Bee Gees fans will love Greenfields. Many causal listeners will find some of these renditions hard to listen to. Take “Words” with Barry Gibb and Dolly Parton for example. Both singers struggle as their aging voices strain to hit the higher notes.
All the songs have been slowed down and “country-fied.” Barry Gibb admits he’s loved country music all his life and apparently that affected the production strategy for this album.
Barry Gibb has plenty of help on these songs. He’s going to need even more help if there’s a Volume Two in the works. Are you a Bee Gees fan? GRADE: C
TRACKLIST:
Can’t say I’m a big fan of theirs but I do like some of their early stuff before disco. Songs like Holiday, I Started a Joke, Lonely Days and To Love Somebody. This cd looks awful. I’ll pass.
Steve, GREENFIELDS shows you can’t go home again.
the first album was good, yes.
I like all manifestations of The Bee Gees: their 1960s British Invasion stuff, where they always seemed more pensive and melancholy than their brethren (“I Started A Joke,” “Massachusetts”); their early 1970s transitional phase (“Holiday,” “Lonely Days”); and their pre-Disco (“Fanny,” “Jive Talking”) and Disco (“You Should Be Dancing,” “Stayin’ Alive”) heydays. However, a “countrified” arrangement of Bee Gees’ songs doesn’t do much for me. Pass.
Deb, hearing these Bee Gees songs with “countrified” arrangements was not a Fun Experience. I shipped GREENFIELDS off to my sister in Florida who is a huge Bee Gees fan. She loved it!
Not a big Bee Gees fan. Their singing always seemed tortured to me. I’d me intersted if, instead of a country version of their songs, it was a mime version.
Jerry, some listeners could not abide the Bee Gees high-pitched voices.
Or lyrics. Or bizarre self-congratulation.
George, a C is a pretty low grade for you, but in this case it sounds generous.
Michael, I think the “C” for GREENFIELDS was well deserved. I could not listen to this CD again.
I stand pretty much with Deb’s comment. I like the Bee Gees, we have the two CD Greatest Hits collection, we’ve recently watched two different concert films of them and the new (everyone dead but Barry, who is totally gray) HBO (?) special. But this sounds bad, even though I do like several of the performers. Pass.
Jeff, the other performers on this album are fine. It’s Barry Gibbs’s scratchy voice that made this CD unlistenable for me.
Massachusetts was kind of ok for me, anything else by the BGs made me switch channels on the car radio.
Wolf, I’m a fan of “Massachusetts,” too.
I enjoy their music, and I like country music, but not sure I’d like this.
I also enjoy Jimmy Fallon’s take on SNL with the Barry Gibb talk show, with Justin Timberlake as Robin. Barry showed up one time, and it was a shock as I hadn’t expected him to age as he did
Maggie, in addition to aging, Barry Gibb’s voice is shot. I found it painful to listen to him singing on GREENFIELDS.
I liked their early work and even the disco, but they’re day has passed, just like most of them have!
Bob, if you look closely, the title GREENFIELD: THE GIBB BROTHERS’ SONGBOOK, VOLUME ONE seems to promise more CDs.
I disliked “I Started a Joke” intensely as a child, found it intolerably inane and self-pitying even at age 6 or so, and never found any of their other recordings sufficient improvement. So this one on CD would mostly serve as a substitute coaster for me.
Todd, “I Started a Joke” and several of the early Bee Gees songs struck me as melancholy.