Bee Gees' 1st

Drummer Colin Petersen and lead guitarist Vince Melouney, both Australians, were hired to make the Bee Gees into a full band.

Melouney had worked with the Gibbs in 1966 in Australia when he recorded his first solo single "Mystery Train" as the brothers provided backing vocals on the song.

He had been lead guitarist in top Australian band, Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs, later led his own group The Vince Melouney Sect and had most recently been in Melbourne-based outfit The Blue Jays.

[2] Recording sessions began on 7 March, not long after the Gibb Brothers' return to England, with overdubbing a week later.

1 (1976) credited "I Can't See Nobody" to Barry, Maurice and Robin on both the album jacket back cover and on the record label.

Ossie had a knack of keeping quiet and letting people get on, and then he went adrift a bit and got some bands that weren't quite so good.

In My Own Time" may echo elements of the Beatles' "Doctor Robert" and "Taxman" but it's difficult to dislike a song with such delicious rhythm guitars and a great beat, coupled with the trio's soaring harmonies; "Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You" was close in spirit to the Moody Blues of this era, opening with a Gregorian chant backed by a Mellotron, before breaking into a strangely spaced-out, psychedelic main song body.

[6]In a c.1967 interview, Robin and Vince took as a compliment rumours that the Beatles sang on "In My Own Time" and "Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You", but denied this, claiming that they had written the first song years earlier.

[10] According to music critic Bill Sherman: Recently picked up the first of these releases, 1967's 1st, and I was surprised by how tunefully eclectic the darn thing was.

In addition to its trio of Sensitive Guy hit singles (elegantly schlocky "Holiday," quiet desperation classic "New York Mining Disaster 1941" and the Motown-indebted "To Love Somebody" which would also be a British hit for Nina Simone), the album is a veritable fruit basket of sweet stuff: from the chamber psychedelia of "Red Chair, Fade Away" to the Moody Blues-driven chant-work of "Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You" to a surprisingly garage-stained nugget like "In My Own Time" (check out that "Taxman"-driven guitar), plus several risible slips of veddy veddy swingin' sixties whimsy and the songs are "Craise Finton Kirk Royal Academy of Arts" "Turn of the Century".

And for those who simply must have their unabashed Gibbian wimpiness, there's "One Minute Woman" which features Barry Gibb getting down on his knees for a fickle and ungrateful lass.