Blue-Eyed Soul Brother: The Story of Bill Medley

by Bob Stanley of Saint Eitenne.

"The secret is to create a mood rather than articulate words" said Bill Medley in 1966. His distinctive baritone made for some incredibly atmospheric records with the Righteous Brothers; along with Bobby Hatfield, Bill Medley - who turns 75 today - certainly knew how to set a mood.

He was born on September 19th 1940 in Santa Ana, California, where he sang in church and grew up listening to his hero Ray Charles. In 1962, he joined a group called the Paramours along with Bobby Hatfield, and a year later they split off as a duo, scoring a hit with the R&B rave-up Little Latin Lupe Lu. By 1964 they were a huge night club act, so they were surprised to be offered a ballad called You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling by producer Phil Spector and writers Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. "Barry and Phil sang it" recalled Bill, "and when they were done I said, 'That's a great song – for the Everly Brothers.'" It was a transatlantic number one at the start of 1965, and the first of four US top ten hits for the Righteous Brothers that year.

By 1966, though, they were cut adrift from Phil Spector; a legal row between their original label, Moonglow, and Spector's Philles ended their partnership in 1966, and they signed to MGM with Bill Medley taking charge of production. Big shoes to fill, but at the first attempt he scored a second US number one with (You're My) Soul And Inspiration. "The last thing in the world I wanted to do was leave Phil Spector," Medley told Rolling Stone in 1986. "We had just started."

However, the magic soon dissipated without Spector's touch, and their chart placings began falling away. The tremendous A Man Without A Dream, one of Goffin and King's very best songs, was a flop in 1967 and Bill decided to go solo in 1968, cutting Mann and Weil's race relations classic Brown Eyed Woman while Bobby Hatfield hired another singer, Jimmy Walker, and briefly continued touring as the Righteous Brothers.

"We didn't break up because we hated each other," Medley told Rolling Stone. They remained drinking buddies, and their hits remained airplay regulars - You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling went back into the UK Top 10 in 1971. "I know it will probably bring the wrath of the soul purists down on my head" said NME's Roger St Pierre in 1973, "but I would even go so far as to say the Righteous Brothers were the greatest soul duo ever, even beyond Sam and Dave." He wished they'd get back together, and his wish came true a year later when they scored a US Top 10 hit with Rock n Roll Lullaby (it's not their finest work - imagine the Commodores' Night Shift re-written for a sports bar crowd).

Tragedy struck a year later when Bill's first wife, Karen, was murdered; distraught, he went into semi-retirement for five years, bringing up their son and putting his life back together. Bobby Hatfield remained a close friend. After a drinking session in 1982, Bobby and Bill decided to get back together one more time, for their twentieth anniversary, and after that they stuck together until Bobby's death in 2003. In 1983, they also opened a restaurant and dance club in Fountain Valley, California, called the Hop, with piped hits from the fifties and sixties and live performances from the likes of Chuck Berry, Chubby Checker and, naturally, the Righteous Brothers themselves.

In the late eighties and early nineties, Bill Medley enjoyed a third wave of hits with a string of movie themes, the biggest of which was I've Had The Time Of My Life, a duet with Jennifer Warnes which went to number one in the US, Bill's first chart topper in over twenty years. His baritone was still instantly recognisable. Another generation was introduced to the Righteous Brothers' golden era when the film Ghost pushed their 1965 single Unchained Melody all the way to number one in Britain in 1990.

Bill told Goldmine magazine in 1994 that he'd like to be remembered as the inventor of 'blue-eyed soul', "so I can tell my grandchildren what I did (when they ask) what did that old guy do when he was younger?"