Andy Gibb's First No. 1 Ruled For Four Weeks — His Bee Gees Brother Wrote It In Just 20 Minutes

With his mainstream debut single, "I Just Want To Be Your Everything," Andy Gibb spent a month of 1977 at No. 1, and the song was composed in under half an hour by his famous and established older brother, Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees. Although they scored the most No. 1 hits of the 1970s, the Bee Gees could only record and release so much music. And so, to fill any potential void in the robust market for Gibb-flavored content, the Bee Gees' label, RSO Records, lined up an act to keep the franchise going: Andy, the much younger brother of the three Gibb siblings who founded the Bee Gees.

One of many largely forgotten '70s musicians, Andy resembled Barry in looks and voice, and his recorded output also wound up sounding a lot like the Bee Gees' disco-meets-soft-rock hits of the late 1970s, largely because Barry had a heavy hand with it. Through 1977 and 1978, during which the Bee Gees took three songs to the top of the charts, Andy sent his first three singles to No. 1. Before "(Love Is) Thicker Than Water)" and "Shadow Dancing" – the No. 1 love song of 1978 – Andy captured the top spot on the Hot 100 with the swooning, dizzy, disco romance "I Just Want To Be Your Everything." It was a great investment in Barry's time, since it took him about 20 minutes to write the song.

In 1976, shortly before Andy Gibb joined the roster of RSO Records alongside his Bee Gees brothers, he married Kim Reeder, and RSO head Robert Stigwood invited the newlyweds to take their honeymoon at his Bermuda vacation home. But when he arrived, Barry Gibb was waiting, and the romantic getaway quickly turned into a sibling songwriting retreat. 

"Me and Barry locked ourselves in a bedroom, and Barry just started writing. When Barry writes, it's very hard to collaborate because he's so quick," Andy said in Bob Stanley's "The Story of the Bee Gees." "And before I knew it he was starting to do the chorus and I thought, 'Wow, what a hook.'" The total time it took Barry, the only credited songwriter, to finish the tune called "I Just Want To Be Your Everything" was around 20 minutes.

The Gibb brothers immediately moved on to work on another song. For "(Love Is) Thicker Than Water," Andy came up with the title, and Barry developed everything else. Again, it took him about 20 minutes. Both rapidly-written songs went to No. 1 in the U.S., with "I Just Want To Be Your Everything" the bigger smash, topping the pop chart for four weeks.