I Just Want to Be Your Everything was written by Barry Gibb and recorded by his brother Andy Gibb. It reached number one the first week of August 1977, and remained on the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks, and then again in the third week of September 1977. It was Gibb’s first single.
Andy Gibb was a talented English-Austrailian singer/songwriter and teen idol. He was the youngest brother of The Bee Gees: Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb.
You might be too young to know just how massive The Bee Gees were. Few music groups achieved the level of chart and commercial success as the Gibb brothers. Well, maybe The Beatles. At one point in 1977, five songs in the Billboard Top Ten were written by the Gibbs. As a songwriter, Barry Gibb scored four consecutive number one hits in a row, a record for the time.
They grew so huge, they spread a little of their magic over to little brother Andy. Andy and Barry recorded Andy Gibb’s debut album, Flowing Rivers, at Criteria Studios in Miami. The Eagles were next door, recording Hotel California, and their guitarist Joe Walsh popped in to play guitar on I Just Want to Be Your Everything.
With Barry’s backup vocals, it sounds a lot like a Bee Gees track. Billboard ranks it number 26 in its 100 All-Time Biggest Hits list.
In the late 1970s, the youngest Gibb brother had six singles that reached the Top 10 in the USA, but Gibb’s success was brief.
Gibb did more than record records, he appeared in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat on Broadway and Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates Of Penzance in Los Angeles, California. He also co-hosted the television music show Solid Gold from 1980 to 1982. But, Gibb was ultimately fired from both Dreamcoat and Solid Gold for missing performances because of his cocaine binges.
Photograph from RSO Records
Gibb battled addiction and depression during his short life. He left this world on March 10, 1988, just five days after his 30th birthday. His poor heart just stopped after his years of cocaine abuse. Robin Gibb said at the time:
“He was also not eating properly and the lack of nutrition also damaged his heart, cocaine abuse shattered his confidence and he became scared of people.”
Gibb is now at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills. His headstone reads:
Andy Gibb / March 5, 1958 – March 10, 1988 / “An Everlasting Love”
