Yesterday my adult son (who is approaching middle age) referred me to a music video that had been made in 1965. I was delighted. He had discovered the Righteous Brothers.
1965 was the year I graduated from high school. I have an emotional connection to the music this duo created. It's nice to know their art transcends age, and time.
My favorite song from this duo is Ebb Tide, although this was not the most well known song produced by the Righteous Brothers. The two singers in this group were Bobby Hatfield and Bill Medley. Anybody can sound good on a record. These guys did it live and consistently sounded amazing in their live performances. Here is Hatfield singing Ebb Tide. Although this is not the most well known, it was a song I heard at just the right time in my youth.
In an interview Bill Medley described Hatfield's talent as natural. "Bobby was just a natural. We both sang in church and school choirs. Bobby just was one of those guys with a beautiful voice who didn’t have to work at much. He just had it." Medley, the baritone in the duo, took voice lessons all his life. Hatfield just walked on stage and did his thing.
This song has more of a fifties feel about it than many of their other songs. I looked up the history of Ebb Tide and noted that, sure enough, it was written in 1953 and was performed by artists in that decade--Vic Damone and Frank Sinatra among them. Vic Damone especially was an artist of the early fifties.
Here is the Vic Damone version (1953)
And the Frank Sinatra version (background music here is really annoying) (1958)
I told my son I was writing this blog and he told me I had to listen to the live performance of Summertime. Talk about being blown out of the water. Wow! This song is one of my all time favorites. It was written by George Gershwin in 1935 for Borgy and Bess--an opera that had as its cast only classically trained black artists.
When I was young I played Summertime endlessly (by ear) on the clarinet (much to the consternation of my Brooklyn neighbors). Hatfield singing the song here gives me goose bumps. (Sorry about the banter at the beginning of the video).
When you listen to this you can hear the musical influences on this singer. Medley explained in his interview that both singers grew up listening to black radio in the 50s. It was R&B jock Georgie Woods in 1964 who described the Righteous Brothers' music as 'blue-eyed soul'.
The Righteous Brothers were not actually brothers. They were originally members of two different groups, *The Paramours and The Variations. They became a duo in 1962, broke up at one point, came back together and performed until 2003, when Billy Hatfield died suddenly.
I'm sure my husband and I caught Bill Medley in a solo act at our local theater. He could sing, but he seemed to spend a lot of time talking. We didn't mind. Most people in the audience were there, as we were, for nostalgia.
Here are some great Righteous Brothers songs. Readers will certainly recognize Unchained Melody, which became popular after it was used in the movie Ghosts. In this live performance, Bobby Hatfield shows his vocal chops. Hard to listen to it (someone from my generation) and be unaffected.
Here is a song that I'm vaguely familiar with, Little Latin Lupe Lu. It has a definite fifties vibe. It's said Medley wrote this when he was a teenager. It was their first hit as a duo, and legend has it that the name Righteous Brothers came from someone in the audience who yelled out that their sound was truly righteous. Here's a rather grainy video of their live performance, 1963.
This is apparently a song musicians like to perform. Here is Springsteen performing it live in 2009
Here are the Righteous Brothers singing You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling, live at the Rock&Roll Hall of Fame ceremonies. It was March 10, 2003. Their voices were not in top form. They were both in their 60s at the time. The were being inducted into the Hall of Fame. It's hard for me to listen to this with neutral emotion. It's a song of loss. Bobby Hatfield died suddenly that year, in November. He was 63.
Here is another wonderful song, Soul and Inspiration, from 1966. I never realized the Righteous Brothers sang this, but it was a song of the times, a song of my youth. Listen to their velvet voices in this live performance. This is what they were like at their peak.
Here they are in 1965 performing on the Ed Sullivan show. Back in those days, if you performed on Ed Sullivan, you had made it. The Beatles performance there in '64 was considered their U. S. launch. The song the Righteous Brothers performed, You'll Never Walk Alone, is from the Rogers and Hammerstein musical, Carousel. It seems to have been chosen for the Ed Sullivan performance because it showcased the musical strengths of Medley and Hatfield.
In a personal aside, I made my own stage debut in the fourth grade with this song. I can't sing a note, but I apparently have a great stage voice. The music teacher had the class humming behind me as I slowly mouthed the words. Without a mike. They could hear me in the back row :))
Here is a song, Just Once in My Life (written by Carole King, Gerry Goffin, and Phil Spector ), from '64 that barely rings a bell, and yet I've read that it reached #9 on the Billboard chart in the U.S.
I'll end this musical tribute to the Righteous Brothers with a song that took them back to their roots. They both sang in church choirs as young boys. This song, which they performed in 1966. I couldn't find a live performance of the song, but here is a recording.
As I review the songs and music of these two legendary performers, I'm left with the realization that a life of performing can be depressing. Performers are always looking for the next hit. It is a life of trying to please people. I think it takes a really strong personality to live that way and stay healthy, mentally and physically.
If you hadn't heard of the Righteous Brothers before, I'm certain you've heard their music. I hope you enjoyed this little retrospective. It's been fun, and a little sad, for me. Music is so much a part of my past, and much of that comes back to me with the Righteous Brothers' songs.
Thank you for reading. Peace and health to all.
Postscript:
Inspired by Bill Hatfield's rendition of Summertime, I just pulled out my keyboard (it's been years!) and tried play the song, just for me. Great fun.