Stayin' power

"There are no second acts in American lives," F. Scott Fitzgerald said.

Fortunately for them, the Bee Gees are Australian. Has any group in popular music ever had such success in such wildly different styles?

This month , the Bee Gees -- short for brothers Gibb, those Gibbs being (above, from left) Barry , Robin , and the late Maurice -- are to be honored as BMI Icons at the music publishing organization's annual awards ceremony.

"Icon" may not be the first word associated with the Bee Gees, but it's not a term BMI uses loosely. It's a term BMI uses financially. The organization's business is collecting royalties, and the Bee Gees have generated a disproportionate share.

When they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 -- yes, the Bee Gees are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame -- the citation noted that only Elvis Presley , the Beatles , Michael Jackson , Garth Brooks , and Paul McCartney have had greater record sales. It's estimated the Bee Gees have sold some 180 million records.

During their first phase, from 1967 to 1974, nobody else on the radio sounded quite like them. There was an odd formality, almost a stiltedness, to such songs as "To Love Somebody, " "Holiday, " "Massachusetts, " "Words, " "I Started a Joke. " Formally, they were soft rock -- with romantic sentiments, slow tempos, a lifeless beat -- but not really sonically.

The Gibbs' three-part harmonies had none of the sweetness of those other famous singing brothers, the Beach Boys' Wilsons . Rather, they were clipped and slightly nasal. Just how clipped and nasal is obvious when you listen to Al Green's magnificent cover of their "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, " from 1972. It's the difference between water and wine -- Massachusetts (or "Massachusetts") and Memphis.

Taking that difference to heart, perhaps, the Bee Gees entered phase two, in 1975. "Jive Talkin' " turned formality into falsetto and nasality into negritude -- or at least something aspiring to it. Success begat not success but mega-success. The "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack, in 1977, produced three number one hits, "Stayin' Alive," "Night Fever," and "How Deep Is Your Love. " It spent two years on the charts, and the Bee Gees enjoyed a ubiquity beyond parody.

Or did they suffer it? Guilt by disco association is a terrible thing, and the Bee Gees' reputation is forever tarred with that polyester brush. Listened to with fresh ears, though, "Stayin' Alive" is one of the last great singles -- punchy, urgent, irresistible -- and the first verse and bridge of "Night Fever" are right up there, too.

In John Updike's novel "Rabbit Is Rich, " the hero, Harry Angstrom , hears the Bee Gees on his car radio and marvels over "white men who have done this wonderful thing of making themselves sound like black women." Only in America (by way of Australia) might such a thing happen. Rabbit is rich, and, as BMI can attest, the Bee Gees are, too.

MARK FEENEY

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