New York Mining Disaster 1941 - Release and Reception

Release and Reception

At the time, rumours circulated that the Bee Gees were The Beatles recording under a pseudonym (the Bee Gees' name was supposedly code for "Beatles Group"), in part because the record referenced NEMS Enterprises (Brian Epstein's management agency, which had just been joined by Bee Gees' manager Robert Stigwood). The song is unusual in that the lyrics do not contain the song's title, though the originally planned title, "Have You Seen My Wife, Mr. Jones", does appear in the chorus. Atco distributed promos with a blank label and the suggestion that it was an English group whose name started with B. Many DJs thought it was a new Beatles song and played the song heavily. Atco also retitled the song "New York Mining Disaster 1941 (Have You Seen My Wife, Mr. Jones?)" to make sure people could find it in the shops.

Beatles lead guitarist George Harrison met Maurice Gibb at a party several years later, and told him that he had bought a copy of "New York Mining Disaster 1941" because he thought it sounded so much like The Beatles. Maurice's response to Harrison was that the resemblance "was unintentional" and Harrison said "I knew that, I admire your work". Barry Gibb explained about this song:

"If you sounded like the Beatles and also could write a hit single, then the hype of the machine would go into action, and your company would make sure people thought you sounded like the Beatles or thought you were the Beatles. And that sold you, attracted attention to you. It was good for us because everyone thought it was the Beatles under a different name."

Robin Gibb explained about the this track:

"And all the DJs on radio stations in the US picked it up immediately thinking it was the Beatles, and it was a hit on that basis. It established us in those early years. It helped our following record which was nothing like the Beatles.

The success of this song owes a lot more to the perseverance of Robert Stigwood than he has previously been given credit for. "We had quite a hard time at getting the Bee Gees played, "We weren't all totally convinced that Stigwood was picking the right song to plug, but at the end of the day, he was a forceful character. All of these guys were... Chas Chandler (manager of Jimi Hendrix) was the same, Kit Lambert (manager of The Who) was the same. They all argued their case with passion, you know, they lived it, they were like that." conceded Polydor's Alan Bates. When the Disc & Music Echo reported "widespread rumours" that this song had been written by Lennon and McCartney, Robin countered with "Rubbish!. We've always written our own songs. I've been writing since I was ten before Lennon and McCartney were even on stage. People can say what they like. If they don't believe us, they can ask The Beatles.".

Bassist Maurice Gibb, though, had previously said that "New York Mining Disaster 1941" was in fact influenced by the Beatles:

"New York Mining Disaster 1941" was a total rip-off of The Beatles, We were so influenced by them. In fact it started a mystery about us, because they started playing and saying, they're this new group from England that begins with a B and finished with an s so they all said, Ah it's The Beatles, not naming it, they're doing that trick again. The disc jockey would play it and play it and play it and, Guess who it is? and people would guess, and they wouldn't get the answer. I heard came actually from Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler. To us it was an honour, to actually think we were as good as The Beatles".