Andrew Curry, that maestro and super-producer of the indie-pop tribute album, has returned with another outstanding collection of tunes. After previously saluting AM radio hits of the 1970s, British bands of the 1980s, the theme songs to the James Bond films, and the music of Paul Williams, he’s back with Higher Than a Mountain: The Songs of Andy Gibb. This extraordinary compilation features artists such as Lisa Mychols, Greg Pope and Coke Belda presenting their phenomenal interpretations of the music of Andy Gibb. Once you hear tracks like Pope’s terrific take on “I Just Want To Be Your Everything” and Belda’s deeply emotional version of “Me (Without You),” I think you’ll agree that Higher Than a Mountain is an exceptional record. Andrew was kind enough to take some time to chat with me about this latest release from Curry Cuts, his Portland based label.
Q: This is your fifth tribute compilation, after Drink A Toast To Innocence: A Tribute To Lite Rock, Here Comes The Reign Again: The Second British Invasion, Songs. Bond Songs: The Music Of 007 and White Lace & Promises: The Songs Of Paul Williams. You probably have the process down to a science at this point, but this time around, you had to deal with the effects of the coronavirus outbreak. Did that world-changing event present any special challenges for you when you were putting this album together?
A: The pandemic definitely impacted this project, practically from the day I started working on it. I had the idea for a tribute to Andy in the latter months of 2019, and I started recruiting musicians shortly thereafter. Anticipating a spring 2020 release date, I asked for songs to be submitted by March of 2020. Well, we all know what happened in March of last year. The world effectively closed. A few musicians were able to work from studio spaces at home, but lots of other folks – even solo musicians who do all the instruments and production work on their music – were left unable to get to their normal studio spaces. Bands who always recorded together in the same space were suddenly unable to do that. So a March 2020 deadline became an April 2020 deadline, then a Halloween 2020 deadline, then a “You know what? Just get it to me whenever you can” deadline. A few folks were able to meet that original date. Others couldn’t get their recordings started until winter of 2021. For a fifteen track compilation, I was literally receiving tracks over a thirteen month span. It was wild.
Q: Higher Than a Mountain effectively showcases Andy’s talents as both an artist and a songwriter. People tend to forget that Andy and his brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice (The Bee Gees) were multi-talented artists, and had successful careers as writers and producers in addition to having hits of their own. The Bee Gees got unfairly labelled as “just a disco act” after the success of Saturday Night Fever, but their body of work (including the songs they worked on with Andy) really illustrates the breadth of their skills. In the liner notes for the album, you talk about being a fan of Andy and The Bee Gees when you were younger. Was there a conscious effort on your part to try and broaden people’s perceptions about Andy’s music?
A: Definitely. As I say in those same liner notes, the compilation really doubles as a tribute to Andy and his older brothers, who were all essential to Andy’s success, especially Barry, who wrote or co-wrote most of Andy’s biggest hits, and produced them as well. Barry recently released a great album called Greenfields, where he revisits old Bee Gees songs as duets with current country artists. At the end of last year, HBO released How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?, a fantastic documentary about the Bee Gees. So the Gibbs have been back in the spotlight in a way that’s led to a lot of people re-evaluating them and their contributions to the pop music landscape. I wanted Andy to get a bit of recognition as well, because he was really a prominent cog in the Gibb hit-making machine of the late ‘70s. I sometimes think that his contributions to their legacy were overlooked.
Q: The songs on Higher Than A Mountain: The Songs of Andy Gibb are an eclectic mix of well known tracks and album cuts from Andy’s brief but impressive discography. Did you choose the songs, or did the artists select the tunes they wanted to record?
A: I chose the tracks I wanted to include on the compilation, and I generally offered specific songs to the participating musicians, songs I could really hear them doing in their own personal style. I wanted to include all the hits, of course. But it was just as important that I shine the spotlight on some deeper cuts, some tracks that Andy wrote without the help of his older brothers. It gives us some sense of what kind of artist he might have become had he been able to sustain his career a few years longer.
Q: Do you have any favorites among the deep cuts that you selected for the album?
A: The fun of the projects that I do is re-visiting the source material and discovering songs that maybe I’d forgotten or hadn’t heard in years. “Time Is Time” (covered by Keith Slettedahl on the album) was a song I remembered from back when it was released, but it was never one I gave much thought to in subsequent years. I bet I listened to it 100 times or more as I began putting the record together. It’s definitely one that is worth a new listen, especially for folks who think they know Andy’s sound. It doesn’t fall into the disco/adult contemporary niche that Andy worked so well back in the day, and I think it might have been an even bigger hit had it not come out when the Gibb backlash was in full effect.
Q: The artists did a fantastic job making these songs their own, while staying true to the spirit of the originals. Some amped up the power, like The Test Pressings on “Why,” and Irene Pena on “Wherever You Are.” Lisa Mychols’ beautiful cover of “(Our Love) Don’t Throw It All Away,” Minky Starshine’s darker take on “Desire” and Ken Sharp and Fernando Perdomo’s lovely rendition of “One More Look At The Night,” are all highlights of the album. Did any of these versions surprise you when you heard them for the first time?
A: Those are all terrific examples of the variety that’s on this record. Minky has been on my last several compilations, and it’s never easy to predict what his track will sound like. He did a lovely and fairly faithful version of Spandau Ballet’s “True” on Here Comes The Reign Again: The Second British Invasion, but, as you note, his version of “Desire” on this record is a significant departure from Andy’s original, with those full Bee Gees backing vocals so prominently featured. Lisa Mychols collaborates with her husband Tom Richards on her tracks, and I’m always blown away by their takes on these old songs. Her track on this record, “(Our Love) Don’t Throw It All Away,” layers harmonies on top of harmonies, and the end result just melts me.
As for “Why,” Robbie Rist (of the Test Pressings) told me years ago that he always wants the song that no one else selects. That way he can make it into his own thing. I think that’s precisely what they’ve done with “Why,” a song that was never a single, so fewer people will have an idea about what the original sounds like. They made it into a legit rock song, and I love it.
Q: With the success of the HBO documentary, How Can You Mend A Broken Heart? Barry’s album, and the upcoming release of your tribute to Andy, it feels like what’s occurring is a well-deserved re-assessment, and even a deeper appreciation, of the music of Andy and his brothers. Do you hope the more casual fans (and even the devoted ones) will take another look at their music after listening to Higher Than a Mountain: The Songs of Andy Gibb?
A: Well, that’s certainly one of the main goals of the record. I frequently make the argument that no one, not even the Bee Gees themselves, paid a higher price than Andy did for the backlash that hit the Bee Gees so hard at the start of the ‘80s. As I said in my liner notes, the Bee Gees were effectively run off the radio when the ‘80s started, but they were able to pivot to a new career as in-demand songwriters, and they wound up writing some truly enormous hits like “Woman In Love” for Barbra Streisand and “Islands In The Stream” for Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. But Andy was never able to make a similar transition, and so he was just casually tossed aside, the victim of a misguided ”We’re done with all the Gibbs” movement on American radio.
Climbing to such heights, only to then fall so low, it’s no wonder that his problems with addiction spiraled out of control. It’s really a sad story. I think it’s time for folks to get a new perspective on Andy and his music, the way people have been (very justifiably) re-assessing the older Gibb brothers. There’s a biography of Andy coming out in 2022 that I hope folks will read. I’m excited that Higher Than A Mountain: The Songs of Andy Gibb can be a part of the process which brings a bit more attention to some terrific music and the under-appreciated man who made it.
Thanks to Andrew Curry for chatting with me about his latest project from Curry Cuts. Higher Than A Mountain: The Songs of Andy Gibb will be released digitally on May 7, while the CD version will be be available around May 14. It's always a pleasure to talk with Andrew about his magnificent compilations. Here’s a link to the Bandcamp page for the album, where you an also preview several of the songs from the record: https://currycuts.bandcamp.com/album/higher-than-a-mountain-the-songs-of-andy-gibb.
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