Before Bill Medley even picked up the phone one afternoon last week, I already knew it was going to be a real treat to hear his baritone “hello” on the other end of the line — in the same voice that had been on repeat on my cassette player in the late 1980s, proclaiming he was having the time of his life.
Being a fan of his music was likely embedded in my DNA, if musical tastes are somehow hereditary. I would bet the first time I heard his voice was in utero. Of all the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s records my family played, The Righteous Brothers were the G.O.A.T. They were as much of a part of my childhood as Mom’s homemade Play-Doh or the wood-paneled walls of our ranch-style house in Fort Mill, South Carolina.
As a kid, I enjoyed hearing Dad sing “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” and “Unchained Melody” probably even more than I enjoyed hearing Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield sing them.
No offense to The actual Righteous Brothers, of course — and for what it’s worth, they had real competition: My dad was (in my opinion) the best singer in the whole congregation at Unity Presbyterian Church.
To this day, in addition to holding the title of one of the most played in our household, “That Lovin’ Feelin’” held the record until 2019 as the most-played song ever in the history of modern radio.
I tell you all of that to set the stage for this. A few weeks ago, I received an invitation to interview the 80-year-old Medley ahead of the duo’s performance at the Knight Theater in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Friday.
I couldn’t wait to have a conversation with the man behind the music I grew up with — about “Unchained Melody,” which was produced by Medley (Phil Spector later took the credit) and was actually placed on the B side of the record. And of course, my other childhood favorite: “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life,” with Jennifer Warnes. (I wasn’t allowed to watch the movie “Dirty Dancing,” when it came out, but I sure had the soundtrack.)
Looking back on our phone call, I would say that it didn’t feel like an interview at all, but more like a conversation with a family member.
We talked about the lighter side: He told me about what it was like to be friends with Elvis and to be in the background of so many first kisses through the decades, and how when he was asked to be part of “Dirty Dancing” he said, “‘Wow, that sounds like a bad porno movie.’”
We also talked about the past year and a half, including what it felt like to be out of work for the first time in 60 years during COVID-19, as well as dealing with throat surgery and the death of his wife of 35 years.
First, some background: ‘That’s Righteous, Brother’
The Righteous Brothers were formed in 1962, when Medley and Hatfield decided to leave the five-member group The Paramours.
“In the early 1960s, Orange County, California, was about the whitest place in the country, but all these Black Marines from El Toro Marine base heard that there were these two guys singing rhythm and blues, so they came down to hear us,” Medley said.
“A lot of times we’d be coming to work and pass one of the Black Marines, and he’d say, ‘Hey righteous brother, how you doin’?’” Medley said. “I loved that and so did Bobby. Sometimes at the end of our songs they’d yell out, ‘That’s righteous, brother!’”
In addition to “That Lovin’ Feelin’” and “Unchained Melody,” The Righteous Brothers were known for other hit songs “Just Once in My Life” and “Soul & Inspiration.” Medley and Hatfield recorded together until 1968, and continued to perform together occasionally over the years.
Hatfield died suddenly at age 63 in 2003, months after The Righteous Brothers were voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and moments before a scheduled performance with Medley.
Medley focused on his solo career until he heard his good friend Bucky Heard sing in 2015. Medley went to see Heard perform a Journey tribute. “I went to see that and — boy, he just killed me, it knocked me out. I didn’t have any idea he could do that stuff,” Medley told me.
“I’d had a lot of people telling me to reform The Righteous Brothers and put it back together. When I went in to see him the next day, I thought to myself ‘Boy, if I was gonna do this, this would be the guy to do it with.’”
It was more than just Heard’s voice that sold Medley on the idea: “He’s a phenomenal singer and could do the job great, but the other thing was, he was a good friend. You never know who you’re getting in bed with — it’s like a male bride or something. Bucky and I were real good friends, and my wife and his wife were good friends. It just felt real good and real natural, and it just worked out musically amazingly good.”
And there you have it: The Righteous Brothers were back.
The 1960s and a friendship with Elvis
Five and a half decades of live performances comes with plenty of stories, and touring back then was much different than it is now, Medley said. “Then, we were younger, the crowds were young and you know — a lot of times there’d be a lot of screaming going on,” he said, with a laugh. “You know, this and that.”
These days, people don’t come to see Bill and Bob so much as they come to hear the music they’ve loved for so long. “Mainly, they just want to hear those songs and I think that’s why they’re showing up,” he said.
Medley’s friends used to think he was so lucky, getting to see the country — and he would tell them, “We get to see a Holiday Inn and the back of a stage. That’s what we see.”
A lot of the stops blend in, and yet still — “We had a lot of fun, we messed around on the road quite a bit. It’s like ‘the boys night out’ in reality, when you go out on the road.”
In the early 1970s, Medley and Elvis Presley were both working at the Las Vegas Hilton. “And so that was fun — he was a fan of ours, even before ‘Lovin’ Feelin’,’” he said. “So Elvis just became a good friend. And so it was fun to be in Vegas with him. That was, looking back, amazingly interesting to me because I got to do a lot of one-on-one talking with Elvis without all the boys and all that around. So we got to know each other pretty well.”
Later, when Medley was recording in Memphis, “One of Elvis’s guys would come and pick me up usually around 5, 5:30 in the afternoon and they’d take me over to Graceland. We would have dinner and horse around and maybe go to the movies and all that. We did that for about three weeks, so that was fun.”
On ‘Dirty Dancing’
These days, Medley’s daughter goes on tour with him and comes on stage to perform the hit “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life.” But when Medley was asked to participate in our very own North Carolina-filmed “Dirty Dancing,” he initially took a pause.
“When they called me and asked me to do it, I said ‘Wow, that sounds like a bad porno movie.’ She says, ‘No, no, no, it’s a great ’60s movie,’ so I said okay, but it sounded horrible.”
Favorite song to perform
When I asked Medley which song he could choose if he could only perform one, I figured it had to be “Lovin’ Feelin’” or “Time of My Life.” I was wrong.
“Oh boy. That’s a tough one. ‘I mean Lovin’ Feelin’ ’ and ‘Unchained Melody’ and ‘Soul & Inspiration’ are great songs, and they’re fun to do,” he said. “But there was a song that followed ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’’ called ‘Just Once in My Life’ written by Carole King and it’s probably the most fun to do. It’s a great song.”
In general, Medley said he never gets tired of performing the classics. “We were really fortunate. We recorded songs that we really like and love. … Every time I go on stage, I literally feel like I’m 25 years old. Audiences just keep you alive. The audience lights up and it kind of lights you up. I don’t ever get tired of singing those songs. I love them a lot.”
On COVID-19, throat surgery and losing his wife
“I’ve been actively touring for 55 years, maybe even a little more, and it’s great. Of course, 2020 and this virus thing kind of put a cramp on everything, kind of took everybody off the road. It’s the first time I’ve been out of work for 60 years.”
During quarantine, Medley spent his days working with his vocal coach and writing songs at home in California. He still performed, just via livestream. “Bucky and I needed to get out there and artistically do something. It’s something I wasn’t used to, but I really enjoyed it.”
As if a pandemic wasn’t enough to deal with, Medley had throat surgery in May 2020, and then tragically, the following month, Medley’s wife of 35 years passed away from Parkinson’s disease. After that, he sold his house and moved.
“It’s been a real tough year and a half, so I’m just thrilled to death to get back to work,” he said. “Going to work is really the medicine for all that. Going on stage, that’s what I do, and if you get sad or happy, you pretty much want to be on stage. I know it sounds nuts, but that’s really the medicine.”
Meanwhile, he’s recovered nicely from throat surgery. “I’ve been working with my vocal coach, and maybe it’s just that I’ve had so much time off that it’s healthier. But yeah, I think my voice is a lot better right now than maybe it’s ever been.”
Decades later, still capturing a moment in time
Back in July, before the delta variant had taken over everything and before I knew I would have the chance to chat with Medley, my family and I enjoyed a reunion in my sister’s Greenville, South Carolina, backyard. We brought out the Bluetooth speaker and started playing our favorite tunes.
My nieces and nephews picked artists Twenty One Pilots, Justin Bieber, The Weeknd. And then the adults started weighing in: Elton John, Billy Joel, Queen.
As the weather transitioned from sticky July dusk to cool summer night, I took the playlist to a familiar place: “Woahhhh, myyyyyyy love, my darlin’,” Hatfield crooned, and his voice sprinkled into the corners of the patio, pushed through the humidity of the grassy backyard, breezed between the holes in the screen surrounding the trampoline and even filled the cracks along the back fence.
The Righteous Brothers music had once again defined the moment, as they always have.
And my dad looked across the table at my mom, as he does, and he sang those words, as he’s done so many times before.
Did I mention we were celebrating my parents’ 50th anniversary? Five decades later, I think we all know the answer to “Are you still miiiiine?” Yet he sings it with the same level of heart I’ve seen him sing it my whole life.
In a year and a half of COVID-19 stealing way too many of these family gatherings, I knew I’d remember this night forever.
———
