The Righteous Brothers

Although unrelated by blood, Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield, each born in 1940, fully lived up to their adopted name and helped coin, or perhaps even launch, the phrase “blue-eyed soul” during the mid-1960s. The white Southern California pair had already logged years as a traveling doo-wop and R&B act before linking with Phil Spector and delivering one of the decade’s most indelible singles, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’.” Their alliance with the producer collapsed soon after, and although the singers notched several more strong hits in a comparable vein, they could not keep their momentum alive beyond a year or two at the summit.

Medley and Hatfield joined forces in 1962 after emerging from local ensembles the Paramours and the Variations; they actually retained the Paramours name for their debut single. By 1963 they had adopted the Righteous Brothers moniker, with Medley handling the deep, smoky baritone lines and Hatfield supplying the higher tenor and falsetto passages. Over the next few years they cut numerous spirited R&B numbers for the Moonglow label that echoed Ray Charles’s gospel-infused soul-and-rock approach, scoring their biggest early success with “Little Latin Lupe Lu,” a track that later became a staple for garage bands and was covered by Mitch Ryder, the Kingsmen, and others.

Even on those Moonglow sides, Medley served as producer and chief songwriter, yet the duo did not reach national prominence until they placed themselves in Phil Spector’s hands. Spector applied his Wall of Sound treatment to “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” a sweeping ballad written by Spector, Barry Mann, and Cynthia Weil. Clocking in at nearly four minutes, the recording tested the boundaries of what radio would accept in the mid-1960s, and some listeners initially mistook Medley’s low, hazy lead vocal for a 45 played at 33 rpm. The track’s undeniable force carried it to the top of the charts anyway.

The Righteous Brothers landed three additional major hits on Spector’s Philles label in 1965—“Just Once in My Life,” “Unchained Melody,” and “Ebb Tide”—each built around similarly dense orchestral backings and rising vocal peaks. The working relationship proved uneasy, however, and by 1966 the duo had departed Philles for a lucrative contract with Verve. Medley, already seasoned behind the board, resumed production duties and guided the pair to another number-one single with their very first Verve release, “(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration.” The success must have stung Spector, since Medley had faithfully reproduced the orchestral density of the earlier Philles recordings, right down to enlisting the same Mann-Weil songwriting team.

It remains unclear why the Righteous Brothers never repeated that level of achievement during the remainder of their Verve years. They managed only two further Top 40 entries in the 1960s—“He” and “Go Ahead and Cry,” both in 1966—even after receiving occasional material from the formidable Goffin-King partnership. Medley exited for a solo career in 1968, leaving Hatfield, the less prolific member in terms of songwriting and production, to continue under the Righteous Brothers name with Jimmy Walker, formerly of the Knickerbockers.

Medley scored a pair of modest solo successes in the late 1960s, yet neither performer generated half the impact they had achieved together. They reunited in 1974 and reached number three with “Rock and Roll Heaven,” a tribute to deceased rock figures that struck some listeners as distasteful. A few smaller hits followed before Medley stepped away from performing for five years beginning in 1976. The Righteous Brothers continued to work the oldies circuit sporadically through the 1980s and 1990s until Hatfield died suddenly during one of those tours on November 5, 2003.