Bill Medley Bill Medley: still righteous

Bringing his “blue-eyed soul” act to The Canyon club this Saturday night is former Righteous Brother Bill Medley.

It’s been almost seven years since his singing partner, Bobby Hatfield, passed away at age 63, but Medley continues to perform as a solo act.

In a phone conversation, the singer, who will turn 70 this year, reflected on his career.

The Righteous Brothers’ 1965 record “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” became one of the biggest hits in pop history. I asked Medley about the “blue-eyed soul” label, which has been linked to power ballads the duo recorded in the mid-1960s.

“There was a disc jockey in Philadelphia who was playing our music. It was a black radio station and the format was R&B. So in order for him to tell his audience these were two white guys, he started calling us ‘my blueeyed soul brothers.’ It kind of stuck.

“‘Blue-eyed soul’ better described what we were singing when we started: songs like ‘Little Latin Lupe Lu’ and ‘My Babe.’ That was when we were doing hard R&B and rock ’n’ roll. I’m basically a blues singer. I got lucky doing ballads, but I still like singing blues in my show. Even though I do all the old Righteous Brothers hits, my solo act has a real street feel to it.”

Medley and Hatfield were close friends as well as musical partners. After Hatfield’s death, Medley continued making sure Bobby remained a part of his show. He shows slides of the two performing and sings Hatfield’s signature ballad, “Unchained Melody.”

“My voice is a lot lower than Bobby’s, but I sing it differently than he did. I keep it real lowkeyed like Al Hibbler and Roy Hamilton, but I do it as a tribute to Bobby. We had the same musical tastes. We were different as people, but our tastes were the same in what we were raised on. It was really a match made in heaven. It worked from day one until the day Bobby passed. I keep him in the act because I know why the audience is there.”

Medley was heavily influenced by producer Phil Spector and eventually produced all his own records. He talked about working with Spector and what he learned from him.

“I produced ‘(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration,’ which was a Spector-sounding record. The one thing I learned was what a genius he was. When we did “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,’ it was done on a two- or three-track machine. He would be in the studio with about 12 guys playing rhythm, three pianos, two basses and all this stuff. And in those days, he had to mix it while they were playing it. So when those musicians left the building, it had to be all done.

“I’m not even sure if younger guys would want to attempt what he did in the studio. The magic in those records was all the leakage with everyone in the same room recording live.”

Medley’s 1968 solo recording of “Peace, Brother, Peace” reflected the Spector influence.

“That’s one of the greatest songs I ever had the pleasure of singing. It had a real gospel feel to it. But it came right at the end of the peace movement and everyone was all peaced out—it wasn’t a hit, and I got peaced off by that,” Medley said with a laugh.

After The Canyon performance, he’ll return to the home he built in Branson, Mo., and will perform in Branson the rest of the year. His daughter McKenna sings with him in his act.

According to Medley, “Life is about friends and family. Everything else you can get at Wal-Mart.” That’s righteous.

Bill Medley will appear at The Canyon in Agoura Sat., May 8 at 9 p.m. For tickets, call (818) 879- 5016.