Bill Medley discusses his righteous musical path

Fans of the Righteous Brothers can thank Christopher Cross for persuading Bill Medley to be part of the 18th annual Dave Koz & Friends Christmas Tour.

“Why did I need to be convinced? Well, first of all, it’s 23 shows in 26 days!” Medley recalled with a laugh.

“But Chris, who sang on Dave’s tour last year, said: ‘It’s great. You’ll love it.’ After Dave called, I decided to do it. I turned 75 this year, but there’s still so much to learn about music. I know it’s a little late for me to learn anything new, but I am. With Dave, I’ve made a friend for life. And my daughter, McKenna, who is 27, sings with me and helps me with the Righteous Brothers stuff.”

The elder Medley did lead vocals on every Righteous Brothers hit, except Unchained Melody, which was sung by Bobby Hatfield, who died in 2003 and co-founded the blue-eyed soul vocal duo with Medley in 1963. Both were previously in The Paramours, whose recordings included That’s The Way We Love and There She Goes.

Medley chuckled when asked if he could recall the lyrics to either song now.

“How well do I remember the lyrics? Um, well, probably pretty good,” he said, before quipping: “I even, once in a while, mess up the ones I know!”

And what were his goals as a member of The Paramours?

“You know, I’ve thought about this a million times,” he said. “We weren’t really aiming at anything. It sounds odd, but I was a singer and started writing songs, and I didn’t have anything in mind. Maybe it crossed my mind that it would be cool to have a hit record, and a career, but that was so out of reach that I don’t think I thought about it that much. I was just having a good time with the process of writing and doing some recording, and this and that.

“Bobby and I were three years into our career as the Righteous Brothers before we had out first (national) hit (in 1964), and we still didn’t realize we’d do this for a living. We were just having a great time doing it.”

The same year saw the Righteous Brothers hit the road as an opening act for The Beatles. Medley remembers the experience vividly.

“The Beatles’ tour was before we had out first [national] hit, so our hit records at that point were just West Coast hits,” he said. “Opening for The Beatles in San Francisco at the Cow Palace was great. It was terrific fun to do. The tour itself, I must say, wasn’t a whole lot of fun, artistically. It was just more kind of interesting. It was like: ‘Wow!’ This was the first time any of us on that tour had experienced that kind of mania, with kids screaming and yelling all the way through the show. I realized, years later, that I had a front row seat to history.”