FROM OUR ARCHIVES : (158) THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS : TREMENDOUS HARMONIES

Probably no other duo on earth has ever had the sound of the tremendous harmonies of Bobby Hatfield (who went to that Big Jam session in heaven himself in 2003) and Bill Medley (who is still performing!). Their music was not just harmonious, it was romantic - heartbreaking sometimes.

The Righteous Brothers were not brothers at all, but brother acts and a brotherly unity (even a fraternity unity like Elvis and his entourage and closest friends) were popular then. Phil and Don Everly were the prime example but the Smothers Brothers were also out there honing their country music and comedy. (Some people used to think Buddy Knox and I were brothers when we toured, even though we looked nothing like each other.)

Now, if you'll use the search feature of this Google blog you can see that we've posted on the brothers before in the Phil Spector -Wall of Sound blog. Here is more information on the Brothers... and more music to listen to...
The Righteous Brothers own official web site. RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS OFFICIAL

Christine here... This is one of my very favorite heartbreaker songs of all time. "Just Once In My Life..."Seems to me I've felt this way - more than once!

 video replaced February 2013

RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS : HEART SOUL INSPIRATION : 1966 TOP HIT

 Harmonies...BILL MEDLEY OFFICIAL RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS WEB SITE !

BILL MEDLEY (OF THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS) TRIBUTE TO ELVIS

BILL MEDLEY CHRISTMAS WITH MICHAEL GRIMM and TYRIG JOHNSON

Michael Grimm invited Bill Medley of The Righteous Brothers and Tyriq Johnson, who performs with Santa Fe & the Fat City Horn, to share the stage with him at the Flamingo Showroom. They trio sang "Please Come Home for Christmas" Lots of fun and laughter!

Video was originally posted by The Grimmettes, A Michael Grimm Fan Club on Facebook.

THE GRAMMY MUSEUM GIFT STORE : BEACH BOYS - DICK DALE - PHIL SPECTOR - RONETTES - RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS - RITCHIE VALENS

WOW!  Christine here.  You know how I looove the Grammy Museum!  I usually post after a visit there. 

Here are some great CDs and one pressed vinyl album that you can buy at the GRAMMY MUSEUM shop.  We're pretty sure that you can go to the shop to shop without paying to tour the museum if you just want to shop and make a visit another time and there are always greeters at the door so ask!

 
BEACH BOYS PET SOUNDS
Includes A 180 gram VINYL RECORD LIMITED EDITION from the Capitol Records Vault!

THE VERY BEST OF DICK DALE  (Surf Music!)

PHIL SPECTOR - WALL OF SOUND - 1961-1966 includes
DARLENE LOVE
THE RONETTES
THE CRYSTALS
THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS

THE COMPLETE RITCHIE VALENS includes unfinished songs and live at Pacoima High School - 35 songs!

If you're interested in reading past posts here at WES BRYAN - MY LIFE IN MUSIC about any of these artists, please use the Google Search feature to bring them up! 

SHINDIG 1965 GENE PITNEY & GARY LEWIS AND THE PLAYBOYS & SO MANY MORE!

(412) RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS : 1965 : BOBBY HATFIELD and BILL MEDLEY

This performance was from 1965, I believe. We're linking to an interview that's part of the Righteous Brother's official site. Bill is, as you probably know by now, still performing.

(411) BARRY MANN and CYNTHIA WEIL : SOUNTRACK OF OUR LIVES : LINK TO THEIR OFFICIAL SITE

W're linking her to the official site for extraordinary songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, a husband- wife team that started off in New York in the Brill Building.

Their official site really says it all, so just to paraphrase a bit so you'll want to read the whole thing, they started their career "in the 60's at Aldon Music, the legendary music publishing company founded by Don Kirshner and Al Nevins. They were members of a teen writing staff, which included Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield and Carole Bayer Sager. Among their other Brill Building colleagues were the likes of Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich, Jerry Lieber, Mike Stoller and Phil Spector. .... "Barry and Cynthia, together, have amassed an incredible 112 pop, country and R&B awards from Broadcast Music Inc., recognizing highest performance popularity on American radio and television in a particular year and 115 Millionaire awards, signifying radio performances of a million or more plays."

Known for writing YOU'VE LOST THAT LOVIN FEELING, which brought The Righteous Brothers to Fame, and one of the most covered songs in history, as well as so many others you've sung in the shower.

ELVIS PRESLEY COVERS YOU'VE GOT THAT LOVIN FEELING

BILL MEDLEY OF THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS : IN CONCERT

(382) JACK GOOD : SHINDIG BLACKCAT: ROCKABILLY EUROPE

SHIINDIG was the hot Rock and Roll television show that aired for a couple years starting in 1964. Eventually the Beatles and the Rolling Stones performed and at the time we didn't know what we do now, how successful they would be or how enduring.


British JACK GOOD came to the United States to be producer. We thought he did a great job of it.


We're linking here to Black Dog Rockabilly, a site from Europe, that has a great profile of Shindig Producer and Creator Jack Good.


At the end of the article the question is WHAT HAPPENED TO JACK GOOD?
DO YOU KNOW?


"(Jack) superintended the nationally-broadcast pop showcase "Shindig" which, as well as "discoveries" like the Righteous Brothers and Sonny & Cher, represented a media breakthrough for diverse black artists from Howlin' Wolf to The Chambers Brothers...


"Cher tells the story of how and she and Sonny first got started in the US, and how they were not well received because people thought they were weird. She went on to say, "There was a man called Jack Good who was presenting a USA show called Shindig, who loved us. He said "You've got to go to England," so we sold everything, and we were famous there first. Even the older generation would ask for our autographs, and when we got back to America we were huge, and everyone thought we were English."


THIS MONTH WE FOCUS ON SHINDIG!

(322) SOUNDS OF AN ELVIS PRESLEY HOUSE PARTY : ELVIS SINGS UNCHAINED MELODY

THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS are one of my favorites and Elvis Presley's too. At the time the sound of two men harmonizing and singing together was popular. When Buddy Knox and I were on tour together sometimes women fans would ask us if we were brothers (!) Elvis liked to sing his version of this song at his house parties. Can you imagine! So many times all the other music and the dancing and talking stopped and people would trickle into the room and sit quietly to hear him sing.


BOBBY HATFIELD did the lead on this song.

(209) DRUMMER EARL PALMER - A "SECRET" HIT MAKER

Another great musician that I met at the Musician's Union and became friends with was Earl Palmer.
Earl just went into Eternal Life September 18, 2008 - several weeks ago - at the age of 84.

He worked with Elvis. He worked for Motown and Phil Spector. The Righteous Brothers. Frank Sinatra.

I used to go into the Union looking for Earl and get on him about being from Louisiana in the way that only one Southerner can get on another Southerner. Out in LA it seemed like no matter what your race or background, being from the South was like being from the hood.

And he earned it; Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, here's Earl's link there.

ROCKHALL : EARL PALMER BIO
updated March 2014

(81) GOLDSTAR and PHIL SPECTOR'S WALL OF SOUND

Now Sylvester Cross, the owner of American Music publishing, was a cheapskate. But when we were recording demos at Goldstar recording studio we were warned to stop whatever we were doing if we saw Phil Spector lurking around. Cross was convinced that Phil had a reputation for stealing other people's lyrics and licks for good reason. Phil Spector seemed way too talented to me to do so and everyone else was trying to steal his Wall of Sound technique, for which there was a lot of mystery at the time.

(We know that Phil Spector's sensational murder trial has been in the news lately and we aren't going to go there. Suffice to say, we'll leave our blog commentary here right where we are in our story, the late 1950's and very early 1960's.)

Phil was early on associated with producing girl groups like the Crystals, and the Ronettes, African-American girl groups. He married Ronnie of the Ronettes.

Here's a You Tube presentation of the Crystals and the sound of Phil's "Wall of Sound," on the Dick Clark Show. It's fast forwarding a couple years to the mod sixties. I can't help think again about the music business - entertainment - and the ground being broken when it came to integration between Blacks and Whites during these early pre-civil rights years.



(ChristineTrzyna: Does the audience in the Ronettes video reveal segregation or integration? The Go Go Dancers in the white boots key us in to the mod sixties and what is happening here, White girls dancing in the background for a Black girl group. Most interesting to me, the line of Black girls - probably from South Central Los Angeles - doing their thing in a row in the audience. I can't help but think how great it was for them to see some other African American women as stars. And more interesting to me, the girls in the audience are going wild for the girls, just like they did for the boy teen idols we all know. I mean, when do we see boys going wild for boys? Almost never!)

Ronnie almost seems like an early Tina Turner.

Phil produced "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' by The Righteous Brothers. This You Tube video presentation of them singing that song is a great example of the Wall of Sound, sound and what the genius Phil Spector could do.




I knew Phil Spector from New York. In Los Angeles we got together for coffee at Canters, the Jewish deli that's still operating in the Fairfax District today. He was younger than me and typically hyper, but he was also always respectful to me. I'll say this about my time with Phil. He never talked against anyone to me.