Chapter 59: I Will Survive (June - December 1978)

June 16, 1978

Andy Gibb - Flowing Rivers

Released: June 16, 1978

Recorded: October 1976, December 1977 - February 1978

Producer: Barry Gibb, Albhy Galuten and Karl Richardson

Track listing[1]

Side A

One More Look at the Night
Flowing Rivers
Dance to the Light of the Morning
Fool for a Night
Good Feeling
Let It Be Me
Starlight

Side B

Melody
I Go For You
Come Home for the Winter
Too Many Looks in Your Eyes
Waiting for You
In The End

Andy Gibb's solo debut album had initially been set for a release in 1977, but when some tracks ended up on the Bee Gees' Night Fever that same year, it was put on hold. Starting with December that year and lasting up to February 1978, some new tracks were recorded, along with some tracks co-written with his older brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice (and sometimes with just Barry) that would later end up on the Bee Gees' next album.

Flowing Rivers (#15 UK, #7 US) was finally released in June, backed with the title track as the sole single along with "Let It Be Me" as the B-side (#32 UK, #9 US). The album received generally positive reviews from critics as a solid first attempt from what many have dubbed "the baby Bee Gee". Andy's follow-up album, After Dark, would not be released until February 2, 1980.[2]

July 21, 1978

Peter Frampton performing at Oakland Coliseum Stadium, July 2, 1977.

Several weeks following the release of Andy Gibb's Flowing Rivers, the Bee Gees' film based upon their 1969 album Odessa had been released as a joint production between Apple Films and RSO Records. Directed by Lindsay Anderson, written by Henry Edwards and cinematography by Gilbert Taylor, Odessa was made on a budget of $13 million and made roughly $28.4 million in the box office, just breaking even and with a mixed critical reception. With Odessa having been released the same year as The Wiz (a co-production with Motown) and Superman: The Movie, both scheduled for release later in the year, 1978 was expected to be a big year for Apple Films.

Alongside the Gibb brothers, they were joined on the big screen by Sandy Farina as the love interest, George Burns as the kind-hearted captain of the Odessa, Donald Pleasence as the ambitious chief engineer, Frankie Howerd as the ship's cantankerous cook, Paul Nicholas as the jealous love-triangle rival, as well as guest appearances by Steve Martin as the slightly eccentric doctor (a role he would later repeat for Little Shop of Horrors) and Peter Frampton in a posthumous role as a crazed stowaway.

On June 29 in the Bahamas, Peter Frampton had been involved in a car accident that resulted in him being killed immediately. Prior to his death, Frampton had been in the midst of a commercial peak after having released the then-biggest-selling live album of all time, Frampton Comes Alive in 1976. After that, it was downhill from there; it had started when Frampton had taken a shirtless photo for Rolling Stone, which resulted in critics labeling him as a shallow teen idol. The commercial disappointment of his fifth solo album from 1977, I'm in You, further accelerated Frampton's fall from grace, despite reaching platinum.[3]

With Frampton's unexpected death at the age of 28, his solo career was given a critical reevaluation, and both Odessa and Grease (for which he played guitar on the title track sung by Frankie Valli for the soundtrack of the same name) were dedicated to his memory. His former band, Humble Pie, would later reunite the following year for a concert dedicated to Frampton.

September 15, 1978

Kiss - G.A.P.P.

Released: September 15, 1978

Recorded: February - July 1978

Producer: Kiss (all sides), Sean Delaney (Side Gene), Eddie Kramer (Side Ace), Vini Poncia (Side Peter) and Jeff Glixman (Side Paul)

Track listing[4]

Side Gene

Radioactive
Burning Up with Fever
See You Tonite
Tunnel of Love
Living in Sin

Side Ace

Rip It Out
Speedin' Back to My Baby
Snow Blind
Ozone
What's on Your Mind?

Side Peter

Don't You Let Me Down
That's the Kind of Sugar Papa Likes
Kiss the Girl Goodbye
Hooked on Rock 'n' Roll
I Can't Stop the Rain

Side Paul

Tonight You Belong to Me
Move On
Wouldn't You Like to Know Me
It's Alright
Love in Chains

By 1978, heavy metal rock band Kiss, consisting of Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss, was at a commercial peak. Alive II had become their fourth platinum album in under two years, and the tour that followed had the highest average attendance of 13,550 to date, with the gross income being $10.2 million. So where do they go from there?

PAUL STANLEY: "We wanted to do a solo album each and put then them all out on the same day. Tensions were rising between us at the time, and so doing solo projects and exploring our personal interests in other music genres seemed like a good idea at the time." (2004)

GENE SIMMONS: "Somehow, Casablanca Records [Kiss' label since 1973] didn't like that idea, though we did have a contract that called for four solo records. I don't want to delve too deeply into what went on behind the scenes, but come September 1978, we got half a solo album each on a double album that was credited to Kiss. Not Gene, Ace, Peter and Paul individually. Just Kiss as a collective unit." (1994)

Kiss performing live in Tokyo, Japan, 1978.

ACE FREHLEY: "It just felt like some kind of marketing gimmick, as if they were copying what the Monkees achieved with The Monkees Present back in the late 60s." (1997)

G.A.P.P. (with each initial standing for the first names of the band members) managed to reach #22 in the United States and received divisive opinions from critics and fans alike, with some wondering what they would've been like as solo albums. Others tried to trim it down to make a single band album instead of a collection of solo albums packaged together.

PETER CRISS: "We then wanted to do a movie that would cement our image as larger-than-life rock and roll superheroes, almost like a cross between A Hard Day's Night and Star Wars [released last year on May 4, 1977]. But after hearing of a scrapped Bee Gees project in which they sang Beatles songs, Phantom of the Park never got off the ground. Now that I'm thinking about it, it was probably for the best we canned the project altogether; I dunno what the hell we were thinking trying to accomplish such a movie like that." (2015)

17 November 1978

The Sex Pistols - The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle

Released: 17 November 1978

Recorded: February - September 1978

Producer: The Sex Pistols and Chris Thomas

Track listing[5]

Side A

No One is Innocent
Just Another Dream
Religion II
Cheap Emotions
Silly Thing
Annalisa

Side B

The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle [ft. Edward Tudor-Pole]
Empty Words
1-2-3
Attack
Burning Sounds
Fodderstompf

In January 1978, Johnny Rotten announced that the Sex Pistols would return to the studio to record a second album. The first single off of their upcoming album, "No One is Innocent" backed with "Cheap Emotions", was released on 30 June and topped out at #3 in the United Kingdom. It had been recorded at an unknown 16-track studio in Rio de Janeiro and was among the first songs to be recorded for the Sex Pistols' sophomore album.

STEVE JONES: "By that time, we had become associated with Edward [Tudor-Pole] and his band, Tenpole Tudor. When we were recording for 'Swindle', Johnny's voice was not in great shape, so we asked Eddie if he could fill in for the recording, and he agreed. The track was credited to both the Sex Pistols and Tenpole Tudor, but we probably should've credited it to the Tenpole Pistols." (2002)

The members of Tenpole Tudor, 1979. Edward Tudor-Pole (stage name Eddie Tenpole) is on the far left.

Tenpole Tudor was later brought to the attention of Apple Records A&R Director Jake Riviera by Paul Cook, who would then have the group signed onto the label by the start of 1979 along with English ska band Madness. The former group would put out their debut single "Who Killed Bambi?"/"Rock Around the Clock" (#14 UK) in March and the latter their debut album One Step Beyond... (#2 UK, #128 US) in October.

The Sex Pistols' second album, The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle (#7 UK) was finally released in mid-November, and was backed with the second single "Silly Thing"/"Attack" (#6 UK), before being followed up by the third and final single "The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle"/"1-2-3" (#4 UK) in February the following year. While Never Mind the Bollocks would receive wildly critical acclaim in later years, Swindle would be seen as "a slight step down, but with an interesting look into what they could've done had they stayed together into the next decade."

Yes, with new directions the Sex Pistols was taking with their music, it looked as if they were destined to continue for another decade or so. But tragically, the actions of a mentally disturbed fan, as well as his equally disturbed girlfriend, would not only throw a wrench in their works, but shake up the world...

December 15, 1978

The Bee Gees - Spirits Having Flown

Released: December 15, 1978

Recorded: March - November 1978

Producer: Bee Gees, Albhy Galuten and Karl Richardson

Track listing[6]

Side A

Tragedy
Too Much Heaven
Love You Inside Out
An Everlasting Love
Reaching Out
Spirits (Having Flown)

Side B

Search, Find
Why
Stop (Think Again)
Living Together
I'm Satisfied
(Our Love) Don't Throw It All Away

Following the modest success of Odessa, the Bee Gees' next album was pushed forward from the initial January 1979 release to December 15 for the Christmas rush. Spirits Having Flown was preceded that October by the double A-side "Too Much Heaven" and "An Everlasting Love", marking yet another #1 hit for the Bee Gees in the United States. This was followed up by two more #1 hits, "Tragedy" and "Love You Inside Out", and then "(Our Love) Don't Throw It All Away", although that reached no higher than #7.

Spirits Having Flown hit #1 in both the United States and the United Kingdom (their first album to do so for the latter country) and was met with positive reviews. Their next album, Living Eyes, would not come out until October 1981, and it would mark their final album for six years.[7]

Summary of Bee Gees releases, 1978 - 1979

• "Night Fever" / "Down the Road" - February 7, 1978 (#1 UK and US)
• "Shadow Dancing" / "Warm Ride" - April 17, 1978 (#42 UK, #1 US)
• "Too Much Heaven" / "An Everlasting Love" (double A-side) - October 24, 1978 (#3 UK, #1 US)
• Spirits Having Flown - December 15, 1978 (#1 UK and US)
• "Tragedy" / "Until" (non-album B-side) - February 12, 1979 (#1 UK and US)
• "Love You Inside Out" / "Desire" - April 30, 1979 (#13 UK, #1 US)
• "(Our Love) Don't Throw It All Away" / "Spirits (Having Flown)" - July 9, 1979 (#16 UK, #7 US)
• Bee Gees Greatest - October 19, 1979 (#6 UK, #1 US)

Footnotes

1. A straightforward compilation of songs from Flowing Rivers and Shadow Dancing that did not end up on Night Fever or Spirits Having Flown (see footnote 4 below).
2. On After Dark, "Me (Without You)" (from Andy Gibb's Greatest Hits) replaces "Desire", which is now a Bee Gees B-side. The song was worked on during the sessions for Spirits Having Flown, but it was left off for sounding too similar to "Too Much Heaven". Andy Gibb later added in his vocals in May 1979. For TTL, I simply pretended he recorded his vocals earlier.
3. In OTL, Peter Frampton narrowly survived his car accident. Because of the critical failure of the Sgt. Pepper film, he hit a severe career slump and never reached the heights of Frampton Comes Alive again.
4. Each side consists of an abridgment of the Kiss band members' respective solo albums from 1978. I arranged the album by picking out the solo tracks that were generally more popular among Kiss fans; your mileage may vary.
5. Tracks are sourced from the compilation album Flogging a Dead Horse, the Professionals' intended debut album from 1980, Public Image Ltd's Public Image: The First Issue and Rich Kids' Ghosts of Princes in Towers. In addition, for TTL, the tracks have Johnny Rotten primarily on lead vocals with Glen Matlock and Steve Jones occasionally stepping up to the microphone, and they have a more punk edge akin to Never Mind the Bollocks, although with a more experimental sound akin to their individual projects from the late 1970s/early 1980s.
6. All tracks are sourced from Spirits Having Flown, excluding "An Everlasting Love", "Why", and "(Our Love) Don't Throw It All Away", all sourced from Andy Gibb's Shadow Dancing. "Until" is released as a non-album B-side.
7. On Living Eyes, "Time is Time" (also from Andy Gibb's Greatest Hits) replaces "Soldiers", which also ends up becoming a non-album B-side.

Author's Comments

Not much to discuss here; the Bee Gees' story will more or less continue as it did per OTL, only with Andy Gibb as a member and surviving past 1988. Also, since the Sgt. Pepper film doesn't happen, the Bee Gees don't go through the commercial slump like they did in OTL.

I've been planning for Kiss and Yes to have storylines for Strawberry Peppers; in the case of the latter, Jon Anderson doesn't leave the band, and Vangelis will join Yes. I've even thought of having them sign up for Highway 61 Records. I was going to do something regarding their 1978 album Tormato, but I ended up cutting it because I couldn't think of something to do with it. Hopefully when I get to doing Drama (or its equivalent), I'll have something in mind. Other than Kiss having an album in 1978 and not doing Phantom of the Park, I don't know what else to do with them as a result of these changes, but I suppose that change isn't immediately obvious so it could be one of those cases.

Lastly, there's the Sex Pistols; since they've never run into Malcolm McLaren (and with Lord Beeching having told him to sod off like he did with Don Arden), they haven't broken up... yet. I don't think anyone's ever attempted to answer the question of what a follow-up to Never Mind the Bollocks would've sounded like had they not broke up, and if that's the case, then it looks like I might be the first. Your results may vary, and it'll be interesting to see what others can come up with. There will be more to do with them in a later chapter, and chances are it may not be pretty...