The Gibb family moved around a lot while future Bee Gees brothers Barry, Maurice, and Robin were young, and while they had played music together for some time, they formally became a group after the Gibb family moved to Australia in the 1950s, according to American Songwriter. Two men who helped get the group off the ground at that point were Bill Goode, an Australian radio DJ who gave the Gibb brothers some early airplay, and Bill Gates, a promoter who worked with the band at that time.
It was Goode that suggested the band name “the BGs” based on Barry Gibb, Goode, and Gates’ initials. According to Vancouver Pop Music, though, by 1963, the band signed their first recording contract with Festival Records, and it was around that same time that the BGs evolved into the Bee Gees. With Goode and Gates gone, the myth that Bee Bees stands for “brothers Gibb” was born. By 1967, the Bees Gees were back in England, and shortly after that point, what’s typically thought of as the band’s debut record was released, named — appropriately enough — “Bees Gees’ 1st.”
