Paul Gambaccini is to present a tribute to singer-songwriter Robin Gibb for BBC Radio 2 tomorrow night, just days after the Bee Gee’s death.
‘Spirit Having Flown: A tribute to Robin Gibb’ will include a selection of songs from his back catalogue and a look back on Robin’s career.
The one-off programme has been put together after Gibb died aged 62 on Sunday after a battle with cancer. It will feature many of the hits Robin wrote for other artists – including Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross and Barbra Streisand. The station says Gambo will ‘look back on the career of a remarkable man, whose influence on the music industry will not be forgotten.’
Only three months ago, Robin told Radio 2’s Steve Wright about his ‘spectacular’ recovery from colon cancer. “The prognosis is that it’s almost gone and I feel fantastic and really from now on it’s just what they could describe as a “mopping-up” operation. I am very active and my sense of well-being is good,” he said in the interview in February.
Following news of his death on Sunday evening, radio presenters including Gambaccini and former Radio 1 DJ Mike Read were among those to do interviews about Robin Gibb. Read – who now does weekend breakfast on Magic – told BBC Radio 5 live: “”Robin had the voice, the pathos, and he was a great writer. He had a gift for melody and a gift for lyrics and left a phenomenal legacy, a phenomenal catalogue.” Gambaccini told the station: “He was one of the important figures in the history of British music – and I mean of all time, I don’t mean just the last few years or the rock era, I mean of all time. He and Barry and Maurice wrote 23 number one records (with the exception of Maurice who wrote 22). They are the only song writers to have number ones in the last five decades. They did briefly have the number one album of all time – ‘Saturday Night Fever’. Something of this magnitude is bigger than just the last few years.”
Spirit Having Flown: A tribute to Robin Gibb is presented by Paul Gambaccini and airs on Thursday 24th May at 9.30pm on Radio 2.
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Posted on Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012 at 12:31 pm by RadioToday Staff