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RSO/Polygram, 1977
1. I Just Want To Be Your Everything
2. Words And Music
3. Dance To The Light Of The Morni
ng
4. Too Many Looks In Your Eyes
5. Starlight
6. Thicker Than Water, (Love Is)
7. Flowing Rivers
8. Come Home For The Winter
9. Let It Be Me
10. In The End
U.S. Chart Position of Album
• Flowing Rivers, RSO, 1977 (US #19)
Chart Positions of Singles
• "I Just Want To Be Your Everything, RSO, 1977 (US #1, 4 weeks)
• "(Love Is) Thicker Than Water", RSO, 1978 (US #1, 2 weeks)
Credits
Andy Gibb (Vocals), Andy Gibb (Main Performer), Barry Gibb (Vocals (Background)), Barry Gibb (Producer), Albhy Galuten (Arranger), Albhy Galuten (Producer), Don Buzzard (Guitar (Steel)), Hog Cowart (Guitar (Bass)), Paul Harris (Piano), Mike Lewis (Conductor), Joey Murcia (Guitar), Flaco Pedron (Percussion), Karl Richardson (Producer), Karl Richardson (Engineer), John Sambataro (Vocals (Background)), George Terry (Guitar), Ronald "Tubby" Ziegler (Drums)
I Just Want To Be Your Everything
(written by Barry Gibb)
For so long
You and me been finding each other for so long
And the feeling that I feel for you is more than strong , girl
Take it from me
If you give a little more than you're asking for
your love will turn the key
Darling mine
I would wait forever for those lips of wine
Build my world around you, darling
This love will shine girl
Watch it and see
If you give a little more than you're asking for
your love will turn the key
I, I just want to be your ev'rything
Open up the heaven in your heart and let me be
the things you are to me and not some puppet on a string
Oh, if I stay here without you, darling, I will die
I want you laying in the love I have to bring
I'd do anything to be your ev'rything
Darling for so long
You and me been finding each other for so long
And the feeling that I feel for you is more than strong girl
Take it from me
If you give a little more than you're asking for
your love will turn the key
I, I just want to be your ev'rything
Open up the heaven in your heart and let me be
the things you are to me and not some puppet on a string
Oh, if I stay here without you, darling, I will die
I want you laying in the love I have to bring
I'd do anything to be your ev'rything
repeat last verse and fade out
Rolling Stone Magazine Review
June 30, 1977
Trying to conceive of the Bee Gees without the Beatles is as impossible as imagining the Osmonds without the Jackson Five. Though it is easy to forget it in this disco daze, the Bee Gees were the original ersatz, presented under the auspices of Brian Epstein himself. So it's only appropriate that their live album should be released almost simultaneously with the Beatles' own. The contrast tells us a lot about who the Beatles were (see John Swenson, page 94) and what show business thought they were.
Without the Beatles, it seems certain that Barry and Maurice would not appear onstage as guitarist and bassist, respectively. The heart of their imagination is in vocals, and in clean, disciplined production—values they derived from the Beatles all right, but after disposing of the ruckus that is the heart of The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl. I've rarely heard a live pop album with the tightness and clarity of Here at Last, and I've rarely heard one with less rock & roll. Songs like "New York Mining Disaster 1941" once seemed very Beatlesque indeed, but there's nothing like it on Hollywood Bowl, and what the Beatles did there, the Bee Gees simply ignore. The intention isn't censorious; the beat and the power simply aren't relevant. For the Bee Gees and their showbiz brethren, the Beatles' sound was whatever sliver you wanted to take it to be, since you could hardly have it all.
Nor is all that raw power very much missed. From "I've Gotta Get a Message to You," which opens this set, to the recent disco-oriented songs like "Jive Talk-in'," which closes it four sides later, the Bee Gees pick up almost every trick. "Nights on Broadway" is not only of a piece with "I Started a Joke," both are performed with incredible precision; in fact, the technical facility it takes to weave the harmonies of "Holiday" makes emotion a secondary consideration. The timing of these songs is exquisite, and, for once, we have a pop group with enough imagination and restraint to use strings well live—the scoring has body where most other pop music is flaccid. The arrangements are just pared-down versions of the originals, so that a song like "I Can't See Nobody" might be something James Taylor wrote. Neither the McCartney manqués—like Eric Carmer, and Henry Gross—nor the raw-power advocates can boast anything so flawlessly executed.
The Beatles did not necessarily save rock & roll, but they may have rescued show business. Without them, the Bee Gees would have no reason to take such care with their stage presentation, and we might have wound up with an atrocity rather than a very skillfully made concert recording. But show business emerged from its dalliance with the Beatles only slightly changed, as the Andy Gibb album, Flowing Rivers, demonstrates. Trying to imagine this record without its sibling sponsors is as hopeless as trying to conceive of Little Jimmy Osmond without his.
Andy owes his brothers; Barry wrote—or cowrote—the two best songs here, produced them, sings on them. They sound more than a trifle like the Bee Gees, though two voices aren't as good as three. The other songs are near cousins of the stuff on Here at Last, but not nearly as swell. Without those (Beatles-derived, of course) harmonies, Gibb music doesn't amount to much. But then, you could say that about a lot of what's making the rounds on turntables these days. (RS 242)
DAVE MARSH
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