Barry Gibb Plans Country Record in Tenn.

Barry Gibb Plans Country Record in Tenn.

By Associated Press

Sat Dec 16, 6:04 PM

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - If former Bee Gee Barry Gibb was looking for some inspiration for the country album he plans to record here, he couldn't have picked a more hallowed piece of ground to put down stakes.

Gibb bought and is restoring the lakefront house belonging to the late Johnny and June Carter Cash.

"It's going to be nice," Gibb said Wednesday during a reception in his honor by the performance rights organization BMI. "We'd like to use it as our second home. I would like to come here and write songs. I am planning on making a country album. That is really who I am."

Gibb, known for Bee Gees disco hits including "Staying Alive," said he and his two sons have about three completed songs and several others in the works.

"I am a country artist, always have been a country artist, and this is my chance to get some self-expression out because the group is no longer the group," he said. The Bee Gees disbanded after the 2003 death of his brother, Maurice.

And if Cash's old property doesn't stir his creativity, maybe Roy Orbison's will. Orbison, who died in 1988, lived right next door.

"Do you realize how many hit songs have been written in that 4- or 5-acre area, including Roy Orbison next door? The inspiration, being surrounded by the musical atmosphere that has been there for 35 years, we just had to do it."

Sometimes, Gibb says, he can sense Cash's spirit in the house.

"You feel like someone is watching," he said. "You feel like there is a presence in the house of both Johnny and June. I still haven't seen a tall man wearing black clothes yet, but I am very much into it and hope that I do."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Bill's Comment: Honestly, I am looking forward to Barry Gibb's country album. He has written a couple well-known country hits in the past, such as "Islands In The Stream" (Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton) and "Rest Your Love on Me" (Conway Twitty). If I remember, both songs went to number one on the country charts.