A 50-year marriage is a rare thing among rock aristocracy, but Linda sounds a rather redoubtable figure. “As you’ve seen on the news, is pretty rampant in Miami.”Īs far as one can tell over Zoom, Gibb is in pretty good shape for a man who recently celebrated his 74th birthday and his golden wedding anniversary on the same day: he met his wife Linda, a former Miss Edinburgh, backstage at Top of the Pops in the late 60s. “We’ve been trying to self-isolate and do everything we’re supposed to do,” he says. There are clearly worse places in the world to be holed up during a pandemic. His late brother Robin used to own a house a couple of doors down – Tony Blair caused rather a fuss by holidaying there when he was prime minister – and, as he puts it, “multiple Gibbs” live nearby: five children, seven grandchildren. He lives in a waterfront mansion in an exclusive country club, which is clearly a long way from the penury the Gibb family experienced in Australia – of which more later – but that’s what comes of selling between 120m and 220m records, depending on whose estimate you believe.
He liked Miami, he says, because it reminded him of Australia, where his parents emigrated when he was 11. Gibb never really left, although he still has a home in England. They relocated en masse, moving into the house Clapton immortalised in the title of his album 461 Ocean Boulevard. He is in Miami, where he has lived since 1974 when the Bee Gees’ career was in the doldrums and Eric Clapton suggested a change of scenery might do them good. F rom underneath a black Stetson hat, Barry Gibb stares out of my laptop screen.
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