èßäAV

Barry Gibb rates among the most prolific, influential, and acclaimed musicians ever to have lived. Guinness World Records and Billboard list him alongside only Paul McCartney as one of the two most successful popular songwriters of all time. As a member of the Bee Gees with his brothers Robin and Maurice, the trio sold over 220 million records, while writing 21 different songs to top the U.S. or U.K. charts.

Born on the Isle of Man in the U.K. in 1946, Gibb is a nine-time Grammy Award® winner and an inductee into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Songwriters Hall Of Fame. When Wayne Newton covered the 18-year-old Gibb’s They’ll Never Know in 1964, he became the first of hundreds of American artists to record Gibb-written songs—everyone from Al Green, the Foo Fighters, Snoop Dogg, Elvis Presley, and Destiny’s Child.

The Bee Gees exploded internationally in 1967 with early classics like “To Love Somebody,” “Massachusetts,” and “Words.” What could have qualified as an entire career turned out to be merely a warmup for Gibb and his brothers’ culture-defining, empirical phase a decade later. With late ‘70s tracks like “Stayin’ Alive,” “Night Fever,” and “How Deep Is Your Love,” the Bee Gees combined harmony and melody with the rarest of abilities to move the heart as well as the feet.

Gibb was also unafraid to give away songs most performers wouldn’t dare part with, be it Frankie Valli’s “Grease” or younger brother Andy’s “I Just Want To Be Your Everything.” Both were solo compositions, both became U.S. number one’s. The hits continued in the ‘80s and ‘90s, as well as entire albums of platinum-coated, Gibb-crafted songs for the likes of Barbra Streisand (“Woman In Love”), Dionne Warwick (“Heartbreaker”), Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton (“Islands In The Stream”), and Diana Ross(“Chain Reaction”).

From equalling the Beatles’ six consecutive U.S. number one singles, to being the only songwriters to have five songs simultaneously in the U.S. top 10, the music of Sir Barry Gibb and his brothers is—and forever will be— etched into the very fabric of American life.

Recent Kennedy Center history: This is Barry Gibb’s first association with the Kennedy Center.