Susan Tedeschi Recalls Childhood Conversation with Johnny Cash

Tedeschi continued: “He says, ‘Slow down, little lady! Where are you going in such a hurry?’ I said, ‘The Bee Gees are pulling up!’ He’s like, ‘Oh, you like The Bee Gees?’ I said, ‘Well, they’re singers and I like singers. I sing, too.’ He says, ‘You do? Me, too.’ I said, ‘Really? What do you sing?’ He said, ‘Well, I sing and play guitar, and write my own songs. Maybe we’ll get to sing together some day.’ I said, ‘Yeah, that would be great!’”

“It was a wonderful little moment,” Tedeschi recalled. “He was wearing an ‘I Love New York’ pin, and he took it off and gave it to me. He said, ‘Here’s something you can remember me by.’ I said, ‘Okay, thank you so much.’ Then he left. Afterwards, all these people came running over, asking me what Johnny Cash had said to me. I had no idea it was him. Later I got to tell Willie Nelson that story, but by then Johnny was really sick, so I never got to meet him again. But I still have the pin he gave me.

---Hot Leche Music Review: The Bee Gees

No popular music act of the '60s, '70s, '80s, or '90s experienced more ups and downs in popularity, or attracted a more varied audience across the decades than the Bee Gees. Beginning in the mid- to late '60s as a Beatlesque ensemble, they quickly developed as songwriters in their own right and style, perfecting in the process a progressive pop sound all their own. Then, after hitting a trough in their popularity in the early '70s, they reinvented themselves as perhaps the most successful white soul act of all time during the disco era. Their popularity faded with the passing of disco's appeal, but the Bee Gees made a successful comeback in virtually every corner of the globe. What remained a constant through their history is their extraordinary singing, rooted in three voices that were appealing individually and comprised so perfectly and naturally by melding together that they make such acts as the Beatles, the Everly Brothers, and Simon & Garfunkel -- all noted for their harmonies -- almost seem arch and artificial. The group was also rock's most successful brother act. Barry Gibb, born on September 1, 1946, in Manchester, England, and his fraternal twin brothers Robin Gibb and Maurice Gibb, born on December 22, 1949, on the Isle of Man, were three of five children of Hugh Gibb, a bandleader, and Barbara Gibb, a former singer. The three of them gravitated toward music very early on, encouraged by their father, who reportedly saw his sons at first as a diminutive version of the Mills Brothers, a '30s and '40s black American harmony group. The three Gibb brothers made their earliest performances at local movie theaters in Manchester in 1955, singing between shows. Their intention was merely to mime to records as a novelty entertainment act, but when the records got broken, they sang for real and got a rousing response from the delighted audience. They performed under a variety of names, including the Blue Cats and (reportedly) the Rattlesnakes, and for a time, fell under the influence of England's skiffle king, Lonnie Donegan, and proto-rock & roller Tommy Steele. Their early lives were interrupted when the family moved to Australia in 1958, resettling in Brisbane. The trio, known as the Brothers Gibb -- with Barry writing songs by then -- continued performing at talent shows and attracted the attention of a local DJ, Bill Gates, which led to an extended engagement at the Beachcomber Nightclub.

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