook that could easily stand a second list of 20, and a third, and so on. Quite simply, the brothers Gibb are up there with the greatest groups, and songwriting partnerships, of all time.