The Righteous Brothers Bring Their Hit Songs To Fantasy Springs Resort Casino on Friday, Feb. 13
When Bill Medley first discovered his voice, it wasn’t something the music industry was asking for.
“I didn’t really know,” Bill Medley said during a recent phone interview. “Back in ’55, when I was about 15, I didn’t have that bass-baritone. I had a really high voice. I was short, about 5’3”, and I was a first tenor.”
Like many teenagers, Medley learned by singing along to the records he loved, including Little Richard, The Platters, and Ray Charles.
“I knew I could sing because I’d sing along, and my friends would say, ‘You sound just like them,’” he said.
Then everything changed, almost overnight.
“Between 16 and 17, I grew seven inches in one year,” he recalls. “My voice dropped to a baritone bass. That’s when I knew I had that voice.”
What he didn’t know was what to do with it.
“At the time, it really wasn’t commercial,” Medley said. “Even now, guys with higher voices tend to have more success. Back then, a bass-baritone white kid singing rhythm and blues, it was odd.”
That oddness would eventually become his signature sound.
Before forming The Righteous Brothers, Medley was already recording in his late teens and early 20s, often surprising producers. “They’d say, ‘My God, this little white kid from Orange County sounds like Ray Charles or Little Richard.’”
It wasn’t an easy sell, but some producers recognized what they were hearing.
“God bless them, they saw the future,” Medley said.
Believing success was possible still felt risky.
“Trying to think you’re going to have success in this business is a very scary thing to do,” he said. “If you want to be a lawyer or a doctor, you go to school, and there’s a path. There’s no college where they hand you a gold record at the end.”
One of the few people who never doubted him was his grandfather, a comedian in the entertainment industry who was incredibly supportive of the young singer.
When Medley teamed up with Bobby Hatfield in the early 1960s, The Righteous Brothers didn’t just find success, they helped shift the emotional tone of pop music.
Their breakthrough hit, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” changed the landscape.
The impact crossed cultural lines, and Medley said that getting applause and kudos from everyone meant the world to him and Hatfield.
Songs like “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” and “Unchained Melody” still act as emotional time machines.
“We were 25 years old,” Medley said. “Suddenly, we were getting paid more money than we were worth. Girls we would never approach were approaching us.”
And yet, something stayed the same.
“Bobby and I still felt like insecure, scared little boys,” he said. “Even on television. Even with hit records.”
That emotional honesty continues to shape Medley’s performances, sometimes in unexpected ways.
“I can get caught emotionally on stage,” he said. “One song in particular, “See That Girl,” can pull him back decades.
“My first wife, Karen, we weren’t married at the time, she was murdered,” he said. “That song takes me back to the moment I met her. If I don’t watch myself, I can take myself too far back.”
He said sometimes, while he is performing, he has to hold back tears.
When Medley takes the stage at the Special Events Center at Fantasy Springs Resort Casino on Friday, Feb. 13 at 8 p.m., fans can expect the songs they came to hear.
Performing alongside longtime musical partner Bucky Heard, Medley promises a show that balances joy with reverence.
“We treat the songs very seriously,” he said, “But we have fun. We’ve got a great band, and some of these songs have big orchestrations, so you need a band that can really pull that off.”
More than six decades after discovering his voice, Bill Medley is still doing what he’s always done best, singing straight from the place where emotion lives, and inviting audiences to feel it right along with him and Heard.
If You Go
The Righteous Brothers
Friday, Feb. 13 at 8 p.m.
Fantasy Springs Resort Casino
Tickets: FantasySpringsResort.com
