https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/8482d12/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1295×842+0+0/resize/1200×780!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fea%2Ff5%2Fe2e7515348f7bba5fb528810362b%2Fla-ca-bryon-cortner-01.jpg
The Bee Gees have suffered a great loss with the deaths of two of their former drummers just four days apart. One drummer was with the Anglo-Australian pop group during their early ballad hits, while the other was crucial to their massive disco superstardom.
Dennis Bryon, who joined the Bee Gees as their drummer in 1973, passed away on November 14 at the age of 76. His death was announced on Facebook by Blue Weaver, a former bandmate from Amen Corner, though no cause of death was provided. Born in Cardiff, Wales, Bryon began playing the drums at 14. He was behind the kit for many of the Bee Gees‘ most iconic hits of the 1970s, including “Stayin’ Alive,” “How Deep is Your Love,” “You Should Be Dancing,” “More Than a Woman,” and the entirety of the monumentally successful “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack.
In his memoir, “You Should Be Dancing: My Life With The Bee Gees,” Bryon recalled a moment in 1978 when he realized the scale of their success. While driving in Miami, he switched between radio stations and found five of them simultaneously playing songs from the “Saturday Night Fever” album. “That’s when I knew this record was big,” he wrote. “Very, very big.” More recently, Bryon had been playing with a tribute band called the Italian Bee Gees.
Four days later, on November 18, Colin “Smiley” Petersen, the band’s first professional drummer, died at the age of 78 after a fall. His passing was confirmed by Evan Webster and Sue Camilleri of The Best of The Bee Gees Show, a tribute band that Petersen had been performing with for the last five years.
Petersen joined the Bee Gees in 1967 and played on their first four albums, contributing to a string of hit ballads between 1967 and 1970, such as “Massachusetts,” “To Love Somebody,” “I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You,” “I Started a Joke,” and “Words.” Before his music career, Petersen was a child actor, famous for his role in the 1956 film “Smiley,” which earned him his lifelong nickname. In a 2022 interview, he described the band’s creative process as collaborative and spontaneous. “We would work the songs up, the five of us as a team,” he said, “and again I think that that’s why the songs sound so coordinated.”
The Bee Gees, formed by brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb in Australia in the late 1950s, sold over 220 million records. Their storied career saw them rise with heartache ballads in the late 1960s, face a decline, and then re-emerge in the mid-1970s as the global face of disco. By the time Bryon joined in 1974, the band’s popularity had waned, their albums were not selling, and they were struggling personally. As Barry Gibb recalled in the 2020 HBO documentary, “The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,” their label was on the verge of dropping them. Their subsequent embrace of the disco sound dramatically revived their fortunes, making them one of the most popular groups in the world.
Following the deaths of Maurice in 2003 and Robin in 2012, Barry Gibb is the last surviving brother of the legendary group.
