Bee Gee Robin Gibb dies after battle with cancer

Updated

Bee Gees singer Robin Gibb has died at the age of 62 after a battle against cancer.

Gibb who was born on the Isle of Man to English parents and moved to Brisbane as a child before returning to England, had been fighting colon and liver cancer since mid-2010.

Rolling Stone reported that he had been diagnosed with a second tumour and his treatment had been complicated by a case of pneumonia. He had been in a coma since mid-April.

His death was confirmed by a brief statement on his official @RobinGibb Twitter feed.

"Sadly Robin Gibb has passed away May 20th, 10:47 UK time," the tweet, posted this morning, read.

"The family of Robin Gibb, of the Bee Gees, announce with great sadness that Robin passed away today following his long battle with cancer and intestinal surgery," a family statement said.

Brothers Robin, Barry and Maurice Gibb scaled the heights of the pop world in the 1970s with disco hits including How Deep Is Your Love, Stayin' Alive, and Night Fever.

The brothers had first formed the Bee Gees in Brisbane in the early 1960s, and went on to notch up global record sales of more than 200 million.

The group still holds the record for the third-highest selling soundtrack, for Saturday Night Fever.

Robin's twin brother Maurice died in 2003 from complications relating to a twisted intestine.

The youngest Gibb brother, Andy, who was a singer and teen idol, died at the age of 30 in 1988.

In a 2002 interview on British television, Robin Gibb had spoken of his bond with his brothers.

"We created our own little kind of universe where we just wrote and created things," he said.

The Gibb brothers also wrote songs for other artists, including Islands in the Stream, a big hit for Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton.

Robin Gibb is survived by his wife and three children.

'Glorious harmonies, gorgeous music'

Music producer, 70s pop star and former Australian Idol judge Mark Holden paid tribute to Gibb on ABC Local Radio in Melbourne today.

"I think Barry would be a very lonely man today," he said.

"[I] just remember seeing them all the way back when they were kids, and those glorious harmonies, just right back when they were living in Queensland and making that gorgeous music.

"And those of us who were lovers of pop music and beautiful melodies and beautiful harmonies were just totally bewitched by them.

"Robin's extraordinary falsetto. I mean they made falsetto masculine. Just the most gorgeous, gorgeous sound of brothers singing together.

"They were just boys in the suburbs in Queensland that started singing on the local television shows, as we all did.

"They just had that gorgeous sound that only family can have. There's just something very special that happens when families sing together and they, I think, would be the absolute epitome of that.

"So to go from Brisbane and go from singing on Bandstand and those shows to filling the screens on Stayin' Alive, it's an extraordinary journey that they went on."

Former Brisbane radio personality Bill Gates discovered the Gibb brothers playing on the back of a truck at a speedway at Redcliffe when Robin and his twin Maurice were only nine years old.

"Robin was a mischievous little boy and so was Maurice actually, they were little terrors," he recalled.

"I noticed immediately the natural harmony they could create and had a chat to their mum and dad a little later on and recorded them at a studio in Brisbane on the following weekend."

The Bee Gees Formed by three brothers - Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb.

The brothers were born on the Isle of Man before moving to Manchester and eventually Brisbane.

They began their musical careers in Australia, tasting chart success with Spicks and Specks.

Returning to the UK in 1967, they had their first international chart success with To Love Somebody in 1967.

Robin briefly left the band in 1969, feeling overshadowed by Barry, before returning in 1970.

Their place as disco icons was cemented by the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever, featuring hits Stayin' Alive, How Deep is Your Love and Night Fever.

A fourth brother Andy topped the charts on the back of the Bee Gees' success.

In the 1980s the band enjoyed widespread success as songwriters and producers, penning hits including Islands in the Stream and Heartbreaker.

Andy Gibb died in 1988 from myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle.

Maurice Gibb died in 2003 after suffering a heart attack while undergoing surgery to treat a twisted intestine.



Topics: music, arts-and-entertainment, human-interest, england, australia, brisbane-4000, qld, united-kingdom

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