Bee Gees Saturday

Every so often, a piece of music comes along that defines a moment in popular culture history: Johann Strauss' operetta Die Fledermaus did this in Vienna in the 1870s; Jerome Kern's Show Boat did it for Broadway musicals of the 1920s; and the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album served this purpose for the era of psychedelic music in the 1960s. Saturday Night Fever, although hardly as prodigious an artistic achievement as those precursors, was precisely that kind of musical phenomenon for the second half of the '70s – ironically, at the time before its release, the disco boom had seemingly run its course, primarily in Europe, and was confined mostly to black culture and the gay underground in America…

The Bee Gees were a pop music group formed in 1958. Their lineup consisted of brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. The trio were especially successful as a popular music act in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and later as prominent performers of the disco music era in the mid-to-late 1970s. The group sang recognisable three-part tight harmonies; Robin's clear vibrato lead vocals were a hallmark of their earlier hits, while Barry's R&B falsetto became their signature sound during the mid-to-late 1970s and 1980s. The Bee Gees wrote all of their own hits, as well as writing and producing several major hits for other artists…

Their previous album having scarcely made a ripple and, now, hitless for two years, the Bee Gees went for a new sound in the hands of producer Arif Mardin. The result was Mr. Natural, the sultriest and most soulful record they had ever delivered up to that time. Shedding their pop sensibilities here and singing in a freer, more soulful idiom (with a strong Philadelphia soul influence) on songs such as "Throw a Penny," and with a funky beat backing them up on a lot of this record, the group is scarcely recognizable in relation to their previous work. Mr. Natural was the liveliest, most invigorating body of music to come from the group since their debut, but it also had moments of extraordinary sensuality, most notably "Charade" and "Had a Lot of Love Last Night."