Samantha Gibb’s cover of her father’s solo debut single `Railroad’ was released for the song’s 50th anniversary

Maurice Gibb’s solo debut single ‘Railroad’ was released on April 17, 1970 in the U.K.

Now, to commemorate its 50th anniversary, Samantha Gibb has now covered this unforgettable song by her father.

The song, originally intended for a new Bee Gees album, was written in late 1969.  The songs resulting from the collaboration by Maurice and Billy Lawrie, Lulu’s brother,  which produced ‘Railroad’ among others, have been circulating on bootlegs, but most of them have remained unreleased officially.  Efforts have been made by Maurice’s family to put together a collection, but it seems the materials have all scattered and lost during the 50 years that have passed.   Considering the Herculean efforts made by Andrew Sandoval and all those collectors and Beegeeologists concerned for Robin’s “Saved By The Bell” box set, to have a proper release of Maurice’s solo material from this period seems equally difficult, if not more so, but we can keep on hoping and offering what support we can to celebrate the talent of this extraordinary musician.

The photo at the top shows a full page ad from the April 17, 1970 issue of New Musical Express.

Unfortunately, the promotion video on YouTube suffers greatly from the passage of time, but look how Maurice was indeed “poetry in motion.”   He looked so cool to just stand there or walk, so it was a brilliant idea to just have him walking by railroad.  Nobody else could have looked so graceful and cool just walking.

I often wondered if the person in the song had been serving his time in prison, because at the beginning of the video, it does look like he is leaving a prison – or a railroad station.  Or maybe he could just have been in a big city away from his hometown because he felt he’d “gotta do the things he wanted to do.”  This another “homecoming” song, and the person is going back to his Massachusetts.

This song has definitely been my favorite off of the solo singles issued by the three brothers at that time.   I would find myself humming,”So I’ll walk by the railroad any time any time (doo doo doo doo!)” any time of day.

According to Gibb Songs, the song was on a reel dated December 9, 1969 with six other songs, all written by Maurice and Billy Lawrie.

Although Maurice said in one interview in 1970 that he played all the instruments himself, elsewhere he mentioned four musicians who helped.

The four are: arranger Gerry Shury, drummer Geoff Bridgeford who would be named a member of the Bee Gees in 1971, Leslie Harvey, from Stone the Crows, on guitar, and Lulu’s arranger Johnny Coleman on piano.

Samantha Gibb’s cover of ‘Railroad’ came out on April 17, 2020.

You can purchase the song at this link.

As always, Samantha makes the song her own.  Although you can feel her love of and respect for the original, she never just copies.   Her version of ‘Railroad’ is clear, sweet, and warm, and really Samantha.   While Maurice’s original was lushly orchestrated, Samantha’s version made during the “stayin’ home” days, has a simple, homemade feel, which makes it very dear to our hearts.

So I’ve been humming ‘Railroad’ to myself a lot these days.   In a sense, this is another ideal “stayin’ home” song because the person is going home (to stay there)!

Samantha also sent us this YouTube link, saying:

“We are working on a video but, unfortunately there are too many liabilities with shooting on a railroad track.
“We are working on something though. We are working with what we got especially in these times of isolation.”

So the above link just shows the work in progress, and we have more to look forward to, it seems!

It seems The Ghost Twins project is nearing its completion as well.

{Bee Gees Days｝