Maurice Gibb

Overview

Submitted by guitar-list on Wed, 2015-08-12 08:20

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photograph of Maurice Gibb

Maurice Ernest Gibb, CBE (December 22, 1949 – January 12, 2003) was a British musician and a member of the Bee Gees. He was born in Douglas, Isle of Man to English parents. The twin of Robin Gibb, Maurice was the younger by 35 minutes.

He grew up with his family in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, England.

In 1958 he and his family moved to Brisbane, Australia, settling in one of the city's poorest suburbs, Cribb Island, which was subsequently demolished to make way for Brisbane Airport. While still in Brisbane, he and brothers Robin and Barry formed the Bee Gees, which would become one of the most successful musical groups of the 1970s and 1980s. In a career spanning five decades, the group sold over 180 million records.

Maurice Gibb played bass, guitar, and keyboard for the group, and was generally known as "the quiet one" (generally due to his actually being somewhat shy privately, and to his deference to his other brothers being spokesmen for the group). He was the only one of the three who had not been in trouble with the British police before the family emigrated to Australia.

He was famously married to the Scottish pop star Lulu from 1969 to 1973, but they had no children, and the pressure of their respective commitments led to their divorce. During this period, Maurice made a brief attempt to break into acting, playing a role in a short-lived West End musical, Sing a Rude Song. While the musical didn't earn rave reviews, Maurice's performance was said to be one of its bright spots.

In 1994, Maurice Gibb was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and in 1997 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

His catalogue is published by BMG Music Publishing.

Maurice's reputation as a mild-mannered stabilising influence continued into later life. When the Bee Gees walked out of their interview with British chat show host Clive Anderson, Maurice was last to leave, with the words "I don't do impersonations of my brothers".

Maurice Gibb died at a Miami, Florida, hospital on January 12, 2003, of complications following cardiac arrest and subsequent surgery for a twisted intestine. He was only 53 years old. Together with his wife Yvonne, he had two children: Adam and Samantha.

He loved the sport of paintball, and had a team which he called the Royal Rat Rangers, a reference to his being named a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II, and to his time at the Little River AA group, where the members referred to each other as "river rats." He promoted the sport at every opportunity, and opened a paintball equipment shop, "Commander Mo's Paintball Shop," in North Miami Beach, FL, which closed in 2005. Read more about Maurice Gibb on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.