My itch for psychedelic music wasn’t sufficiently soothed yesterday—but today’s MotD is a totally different sound. I’ve featured the Bee Gees fairly often here, but haven’t delved into their weirder music. I call it that because it often has a few labels attached to it: prog pop; baroque pop; psychedelic pop; and plain ol’ progressive are the most common. Which do you think applies best to today’s MotD?
To me, “Odessa (City on the Black Sea)” is psychedelic. Headphones or earbuds are a must to have any hope of catching many of the delicate harmonies and background vocals that fill the track. And then there’s the luscious, complex instrumentation, including Maurice Gibb on the acoustic guitar, Paul Buckmaster playing cello, and many other orchestral instruments. Originally, the album was intended to be a concept album focused on the theme of a vanished ship, but that fell apart as the brothers Gibb squabbled over that idea. Instead, 1969’s Odessa is the band’s only double-album studio release, and it brilliantly showcases their considerable talent in creating music.
Odessa is the oldest of the Bee Gees’ albums I own to date. I bought it in 1975 in Minnesota. I was there for the summer, staying with a couple of my mom’s sisters. After “Jive Talkin’” went big as the lead single from their Main Course album, I became obsessed with finding other Bee Gees albums, expecting to discover more of that song’s irresistible, funky syncopation. Instead I discovered that the band was the source of many luscious pop songs I’d heard throughout my childhood,1 and that their talents ran much wider and deeper than that sample suggested.
“Odessa (City on the Black Sea)” is the lead track on the album, and even its diversity doesn’t give much of a hint regarding the other songs Odessa contains. “First of May” and “Melody Fair” are classic Bee Gees romantic pop from it; it also includes the very country track “Marley Purt Drive,” complete with banjo (Bill Keith) and what sounds like a steel guitar, but there are no credits for one.
I had all but forgotten about this song and album until a trip to Georgia in the 2000s took us to a couple of towns on the Black Sea. As soon as my feet entered the water, “Odessa” started playing in my mind. Once home, my quest was to reacquire the album, which I did in short order.
No one else could make it through “Odessa,” much less the rest of the album, so it became a private pleasure for me. I wouldn’t call Odessa my favorite Bee Gees album, but I would make a strong argument for it being the exemplar of the scope of Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb’s extraordinary musical talents.
this came via the 1969 compilation released after Odessa: Best of Bee Gees (now known as “volume 1”) and its follow-up, 1973’s Best of Bee Gees Vol. 2. I bought all three albums used from a local record store (as well as To Whom It May Concern, released in 1972) and drove my family crazy playing them all incessantly for the rest of my stay
Interesting. I'm not familiar with any of the songs from this album. Did any of the singles chart? The title track is great. SO unlike what they would later do!
Not familiar with this side of their catalog, thanks for sharing!