A brief but brilliant career

They weren't related at all, but Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield made a great combination with their contrasting voices. With Phil Spector as producer, they recorded some classic songs.



You've lost that loving feeling went to number one in both Britain and America. The achievement was particularly creditable in Britain, where Cilla Black's cover version was first to chart and had climbed to number two before the original version overtook it. It is clearly very popular as it made the UK top ten when re-issued in 1969 - and that wasn't the end of its UK chart success.



Unchained melody was a cover of a fifties movie song. It was somewhat less successful at the time. Even without a rival cover, it stalled at 14 in the UK charts - however, its use in Ghost (a 1990 movie) prompted its re-issue as a UK single and this time it made number one. As a follow-up, You've lost that loving feeling was re-issued for the second time, this time making the top three,



Of the other Phil Spector tracks, Just once in my life missed the UK charts but made the American top ten, while Ebb tide was a sizeable American hit but only a minor UK hit.



The professional relationship between the Righteous Brothers and Phil Spector was difficult so they didn't stay with Phil Spector very long. As things turned out, they provided Phil with his last major success in America, although he had one more big hit in Britain when River deep mountain high in 1966, performed by Ike and Tina Turner, made the UK top three. After the split, the Righteous Brothers had an American number one hit (it also made the UK top twenty) with You're my soul and inspiration, but soon ran out of hits.



This compilation is rather short but it contains all the essentials.

One of the very few rich soulful voices left

Bill Medley with the baritone DEEP soulful , choir voice and Bobby singing tenor showed proof that when it comes to soul, you either got it, or you don't. Some of there less played songs are fabulous and would make ray charles proud. One is called "B side blues" which is a very deep , bluesy song by the righteous brothers and check out Bill Medley getting it on in the song "my darling clementine" yeah, you go Medley. I prefer bari voices over tenor so I favor Medley more. Saw the righteous brothers in concert 3 years ago, and they still sound great. The songs on here are the "best of" and proved it. Sounds alot better on cd than on those old scratchy 45s :)

They haven't lost the feelin' yet!

Born almost one month apart and in two different states, Bill Medley and the late Bobby Hatfield nevertheless blended their voices so well that they might as well have been brothers. Whether covering material by other songwriters and the once-brilliant (and now tragic figure Phil Spector) or performing their own songs, the Righteous Brothers harmonized so well that for a while in the early 1960s they were among the hottest acts in the pop music world, earning the nickname of "the Blue-Eyed Soul Duo."

While tame in comparison to today's musical scene (ranging from Eminem's angry hip-hop to Britney Spears' descent into Madonna-smooching, quickie-marriage-then-annulment irrelevancy), the Righteous Brothers were very popular, and some of their songs broke into the coveted 1,000,000-single selling stratosphere, starting with their 1963 hit "Little Latin Lupe Lu," with its pulsing backbeat and catchy hooks and alliterative lyrics. Even after the British Invasion of the 1960s and the splintering of pop/rock into a kaleidoscope of styles (disco, punk, heavy metal, rap, and electronic), Medley and Hatfield's songs and bluesy harmonizations remained popular enough that at least two songs on this "Best of..." collection were featured in such popular films as Top Gun and Ghost.

"Unchained Melody" and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' " are the songs this reviewer is most familiar with for the simple reason that Hollywood directors and music supervisors chose them as part of those two films' scores. It's hard to imagine Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore at that pottery wheel without the first song's unforgettable melody, or to shake off memories of Tom Cruise as the cocky F-14 pilot wooing Kelly McGillis to the strains of "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'." Nevertheless, the other eight songs are worth a listen, including the Medley-Hatfield-written "My Babe" and the duo's warm and reflective cover of Hoagy Carmichael's "Georgia On My Mind."

"Unchained Melody: The Best of Righteous Brothers" is a very pleasant album, even though its running time is not much over a half-hour. It is a musical time capsule to a seemingly more innocent musical (and historical) era -- check out that cover photo, featuring Bill and Bobby when they looked like members of a college glee club stopping by for a cup of coffee and a friendly chat. Nevertheless, many a young couple listened to these songs while making out...and making memories that this compilation might trigger off.