Show Business: The Bee Gees: They Make You Feel Like Dancing

The beat that hustles John Travolta down that Bay Ridge block is provided by the Bee Gees, who are most anxious to inform you that they are not, thanks very much, "a disco group." A conglomerate would be more like it.

With a powerhouse bass line that pushes and pulses, they have one of the biggest-grossing albums in history (partly because the Saturday Night Fever sound track is two records and costs twice as much as a single-unit album . . . but let the accountants quibble). Night Fever is the No. 1 single, and Stayin' Alive, which occupied that slot for four weeks, is now nestled comfortably under it in the No. 2 position.

Four weeks ago, an incredible half of the Top Ten hits belonged to the Bee Gees. No one has crowded so much competition off the charts since the Beatles, who once had five records in the Top Ten, but, as Robin Gibb hastens to point out, "they hadn't written all of them." The Brothers Gibb (whence Bee Gees), three sassy-smart lads from Down Under, have clearly scaled to the Very Top. The boys netted between $12 million and $15 million last year. High on the perks of stardom (big houses behind high iron gates, lots of jewelry), the boys keep one another in line with some good brotherly barbs. Barry describes Robin's heavy gold rings with sardonic pleasure as "symbols of his immense wealth." When another outlandish income statement arrives, Maurice is likely to ask, "Does that mean I can keep me car?"

Not so very long ago, the barbs were considerably more lethal, and the careers of the brothers far dodgier. Born in Manchester, England, to Barbara (a former nightclub singer) and Hugh Gibb (leader of a 13-piece dance band on a ferryboat), the brothers started singing in public in 1955 due to technical difficulties. Barry, then nine, and the twins Robin and Maurice, three years younger, would show up at local Manchester movie palaces and come out between shows as the Rattlesnakes, dancing and moving their lips to pop records piped in from backstage. One day the record broke just as they were about to do a Tommy Steele ditty, and the Rattlesnakes were on their own. "We had a natural harmony," Barry remembers, "and we got through it."

Shortly afterward the Gibbs moved to Australia, eventually settling in a resort town called Surfers Paradise, where the boys—now known as the BGs—played some local clubs. The brothers' persistence landed them a record contract in Sydney, where, says Barry, "we proceeded to have about 14 flops in a row." Adds Maurice: "For that you get a chocolate record—and it melts." Undismayed, they announced that they wanted to go to England and elbow into the pop explosion. Dad at first opposed the plan and threatened to have his sons' passports canceled, then abruptly changed course and put them on the boat back to England in 1967.