Colin Peterson obit

Colin ‘Smiley’ Petersen: Bee Gees Drummer Dies at 78

 

He was not on the list.

Colin ‘Smiley’ Petersen passed away on Monday, November 18, 2024, leaving behind a legacy that bridged the worlds of music and film.

Known as the original drummer of the Bee Gees, Petersen played an integral role during the group, contributing to their global rise. His time with the group included performances on hits such as ‘Massachusetts’, ‘To Love Somebody’, and ‘Words’ and their early groundbreaking albums including Bee Gees’ 1st. Beyond this, he first captured the public’s imagination as a young actor, starring in the Australian film Smiley, which gave him his nickname.

In recent years, Petersen had found a new audience through his work with The Best of the Bee Gees tribute show, for which he did a career spanning interview with Jason Barnard of The Strange Brew Podcast in July 2022:

Colin on recording in The Bee Gees

As time went on we would arrive in the studio with no song and I would have that opportunity of just sitting with them suggesting different tempos and stuff like that. I think the fact that a lot of those tracks came from nothing gave the tracks a real spontaneity… We would work the songs up, the five of us as a team, and again I think that that’s why the songs sound so coordinated. We never recorded separately. The only separate thing was the orchestra coming in after we got all our overdubs done.

Oh my, we spent some time in the studio I can’t tell you. Sometimes we would go in there for four hours, the Gibbs would come up with nothing and we’d just pack it in and go home. Then we’d try again another day and maybe the creative juices were really running that night we might get down three backing tracks.

Colin on his approach to drumming

I was really quite imaginative with my playing, but there were a lot of lot of drummers at the time that were technically much more advanced than I was. Look, Chuck Berry only probably knew four chords, right? So sometimes when you’re limited you’ve got to be creative.. I think you can overdo the technique and you get to a stage where you can’t see the wood for the trees. I’ve always been a song guy with drumming.

He is survived by his ex-wife Joanne and their sons Jaime and Ben. He will be remembered for his warmth, wit, and unwavering passion for the arts.

The drummer, record producer and former child actor. He played as a member of the bands Steve and the Board, the Bee Gees and Humpy Bong. In August 1969, he left the Bee Gees and he was replaced by Pentangle drummer Terry Cox to record the songs for their 1970 album Cucumber Castle. His scenes from the film of the same name were cut, and he is not credited on the accompanying album soundtrack, even though he does play on some songs.

Frederick Colin Petersen began his acting career at the age of seven. When he was still nine years old in late 1955, he starred in the film Smiley (released in 1956), with Sir Ralph Richardson, but by the time he was 12 in 1958 he was forced to cease acting as his mother felt it was interfering with his education. Other film credits included The Scamp (1957), A Cry from the Streets (1958) and, much later, Barney (1976). In 1958, before his mother took him back to Australia to focus on his education, he was screen-tested for the part of the young hero in Tiger Bay, but the part eventually went to the then 12 years old Hayley Mills instead, the part being rewritten for a girl. He attended the Humpybong State School at the same time that Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb (they went to Scarborough State School first and later went to Humpybong). Petersen was in Barry's class, though they rarely crossed paths in any significant way. While at school he developed an interest in music, starting out on piano but switching to drums. (He had, however, already shown himself to be a talented drummer in the film The Scamp (1957). After leaving school he played with several bands including Steve and the Board and became acquainted with Maurice Gibb, who invited him to sit in on one of the Bee Gees' sessions in Sydney. He ended up becoming friends with the family and ultimately played on as many as a dozen of their early Australian sides.

Petersen moved to England in 1966, little knowing that the Bee Gees would soon be doing the same and they recruited him as their permanent drummer shortly afterwards – the first non-Gibb brother to become an official member of the Bee Gees. He played on the albums Bee Gees' 1st, Horizontal, Idea, Odessa and Cucumber Castle. He was an equal partner in the group from early in their period in the UK and the Gibb brothers regarded his playing as essential to their sound. He and fellow band member Vince Melouney, who played lead guitar and had also moved to the UK, had some trouble when, in the late summer of 1967, they were threatened with deportation because of an error in the way they had secured their visas. That problem was solved only by the intervention of the group's manager, Robert Stigwood, who mounted a publicity campaign that embarrassed the government into permitting them to remain in the UK. While he was a Bee Gee, he and Maurice Gibb wrote "Everything That Came From Mother Goose" with lead vocals and guitar by Petersen, but it was not released. Also in 1968, he played drums on the Marbles' debut single, "Only One Woman"

The first musician he worked with after leaving the Bee Gees was Jonathan Kelly. Petersen produced some of his early solo singles, and in 1970 the two decided to form a band together. It was called, Humpy Bong, a two-word variation of the name of the school that Petersen and the Gibb brothers attended in Australia. As they needed additional musicians, they placed an advertisement. Tim Staffell answered and he got the job as singer and harmonica player. The trio recorded their debut single and appeared on BBC Television's Top of the Pops. Before the end of 1970 the group broke up without having played any concerts.

 

Actor

David Normand, Joey Vieira, Ron Kelly, Shanan Withers, Angelique Christophorou, Connie Gallo, Richard Labrooy, Melinda Joan Reed, Guy Williams, Dave Beamish, Tahlia Jade Holt, Jonathan Creed, Katie Jewel Palacio, Luke McClean, and Chloe Bevan in The Devil May Care Trilogy Part 1: Blood (2018)

The Devil May Care Trilogy Part 1: Blood

Short

Advisor Daniel

2018

 

Sean Kramer and Brett Maxworthy in Lost in the Wild (1976)

Lost in the Wild

5.9

Second Man (uncredited)

1976

 

Cucumber Castle (1970)

Cucumber Castle

6.4

TV Movie

Man with Knife (scenes deleted)

1970

 

A Cry from the Streets (1958)

A Cry from the Streets

6.4

Georgie

1958

 

Strange Affection (1957)

Strange Affection

6.5

Tod (as Colin 'Smiley' Petersen)

1957

 

Smiley (1956)

Smiley

6.6

Smiley Greevins

1956