Colin Petersen

Frederick Colin Petersen (24 March 1946 – 18 November 2024) was an Australian musician and 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). Smiley, The Scamp and A Cry from the Streets were all successful and in 1957 Petersen was voted one of the biggest stars at the British box office.

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 as Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb (they went to Scarborough State School first and later went to Humpybong). He was a boarder at Ipswich Grammar School, graduating in 1963.

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. When Petersen left the Board, he was replaced by Geoff Bridgford, who would replace him again later on as a member of the Bee Gees.

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 six albums Bee Gees' 1st, Horizontal, Idea, Odessa and Cucumber Castle.

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".

As Petersen learned about the music industry, he raised questions about the group's finances and Stigwood's conflict of interest as the Bee Gees' manager, since Stigwood owned their recordings and publishing and was in effect their employer. According to Petersen this led to him being fired in August 1969, while the group were making a television film of Cucumber Castle. Petersen had already recorded the songs used in the film, which make up part of the album, but he is not credited on the sleeve. Pentangle drummer Terry Cox was brought in to complete the remainder of the drum tracks, but it is not really clear which tracks have Petersen or Cox on drums.

Vince Melouney and Robin Gibb had already left the band by then, leaving just Barry Gibb, Maurice Gibb and Colin Petersen. He was fired, allegedly for having lost interest in the group and missing recording sessions, and for his refusal to do any acting in the film, despite his experience in front of the cameras. He did not join the Bee Gees for the Australian concert of the One Night Only gig, unlike Vince Melouney.