Gibb brothers sacked long term Bee Gees members over the phone

They were the biggest band on the planet during the mid-to-late 1970s thanks to a string of multi-million selling singles such as Night Fever and Stayin' Alive, not to mention several blockbuster albums.

But although the three members of the Bee Gees - brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb - were among the best in the business at writing songs, they were never what you might call world class musicians. To bring their songs to life, both in the studio and playing live, they needed help. For that, the Bee Gees sought out some of the top session musicians of the era.

Somewhat surprisingly, those musicians didn't come from Detroit, Los Angeles, Memphis or any of the other traditional hotbeds of the recording world, but Cardiff. Not Cardiff in southern California, but Cardiff, as in South Wales.

During the group's golden period, which began 50 years ago with the release of the album Main Course and lasted until 1980, the majority of the notes played on their songs were the work of drummer and percussionist Dennis Bryon along with keyboardist Derek Weaver, better known in the music business as Blue Weaver, two Welsh baby boomers who'd initially found fame in the 1960s group Amen Corner.

Those tight drum patterns that underpin Stayin' Alive - that would be the work of Dennis Bryon. The shimmering, ethereal opening to How Deep is Your Love - that would be Blue Weaver. The dirty low down bass note running through Jive Talkin' - that's Blue too. The pulsating starburst of sound that introduces You Should Be Dancing, responsible for guiding aspiring John Travoltas towards dancefloors the world over - that's Dennis and Blue doing their unique rhythm section thing together.

To all intents and purposes, if you've danced to a Bee Gees song (and, let's face it, who at some point hasn't), then that tune was almost certainly moulded by Bryon and Weaver, the unlikely Cardiff combo who, together with guitarist Alan Kendall (from the equally unlikely Darwen in Lancashire), turned the Gibb brothers' demos into surefire hits. As Barry Gibb admitted in 1977 at the band's creative zenith, they really were "more like Bee Gees than side musicians."

"They were just two really unassuming guys," says Allan Jones, the former saxophone player in Amen Corner who remained a lifelong friend to both Bryon and Weaver. "They weren't ravers, and I mean that in the nicest possible way. That weren't flashy or showbizzy in any way. They were just two regular guys from Cardiff.

"They'd go out to nightclubs - we all did - but it was also about getting the music done. They didn't overdo it like some people did, and that worked out well in the long run. They (the Bee Gees) were really clean-cut. Barry Gibb in particular was a genius, and they (Bryon and Weaver) were able to live up to the standards that were required, which were immense. They stretched themselves a lot as musicians during that time and helped create the sound the band came up with."

It wouldn't be pushing things to say that, as 1974 made way for 1975, the Bee Gees were dead in the water as a commercial group. Having sprung to fame in the 1960s with hits such as Words and Massachusetts, their star had dimmed to the extent that they'd been playing the north of England variety circuit to keep the money coming in. According to Robin Gibb, who until then had often taken the lead in singing the group's songs, the whole demoralising experience had pushed him to the point of feeling physically sick.

If the band were going to survive as an entity, then something had to change. And so it did, with a vengeance. First, Barry Gibb discovered he could sing falsetto. Not only that, he also started writing some cracking new songs. Second, Kendall joined to provide guitar. Kendall had once shared a flat with Bryon, who was invited to audition at Barry's house in Berkshire. "We walked past a full-size snooker table and I noticed all the walls were blanketed with gold discs and awards," Bryon would recall, a nod to the group's former glories. "Every flat surface had a prize or trophy on it."

Bryon passed his audition which involved him playing along to the songs I've Gotta Get A Message To You and Words before sitting down with the brothers for a cup of tea.

With the Gibbs keen to build on their growing sense of momentum, Bryon suggested they add his old Cardiff chum Weaver on keyboards to help modernise their sound.

"Our dream is not to be the best group of the sixties, but the best group of tomorrow," Robin Gibb said at the time. With two white Welsh soul boys on board, the Bee Gees had given themselves a chance of doing just that.

And so began the group's five-year purple patch during which they would sell more records worldwide than any other band since the Beatles. Weaver's contribution in particular took the Bee Gees to places they simply wouldn't have gone without him, even to the point of earning non-Gibb songwriting credits. Take the song Night Fever, for example.

"I'd always wanted to do a disco version of (the song) 'Theme From A Summer Place'," Weaver once said of Night Fever's genesis. "I was playing that and Barry said 'What was that?' I said it was 'Theme From A Summer Place'. Barry said 'No, it wasn't, it was new'. I was playing it on a string synthesiser, and he (Barry) sang the riff over it."

Not that Bryon was there simply to make up the numbers. In 1977, while recording songs which would ultimately be included on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, the drummer received word that his mother had been taken seriously ill in Cardiff. How Deep Is Your Love and Night Fever were already recorded, but work had yet to begin on Stayin' Alive.

Faced with having to abandon the sessions without the drummer, producer Albhy Galuten and sound engineer Karl Richardson simply cut a piece of tape featuring Bryon's drumming on Night Fever and spliced it into a loop which was subsequently used on Stayin' Alive. Problem solved, all thanks to Bryon's consistently flawless takes.

Of course, it couldn't last. By 1980 the shine had already worn off disco in the face of new musical trends such as punk, new wave and even rap. The Bee Gees were always about more than just disco, but the genre's demise sank them with it. Desperate to remain credible, the brothers took the decision to sack both Bryon and Weaver, as well as Alan Kendall. Neither of them took the news (delivered over the phone rather than to their faces) well, with Weaver going so far as threatening legal action.

In the end Barry Gibb recognised he'd handled the situation badly, and offered to make financial amends from the group's future earnings. As Bee Gees biographer Bob Stanley wrote, 'Within a few weeks everyone would be on speaking terms again, and the Bee Gees had moved on.' Nevertheless, Bryon and Weaver would never work with the band again.

Over the years that followed both men continued to be involved in the music industry, with Bryon relocating to Nashville, Tennessee, where he died in November 2024 at the age of 75. Weaver, still very much alive and now living in Germany, has even continued to tour Europe performing in Massachusetts: The Bee Gees Musical.

"I'm recreating the sounds I used on all the Bee Gees records," he said recently. "The show that we do is the life story of the Bee Gees from the early days up until the last song they recorded together."

"At the end of the day they were lucky to be in there with a band like that at the right time," adds Allan Jones who still promotes concerts in Cardiff, the city where it all started for Bryon and Weaver. "They made some money out of it, which is important as a jobbing musician, although Blue probably didn't make as much as he should have done, going by his contributions.

"What they achieved though was pretty phenomenal, getting to play on all of those songs and one of the biggest selling albums ever (in the shape of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack). That's mind-blowing, to think they were a part of that. And it's great to picture them enjoying that life while they were doing it."