Unique voice in world of music
Pictured on the album cover in a memorable pose, the Gibb brothers were all wide smiles, bouffant hair and tight white outfits, but the music marked the pinnacle of their career and propelled the Bee Gees to superstardom.
The trio's trademark falsetto close-harmony vocals were the highlight of the soundtrack that also brought John Travolta to the attention of the film world for his portrayal of the working class boy who lived for the disco.
The new-found reputation of the Bee Gees was far removed from their beginnings as a young trio performing in theatres in Manchester in the mid-1950s.
Twins Maurice and Robin Gibb were born on the Isle of Man on December 22, 1949, three years after their brother Barry. The trio started out as a child act encouraged by their father, Hugh, a band leader, and their mother, Barbara, a former singer. They continued performing when the family moved to Brisbane, Australia, in 1958.
They took the name Bee Gees, an abbreviation of Brothers Gibb, signed to the Australian label Festival Records and released a series of singles written by Barry in their teenage years.
The group were popular and released an album but ironically never topped the charts until they had left for England to try to find success.
The group's first real hit was Massachusetts. It showcased their ability as arrangers and the brothers soon followed the lead set by The Beatles and the Rolling Stones and experimented with different styles.
Maurice married Scottish singer Lulu in 1969, after the couple met in a BBC canteen before the Bee Gees recorded a song for Top of the Pops, but they divorced in 1973 and within a few years Maurice met and married Yvonne, the mother of his two children Adam and Samantha, now both in their 20s.
The group's success at the beginning of the 1970s did not last. The musical world was changing around them and they lost ground to emerging sounds like glam rock. Their sound changed when producer Arif Mardin, who had worked with Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield and many other soul legends, joined.
Slowly they began having hits Jive Talkin' became their second number one in America and the culmination of their rebirth was the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, which sold more than 30 million copies.
Everything began to fall apart as the disco boom ended by the beginning of the 1980s. The group was virtually invisible for most of the decade but produced hits for artists like Diana Ross and Dolly Parton.
They staged a comeback in 1987 with an album and again two years later.
But the family suffered a setback when brother Andy died in 1988 aged 30 from heart failure.
The group was inducted into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 and awarded CBEs in the 2002 New Year's Honours list.
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