Let’s dip back into another time capsule issue of People Magazine. This time we’ll crack open a copy from February 06, 1978 with the Bee Gees featured on the cover. The headline reads: “Saturday Night Fever’s Bee Gees, Stayin’ Alive?, After 22 years, the Brothers Gibb are hotter than ever.”
The cover story focuses on the Saturday Night Fever explosion, mentions the Bee Gees’ upcoming Sgt. Pepper’s film and follows Barry and Maurice to their new homes in Florida. Robin has remained in England. Here are a few choice paragraphs.
Robin and Molly Gibb Feb. 1978
“Their Here at Last—Bee Gees Live LP then sold some one and a half million, and when impresario Stigwood asked them to come up with some tunes for a disco movie, they delivered five in a week and a half: one of them, Stayin’ Alive, in two hours. Its title—and exhilarating thrust of rhythm—tells it all about the Gibbs. So do sales: Their first single release off the LP, How Deep Is Your Love, shot to No. 1 the same week Saturday Night Fever hit the moviehouses. Alive, the film’s opening and closing theme and one of the finest creations of the disco era, is well on its way to the top. And Fever’s sound track double LP, moving a staggering 200,000 a week, finally dislodged Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours from No. 1 after so long that everyone had forgotten its predecessor (Hotel California).”
Barry and Lynda Feb. 1978
“Barry, the eldest, is the chief songwriter, apostle of domesticity and prime mover of the Gibb HQ to Florida (after spotting it on a promo tour last year). Once he’d relocated his wife of seven years, Lynda, a former Miss Scotland, and their two children, he convinced Maurice to follow with Yvonne, his wife of three years, and their son. Along the way came the Bee Gees’ parents—Barbara, an ex-songstress, and Hugh, a ferryboat bandleader back in Britain and their manager pre-Stigwood. They bought a houseboat near the homes Barry and Maurice own along a private cove in Miami Beach. Andy (who has lately been dating actress Susan George, 27, since his marriage got into trouble after 16 months) also lives nearby.”
You can read the entire article if your fancy is tickled.
Here’s a nifty bonus ad from the same issue.
The VW Bus Feb. 1978. Man, whatta van.