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A stunning duet of the Bee Gees hit ‘To Love Somebody’ was sung by Barry Gibb and his little brother Andy Gibb at the annual Love and Hope Ball in Miami in 1987, just one year before Andy’s untimely death. This rare video footage is one of the few times the pair were known to have performed together in public. The famous brothers were performing at the event, a private party to raise funds for the Diabetes Research Institute. After moving to Miami in the 1970s, Barry Gibb and his wife Linda became Love and Hope International Chairmen in 1985. Over the decades, the Bee Gees and their children have played at the Ball, but Andy’s duet with his older brother remains one of the most special moments in its history.
The performance was captured just one year before Andy died from a heart attack caused by cocaine use in 1988, when he was only 30-years-old. Andy Gibb had attended drug rehabilitation twice and was planning a comeback in 1988 with a new record deal. The deal was never signed. Despite the Bee Gees announcing that Andy would officially join them as the fourth member that same year, the youngest Gibb brother was struggling deeply.
In a 2009 interview, six years after the death of the third Bee Gee, Maurice Gibb, Robin and Barry Gibb recalled the last days of their younger brother’s life and their attempts to help him overcome 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 had warned Andy Gibb about his destructive lifestyle just three days before he collapsed and died. “That conversation still haunts me,” he said. “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 remembered Andy’s zest for life, saying, “He was a boy. 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, Andy Gibb was admitted to a hospital in Oxford complaining of chest pains. He died shortly after. He is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, where his headstone reads, ‘Andy Gibb / March 5, 1958 – March 10, 1988 / An Everlasting Love’.