BEE GEES: SPIRITS HAVING FLOWN
With Spirits Having Flown, the Bee Gees usurped the creative control that had been tugged away from them after their last studio album, 1976’s Children Of The World. Fever wasn't their vision, nor was the woefully misguided turn they were impelled to take as a Beatles cover band in yet another Stigwood-helmed film, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The Gibbs and their co-producers agreed that the new album needed to take a calculated step away from its predecessors. For the first time in their twenty years together as a group, the Bee Gees' positionality afforded them the resources to create and experiment in ways that hadn't existed previously. What resulted is considered by many to be a masterclass in album production. The Bee Gees' sound on Spirits Having Flown is an evolution of the soulful flavors they unearthed for Main Course, which had pulled them out of demi-obscurity in the middle of the decade. Barry's powerful and agile falsetto voice, which fueled the energy of Fever's up-tempo arsenal ("Stayin' Alive," "Night Fever," and "More Than A Woman") became the focal point, and the production team explored every possible nuance it could offer. The mortar for the project is, of course, the Gibbs' harmony singing, which is performed with a level of precision that other vocal groups could only hope to achieve through studio trickery. Spirits Having Flown is regarded today as something of a letdown, representing the tail-end of the Bee Gees' period of greatest success, perhaps because it preceded a two-year layoff that, in turn, heralded a decline in their fortunes. This was also the first Bee Gees album to get serious airplay on black radio stations, a major breakthrough for the trio and one of the last bits of unfinished business in the group's move into soul music, which also likely helped - along with three chart-topping singles, the major tour that followed, and the network television special in the wake of the tour.
Tracklist:
1.Tragedy 2.Too Much Heaven 3.Love You Inside Out 4.Reaching Out 5.Spirits (Having Flown) 6.Search, Find 7.Stop (Think Again) 8.Living Together 9.I'm Satisfied 10.Until
Lineup:
Barry Gibb - vocals, rhythm guitar, Robin Gibb - harmony and backing vocals, lead vocals on "Too Much Heaven" and "Living Together", Maurice Gibb - harmony and backing vocals, bass, lead vocals on "Too Much Heaven". Bee Gees Band: Alan Kendall - lead guitar, Dennis Bryon - drums, Blue Weaver - synthesiser, piano, keyboards, vibraphone, Arp. Additional musicians: Neal Bonsanti - horns, Gary Brown - saxophone, Harold Cowart - bass, Ken Faulk - horns, Albhy Galuten - synthesiser, bass, conductor, Peter Graves - Horns, Joe Lala - percussion, conga, Lee Loughnane - horns, Herbie Mann - flute, James Pankow - horns, Walter Parazaider - horns, Bill Purse - horns, Whit Sidener - horns, George Terry - guitar, Stan Webb - horns, Daniel Ben Zubulon - percussion, conga