Keith Urban joined his Australian companion Barry Gibb for a new version of a Bee Gees classic, joining Gibb on his new album Greenfields: The Gibb Brothers Songbook, Vol. 1, which was released on Friday. Urban appeared on Bee Gees ‘”I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You”, joining Gibb for a heavy piano version of the’ 60s hit.
Urban’s voice starts the song, before Gibb joins him, who takes a few lines before the two artists harmonize. “I have to send you a message” was released in 1968 and became Bee Gees’ first Top 10 hit in the United States. The song tells the story of a man arrested to be executed in the electric chair who asks the prison chaplain to share one last message with his wife. Gibb led the Bee Gees alongside his late brothers Robin and Maurice, and green fields is his foray into the world of country music.
Other artists featured in green fields include Miranda Lambert, Jay Buchanan, Dolly Parton, Jason Isbell, Little Big Town, Sheryl Crow, Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Tommy Emmanuel, Olivia Newton-John and Brandi Carlile. The album was produced by Dave Cobb and recorded in Nashville.
“On this album, there is a definite Australian streak, ranging from Olivia to Keith Urban to Tommy Emmanuel, the guitarist [who features on ‘How Deep Is Your Love’], “Said Gibb Weekly entertainment. “Keith even brought Nicole Kidman with him, which was an incredible emotion as well. It was wonderful. She was a very, very normal, very sweet person.”
green fields gives Gibb a chance to show his love for country music, something he’s been a fan of since childhood. While Bee Gees are known mainly for their pop and disco hits – although they wrote Parton and Kenny Rogers’ iconic duet “Islands in the Stream – Gibb describes himself as a” country music fanatic “.
“I just felt that country music was really what was inside me,” he said. “[Gibb’s son, musician Steve Gibb] played a Chris Stapleton track for me, and it just destroyed me. I thought, ‘This is my place … This is a new era and I am not that other person anymore. Now I can follow what I love most, which are real, country, bluegrass songs – I just love it. It’s time to do what I love and not what everyone asks me to do. ‘”