Goodbye, Robin

Robin Gibb died today. I really hoped that waking up from his coma was the first step on the road to recovery--but inside, I feared that he was too ill to make it. Now we know.

In my headphones as I write this I can hear Robin singing And the Sun Will Shine from the 1968 Horizontal LP. I had this album as a vinyl LP, and I spun it regularly--and listened with my Koss headphones. How much and little has changed.

Robin's music lives on--thanks to recordings--but the BeeGees is reduced to Barry.

I don't know what to say--and that's unusual. How do you assess the loss of someone you never met or knew but felt close to for 45 years?

I'm adding two of the last BeeGees CDs to my iPod right now. Still Waters from 1997 and This is Where I Came In from 2001. This one was the final BeeGees album--Maurice died in 2003. Sigh.

Robin Gibb has Awoken from his Coma!

Reuters and other agencies report that Robin's awake and communicating with his family. This is great news.

I grew up with the BeeGees, who were just a couple of years older than I was--but they were already child stars. In 1967, when Holiday was on the charts and BeeGees 1st debuted in the U.S., Robin was just 17--and I was 14. I followed them for a few years and didn't pay much attention again until they became disco legends. I was less interested in that music.

The group put out albums in the 1990's, including the song One, which returned them to non-falsetto singing.

Things ground to a halt again when Maurice died in 2004 at a mere 53 years old. He was the musician of the group while Barry and Robin sang--and I realized later that it was the bass work Maurice did that I admired in their recordings.

But I'm happy now, and looking forward to Robin's full recovery.