The Righteous Brothers

One of the great blue-eyed soul duos, the Righteous Brothers made a string of landmark records with producer Phil Spector in the'60s. The duo's unique sound came from the pairing of two very different voices, Bill Medley's booming baritone and Bobby Hatfield's emotive tenor.

Both southern California natives, the pair met in 1962 when both were lead singers of different groups. They initially joined forces in a new version of Medley's group, the Paramours, and then went off as a duo; the name Righteous Brothers was a compliment they'd gotten from black servicemen at a local Marine base. They signed with the Moonglow label and released a string of mostly-flopped singles. However their minor hit "Little Latin Lupe Lu" (written by Medley about a former girlfriend) became an oft-covered garage-rock standard, famously borrowed decades later by the Clash on "Should I Stay or Should I Go."

Though still not stars they got to open some dates on the Beatles' first U.S. tour and then became regulars on the teen-friendly TV show Shindig!. The breakthrough came at the end of 1964 when Spector signed them to his Philles label, and commissioned the team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil to write them a hit. This they delivered with "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'," a grand and dramatic record that spotlights both singers and went Number One despite its then-unusual length (Spector put a 3:05 timing on the single so it wouldn't lose airplay; it was actually 40 seconds longer). According to Billboard it was the fifth best-selling song of 1965, beating anything the Beatles did that year.

They cut three more hits with Spector, two of them being rearrangements of pre-rock hits ("Ebb Tide" and "Unchained Melody," both sung by Hatfield alone), then had a falling out with him in early 1966. The first post-Spector single was "(You're My) Soul and Inspiration," another Mann/Weil song that was a close cousin to "Lovin' Feelin'," it too went Number One. This however was the last hit for a long while and the pair broke up in 1969; Hatfield then made one Righteous Brothers album with a different partner.

The original pair returned in 1974 for "Rock & Roll Heaven," which namechecked a laundry list of dead rock stars. Though not on the level of their classic singles, it returned them to the Top Ten. Medley had his own Number One in 1987 when he and Jennifer Warnes recorded "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" for the movie "Dirty Dancing." The Brothers had another revival in 1990 when "Unchained Melody" was featured in a key moment in the movie "Ghost"; at one point that year, the reissued original single and a latter-day re-recording were in the Top 20 at the same time.

The pair continued touring until Hatfield died of a cocaine overdose after a Kalamazoo, MI show in November 2003. The Righteous Brothers name was then put to rest until 2016, when Bill Medley recruited new partner Bucky Heard and hit the road once again.