As a lifelong fan of country and bluegrass music, he sought a way to record some songs with some of the greatest names in the genre which eventually led to the creation of Greenfields.
Gibb stated that "from the first day we stepped into RCA Studio A in Nashville (the very place where Elvis, Willie, Waylon, Roy, the Everly Brothers and so many other legends made their magic) the album took on a life of its own.
Of his collaboration on the track, Jason Isbell enthused that Gibb "is one of the greatest songwriters and singers in popular music history, and I'm happy to say he still has that beautiful voice and that magical sense of melody.
"[3][4] "Butterfly", which features musical partners David Rawlings and Gillian Welch, was written when the Gibb brothers were living in Australia before they became household names and has been covered by the likes of Marmalade and Ronnie Burns.
During the recording process, Gibb sang live with the majority of the album's guest artists, with the exception of Brandi Carlile and Miranda Lambert.
[8] In a 4/5 star review, Alexis Petridis of The Guardian summarised that "with subtle, beautiful arrangements, this foray into country-pop with covers by the likes of Dolly Parton, Jason Isbell and Gillian Welch is testament to the Bee Gees’ greatness".
The sheer wattage of Nashville star power in the supporting cast – everyone from Keith Urban and Alison Krauss to Gillian Welch and David Rawlings – underlines the regard the Gibb brothers are held in by their fellow musicians, which is never a bad thing."
Similarly he asserts that Carlile's performance on "Run to Me" indicates "underlines the fact that only in a catalogue as thick with hits as the Bee Gees would a ballad this strong be relatively overlooked".
Sonically, he notes that "the arrangements here are subtly done and often beautiful, led by piano or acoustic guitar, the orchestrations muted; the pedal-steel-heavy "Words of a Fool" aside, they're closer to country-inflected pop than country per se.
In conclusion, he praises Rawlings and Welch's appearance on "Butterfly" before stating that "titling this album Volume 1 suggests Greenfields represents more than a one-off experiment: for all its strengths, there's scope for Barry Gibb to develop this unlikely late-period diversion further.
"[9] In another positive review, Chris Willman of Variety explains that the album "pays tribute to [Gibb] and his late brothers' rich, melodic catalog, now freshly approached with a rootsy but cosmopolitan country vibe that feels as ingrained and intrinsic to the aged material as it sounds.
Each lustrous song's theatrical and trembling tone, once heard in this new, folksy form, seem so instinctually right as a country cut that you'll nearly forget the disco and chamber-pop originals" and goes on to declare that "save for a few hiccups, the overall results of the "Greenfields" experiment are pretty magnificent, actually".