The Bee Gees were from Chorlton. People forget this, or don’t believe it, or assume it’s a pub quiz trick. It’s not. Barry Gibb was born in Douglas on the Isle of Man in 1946, but the family lived at 51 Keppel Road in Chorlton-cum-Hardy. Twins Robin and Maurice were born at Boundary Park Hospital in Crumpsall in 1949. The family lived in Manchester until 1958 when they emigrated to Australia. Barry was 12, the twins were 9.
They became famous in Australia, then came back to Britain, then conquered the world. The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack in 1977 sold over 40 million copies. Stayin’ Alive, How Deep Is Your Love, Night Fever, Tragedy — songs that are woven into popular culture at a molecular level. They wrote hits for other people too: Islands in the Stream for Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers, Woman in Love for Barbra Streisand, Heartbreaker for Dionne Warwick. The songwriting output is staggering.
Manchester’s claim to them is real but thin. They left as children. The music has no trace of Manchester in it. They didn’t come back and play local venues or maintain public connections to Chorlton. But the fact remains: three brothers from a street in south Manchester became one of the best-selling music acts of all time. A blue plaque went up at 51 Keppel Road. There’s a Bee Gees Way sign on a street near the old house.
Robin died in 2012, Maurice in 2003. Barry is the last one standing. The Chorlton connection gets trotted out occasionally when someone does a feature on famous Mancunians, but the city has never really claimed them the way it claims Oasis or the Smiths. Maybe it should. Over 220 million records sold is hard to argue with, wherever you grew up.