Children of the World by Bob Stanley

Author:Bob Stanley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2024-02-06T00:00:00+00:00

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Falsetto singing in pop had always meant heightened excitement. In the Gibbs’ childhood there had been Del Shannon’s ‘Runaway’, an international number one in 1961, built around the twin hooks of Shannon’s otherworldly ‘Wah-wah-wah-wah-wonder’ and the space-age, proto-synth Musitron solo played by Max Crook. Jan and Dean’s ‘Surf City’, written by Beach Boy Brian Wilson, screamed ‘two girls for every boy’ to horny teenagers in 1963, and that promise helped it to number one in America and Australia. Also in 1963, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons scored a third US number one with the extraordinary ‘Walk Like a Man’, with a lyric that would seep into Barry Gibb’s subconscious. Valli’s voice was so otherworldly that from 1964 onwards the Four Seasons’ record labels, on hits like ‘Rag Doll’ and ‘Let’s Hang On’, were credited to the Four Seasons featuring the ‘sound’ of Frankie Valli. Not the voice, the sound. And those quote marks aren’t mine – they’re on the label. Valli’s fire siren falsetto sounded almost inhuman. These were not songs you would try to sing in the shower. But if one record bottled the essence of falsetto power, it was ‘Lightning Strikes’ by Pittsburgh singer Lou Christie, a US number one in 1966, the year the Bee Gees had cut ‘Spicks and Specks’ – the anticipation, the release, the sheer simple joy of pop noise is defined by Christie on that chorus.

‘I’ve never had reservations about using it,’ said Barry in 1998. ‘When I look back, it’s something I ought to be proud of. Brian Wilson, Frankie Valli and even Prince – they don’t make any bones about doing that. The first rock ’n’ roll record I ever heard was “Little Darlin’ ” by the Diamonds, and that was falsetto. I think falsetto has been an integral part of rock ’n’ roll. I think it’s nice to be one of those falsetto voices that’s quite well known.’

It wasn’t just the range of his voice that now surprised Barry. His new-found power really shook him. When he had gone for power before he had always switched to his ‘soul’ voice, a chest voice rather than a head voice, and one clearly borrowed from his heroes, with the twitches and signifiers, the ‘got-ta got-ta’ vision of soul exemplified by Otis Redding in the mid-’60s. Barry would employ this style on his most leonine songs; Idea’s ‘When the Swallows Fly’, or Mr Natural’s ‘Give a Hand, Take a Hand’. It signified old-school, alpha-male masculinity.

But now he discovered he had a way more powerful voice, right up there, that signified something much more ambiguous. Though he would continue to write lyrics that suited his old soul voice, he would now be singing lines like ‘You can tell by the way I use my walk I’m a woman’s man, no time to talk’ in falsetto. His voice sounded fluid, more effortless, and he seemed capable of holding notes longer (try singing the long, descending, final syllable on the chorus of ‘Stayin’ Alive’: it is nigh on impossible).

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