Introduction:
Barry Gibb and little brother Andy Gibb sang a stunning duet of Bee Gees hit ‘To Love Somebody’ at the annual Love and Hope Ball in Miami in 1987, just one year before Andy’s untimely death.
A rare video of Andy Gibb and Bee Gee Barry Gibb singing on stage in 1987 is one of the few times the pair were known to have performed together in public.
The famous brothers were in attendance at the annual Love and Hope Ball in Miami when they got on stage and sang a soulful duet of the 1967 Bee Gees smash hit ‘To Love Somebody’.
The pair were performing at the Love and Hope Ball, a private party in Miami to raise funds for the Diabetes Research Institute.
After moving to Miami in the 1970’s and becoming involved with local charities, Barry Gibb and his wife Linda Gibb became Love and Hope International Chairmen in 1985.
The Bee Gees and their children have played live events at the Ball in the almost four decades since Barry Gibb first become involved in the charity, yet Andy’s duet with his older brother Barry is one of the most special moments in its history.
The footage was shot just one year before Andy’s untimely death in 1988, when he died from a heart attack caused by cocaine use when he was just 30-years-old.
Andy went twice to drug rehabilitation and in 1988 planned a come back and a record deal with Island Records.
But the deal was never signed, and despite the Bee Gees also announcing Andy would be officially joining their group as the fourth Bee Gee in 1988, the youngest Gibb was suffering.
In an interview with The Mirror in 2009, six years after the death of the third Bee Gee Maurice Gibb, Robin and Barry Gibb recalled the days leading up to little brother’s Andy’s death and how they had tried to help him kick his addiction.
“We’ve had as much tragedy as we’ve had success. But of course we’d give up all that success to have Andy and Maurice back,” said Barry.
Robin Gibb revealed that he warned Andy Gibb that his lifestyle would kill him just three days before the youngest Gibb collapsed and died.
He said: “That conversation still haunts me. It was a rainy night and I was stood there with an umbrella and I said, ‘Andy, if you keep up what you’re doing, you will not see 47.’ I don’t know why I said 47 and not a rounded figure. But I said it.”
“We knew that Andy was in bad shape – he had some bad substance habits – but we never thought we would lose him,” Barry continued.
“He had this heart condition which we didn’t know about. I used to play tennis with him and I’d noticed that by the second or third set he would become very red in the face. Even after drinking water he didn’t look right.”
Robin added: “In 15 years, my mother lost Andy, then she lost dad and then Maurice. Two sons and her husband. What doesn’t kill you toughens you, but you just don’t expect a 30-year-old to die, regardless of their habits.”
Barry Gibb recalled Andy’s zest for life and childlike exuberance: “He was a boy,” he said. “We were very much alike, me and Andy. We had the same birthmarks.
“If Andy wanted to learn, he’d go out there and do it. He wanted to fly, so he learned how to fly a plane. Andy could water-ski in his bare feet. He had this radical sense that, if you really want to do something, go ahead and do it.”
Just two days after celebrating his 30th birthday in London while working on his new album, Andy was admitted to hospital in Oxford where he complained of chest pains and died not long afterwards.
Andy Gibb is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles. The headstone reads ‘Andy Gibb / March 5, 1958 – March 10, 1988 / An Everlasting Love’.