A Brief History of a Song

Jive Talkin’ by The Bee Gees

You know that people really don’t want to play your records when you have to deliver them anonymously in a plain white cover and with a plain white label in the middle. Jive Talkin’  was released as a single in just that format to radio stations in May 1975, and part of the dramatic impact of this tune is understood if you know why that had to be the case.

In 1971 the Bee Gees had written the classic ballad How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, it had reached number one in the US, and was later covered by, among others, the fabulous Reverend Al Green. It would be a long time before they achieved similar success. Between 1971 and 1975 they had issued two albums that had done nothing; Life in a Tin Can (1973) dived into oblivion, and Mr. Natural (1974), only reached No. 194 on the Billboard 200. And between these two the album A Kick in the Head is worth Eight in the Pants was considered to be so poor that Robert Stigwood, the head of the record label RSO, refused to release it. The early seventies were a period in which the career of the Bee Gees seemed to be coming to an inconspicuous end.

But Mr. Natural had taken them in a new direction. This was due primarily to its producer, Arif Mardin, who was a close associate of the legendary co-founder of Atlantic Records, Ahmet Ertegun. Mardin was, alongside Jerry Wexler and Tom Dowd, one of the creators of the ‘Atlantic Sound’, and Robert Stigwood, the Bee Gees manager, clearly wanted his expertise applied to their sickly career. Mardin heard the trademark Bee Gees falsetto in the backing vocals of one of the tracks on Mr. Natural, and in talking to them he realised that they shared his love of rhythm and blues music. So when it came to recording the next album Mardin wanted to combine this mutual love of what was considered by most to be exclusively ‘black’ music, and the unique sound that these three white boys from Manchester could produce, to attempt to become a part of the rapidly growing dance craze called Disco. But the Bee Gees had been nowhere for the last four years, and this music was radically different from what they had done before. Their regular fans – of which they no longer had that many – wouldn’t like this drastic change and Disco fans might reject a bunch of white boys playing black music as not authentic and perhaps even exploitative. Hence the plain packaging with which the record was delivered.

Jive Talkin’ was the first track to be recorded for a proposed new album. The song was recorded at Criterion Studies in Miami, Florida in early February 1975. In anticipation of the new album, and to test the waters to see how the market would react, Jive Talkin’ was released as a single at the end of May 1975. It reached No.1 in the US and Canada, and No.5 in the UK, introducing the Bee Gees to a massive and vibrant new audience and placing them at the forefront of the ever-growing Disco movement. But, as the tracks for the new album accumulated, Robert Stigwood again refused to release the album. However this time it was because he wanted to use them in a multi-million dollar movie instead. Although Jive Talkin’ doesn’t actually feature in the movie ‘Saturday Night Fever’ (the scene it was used in was dropped) it was included on the movie soundtrack album, and has become one of the iconic tunes of the seventies and of disco.

Barry Gibb plays the scratchy guitar intro, while a rhythmic, more melodic guitar played by Alan Kendall joins with it and flows through the tune. Maurice Gibb plays the funky bass line, which provides dancers with a fluid rhythmical groove to move to. The main voice is Barry Gibb, it is subtle, smooth and he seems to under-sing the words, in a very breathy vocal that is remarkably cool and restrained. The chorus harmonies by Maurice and Robin Gibb are everything you need from the Bee Gees, and they illustrate perfectly why so many great vocal groups come from the same family, as the combination of these different voices is organically linked, a real, and naturally harmonious, sound. The organ fills by Blue Weaver, are clearly influenced by songs like Higher Ground and Superstition from Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions album; the lesson being of course that if you are going to borrow from anywhere, then borrow from the best. The drums, played by Dennis Bryon, shuffle brilliantly at the beginning, and with simple and effective high hat, and little breaks that build momentum the rhythm section combines beautifully with Maurice on bass guitar.

Interesting Note – Blue (real name Derek) Weaver and Dennis Byron are both Cardiff boys, they were founder members of Amen Corner and played with a variety of bands before becoming part of the massively successful ‘disco’ version of the Bee Gees, playing on all of the great Saturday Night Fever tracks.

In terms of the lyrics, to say someone is ‘jive talking’ is to say that they are bullshitting or deceiving, it is a phrase probably derived from black street slang, and is not something that the Gibbs would have known or used, and they seem to have hit upon it by accident. Here, again, the influence of Arif Mardin can be seen, he knew what ‘jive talking’ was, having worked with and for black musicians throughout his career and he knew it was a perfect lyrical reference point for the song, placing it squarely in the primarily black culture dominating the American dance scene. The Bee Gees, being English, did not have the self-imposed cultural barriers that many white American artists may have faced. Hence, they did not see black rhythm and blues dance music – which is effectively what disco is - as a ‘no go area’, much as in the past British bands like the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds had felt no restraints on their desire to play the blues.

So when that white label single started to be played and everyone began to realise that this was the Bee Gees – it was a huge shock and made a great impact. Some argued that its success was a sign that disco had gone mainstream, others that this incarnation of the Bee Gees was Robert Stigwood’s attempt to exploit black American music, to make it accessible to a broad national and international audience. However, the fact that Jive Talkin’ competed on an equal footing for playlist inclusion with other disco tunes by being presented in an anonymous fashion, indicates that it was accepted as authentic and ‘real’ disco by radio disc jockeys before they knew who it was by. While the fact that Robert Stigwood was seriously considering dropping the ‘failing’ Bee Gees before Jive Talkin’ was released, is an indication that it was not the product of some marketing masterplan, but of the love, dedication and talent of the people who made it.

They were yet another four lads from Lancashire (Alan the guitarist was from the Red Rose County too), a couple of fellas from Cardiff and a producer from Istanbul, via Brooklyn, who didn’t see boundaries and no-go areas, only music. Jive Talkin’ is one of the great dance tunes of the age, its influence is timeless, it has the same enthralling effect now as it always did and the pleasure it gives just will not stop. It is definitely in my top-ten of Disco tunes and one of my favourite dance tunes of all time.