Barry Gibb and The Bee Gee's (Bee Gees debut album, 1965)

The holy grail of Bee Gees recordings, “Barry Gibb and the Bee Gee's” (the errant apostrophe is as printed on the sleeve) was released in Australia in 1965. Though still teenagers (Robin and Maurice were just 13 in some of these recordings) the brothers were already accomplished performers. The adolescent clumsiness of Barry's early lyrics ("I get claustrophobia 'cause there's too many boys on your mind...") merely adds to the charm.

Only five of Barry's 14 original songs here were recorded specifically for this album ("I Was A Lover, A Leader of Men," "And the Children Laughing," "I Don't Think It's Funny," "How Love Was True" and "To Be or Not to Be.") The others were re-releases of the boys' largely unsuccessful singles.

This, in my view, is one of the most under-rated albums of its era and is of more than historical value.

The mp3s were ripped from a professional grade tape recording of what I believe was the original vinyl. I've made some adjustments for wow and flutter, filtered the recordings for hiss and rumble and tweaked the EQ. The resulting sound quality is good but obviously reflects the technical limitations of the source.