Bee Gees - Main Course (1975) (vinyl Lp) - €10,00

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Main Course, released in 1975 for the RSO label, is the 13th album by the Bee Gees, and their last album to be released by Atlantic Records in the US under its distribution deal with Robert Stigwood. This album marked a great change for the Bee Gees as it was their first album to include mostly funk-influenced songs. 

It created the model for their output through the rest of the 1970s. It was the group’s thirteenth album (eleventh worldwide). Main Course was the first album to feature keyboardist Blue Weaver. 

The album cover with the band’s new logo designed by US artist Drew Struzan made its first appearance here.

It may sound silly to call the 12th album by a group with an eight-year string of gold records behind them a “breakthrough,” but that’s what Main Course was. 

The group’s first disco album — and, for many white listeners, the first disco album they ever purchased — Main Course marked a huge change in the Bee Gees‘ sound. The group’s earlier LPs, steeped in a dense romantic balladry, were beautifully crafted but too serious for any but hardcore fans. Main Course had a few ballads, such as “Songbird” and “Country Lanes,” but the writing was simpler, and the rest of it was made up of catchy dance tunes (heavily influenced by the Philadelphia-based soul music of the period), in which the beat and the texture of the voices and instruments took precedence over the words. 

The combination proved irresistible, and Main Course — driven by the singles “Jive Talkin’,” “Nights on Broadway,” and “Fanny (Be Tender With My Love)” — attracted millions of new listeners.

It also repelled fans of the group’s earlier style, which was a bit ironic. 

The disco numbers on Main Course displayed the same care and craftsmanship that had characterized, say, “First of May” or “Odessa.” Barry Gibb‘s falsetto voice, introduced on this album, was startling at first, and became an object of ridicule in later years, but the slow break on “Nights on Broadway” and songs like “Fanny (Be Tender With My Love)” and “Baby As You Turn Away” were as exquisitely sung as “Lonely Days” or “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,” and they had the same sense of romantic drama, leavened by a layer of sheer fun; one had less of a sense that the singer was dealing with the love of a lifetime, so much as a conquest for the evening, which was in keeping with the sexual mores of the mid-’70s. 

And the spirit of fun was no accident — producer Arif Mardin, seeking to rescue the group’s stagnating career, had gotten the Bee Gees to turn their talents in a musical direction that they’d always loved but never embraced.

Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb had been fascinated by R&B and soul for years (“To Love Somebody” had been written for Otis Redding to sing), but, as white Britons — fearing they’d seem ridiculous — they had never adapted those sounds themselves. 

Not only didn’t they seem ridiculous, but they took to it as easily as they’d absorbed the Beatles‘ harmony-based rock sounds in the late ’60s. 

It was a liberating experience for the entire group — Blue Weaver, newly added to the lineup with an array of electronic keyboards and ideas that ended up shaping lots of the songs here; Alan Kendall, playing in a funky guitar style; and drummer Dennis Byron, playing more complicated patterns than he’d been asked to in years, were also delighted with the new direction, and they constituted the instrumental core of the band for the next six years. 

Years later, Main Course holds up as well as anything the group ever did, and with killer album cuts like “Wind of Change” (featuring a superb Joe Farrell tenor sax solo) and “Edge of the Universe” all over it, demands as much attention as any hits compilation by the group.

Side one

1.  Nights on Broadway - 4:32

2.  Jive Talkin' - 3:43

3.  Wind of Change - 4:54

4.  Songbird - 3:35

5.  Fanny (Be Tender with My Love) - 4:02

Side two

1.  All This Making Love - 3:03

2.  Country Lanes - 3:29

3.  Come on Over - 3:26

4.  Edge of the Universe - 5:21

5.  Baby as You Turn Away - 4:23

Bee Gees

• Barry Gibb – lead, harmony, and backing vocals; rhythm guitar
• Robin Gibb – lead, harmony, and backing vocals
• Maurice Gibb – harmony and backing vocals, bass guitar, lead and rhythm guitars

Bee Gees band

• Blue Weaver – keyboards, synthesizers, synth bass
• Alan Kendall – lead guitar, steel guitar
• Dennis Bryon – drums, percussion

Additional musicians and production

• Joe Farrell – tenor saxophone on "Winds of Change"
• Ray Barretto – congas on "Wind of Change"
• Don Brooks – harmonica on "Songbird"
• Strings conducted by Gene Orloff
• Produced and arranged by Arif Mardin
• Engineered by Karl Richardson and Lew Hahn

Companies, etc.

• Marketed By – Polydor Ltd.
• Phonographic Copyright ℗ – Rso Records
• Copyright © – Rso Records
• Recorded At – Criteria Recording Studios
• Recorded At – Atlantic Studios
• Mastered At – Atlantic Studios
• Lacquer Cut At – Phonodisc B.V.
• Produced For – The Robert Stigwood Organisation

Notes

Release:  1975

Format:  LP, Vinyl

Genre:  Funk, Pop

Label:  RSO

Catalog#  2479139

Vinyl:  Goed (VG)

Cover:  Goed (VG)

Prijs: €10,00