Forth Bee Gee fan’s quest ends in triumph

THROUGHOUT history, millions of human beings have dedicated themselves to a lifelong quest of some sort.
Willie Barr from Forth with the final record for his Bee Gees collection bought via an Australian seller
20/9/13Willie Barr from Forth with the final record for his Bee Gees collection bought via an Australian seller
20/9/13
Willie Barr from Forth with the final record for his Bee Gees collection bought via an Australian seller 20/9/13

For many, it is to finally find their true faith; others to discover a lengendary, long-lost hoard of treasure while some spend the decades seeking that elusive love of their life.

All Willie Barr of Forth wanted was a Bee Gees album.

Not just ANY disc by the famous falsetto group, mind you, but the one and only recording by the trio missing from their fanatical fan’s collection.

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In fact, Willie has become even more famous for his Bee Gee obsession than for his magnificent past record of charity fund-raising, running and swimming, raising thousands for good causes.

However, now 53 years old, Willie has been involved in a less physical but, to him, vital race of another sort - a race against time to find that final piece in the jigsaw of a Bee Gees collection of over 200 records, amassed over 37 years.

He has now reached the finishing line and the long-lost disc is now safely in his record rack.

He explained: “The album Sing and Play;Barry Gibb Songs 1965 was only ever released in Australia.”

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His previous Big Find was a 1970 album, Inception and Nostalgia, which he acquired despite there being only seven known copies in the world.

However, getting hold of the 1965 disc through the internet tops even that – and he is being coy about how much it cost him!

He explains that his devotion to the band is endless because, frankly, the group’s own track ‘record’ seems eternal, even now that two of the Gibb brothers are sadly no longer with us.

Said Willie: “I’ve been a fan ever since dad took me to The Barras where he found a 1954 record by The Rattlesnakes, their first name.”

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They survived through Sixties pop stardom to become disco superstars in the Seventies with the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack AND even had a hit in 1997 with Alone.

And now he’s found his ‘lost’ album, he states this is the end of his obession.

Don’t you believe it; he’s heading to London this weekend to a gig by the last surviving Bee Gee!

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