Bobby Hatfield (left) and Bill Medley
February 6, 1965: "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" hits Number 1 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart. It was written by the husband & wife team of Barry Mann & Cynthia Weill, and sung by a Los Angeles-based duo known as The Righteous Brothers. According to BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc., which insures songwriters get their royalties), it is the most-played single recording in the history of American radio.
William Thomas Medley -- his real name, and a great name for a singer -- was born on September 19, 1940, in the Los Angeles suburb of Santa Ana, California. His parents were both members of a swing band, which got him interested in music, but it was early black rock and roll singers, especially Little Richard, that really inspired him.
Robert Lee Hatfield was born on August 10, 1940, in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. When he was a boy, he moved with his family to another Los Angeles suburb, Anaheim, where he was a 3-sport athlete, including co-captain of the basketball team, at Anaheim High School. The Los Angeles Dodgers were interested in him, but he was already making more money singing than he would have playing minor-league baseball.
At the time, it was not unusual for band membership to be in flux, and some musicians were in more than one band. Barry Rillera played guitar in both Bill Medley's band, The Paramours, and Bobby Hatfield's band, The Variations. He introduced them to each other in 1962, and they clicked. The Variations broke up, and Bobby joined Bill in The Paramours. Their voices provided a great contrast, with Bill singing baritone, and Bobby singing tenor.
The band got its new name during a show in the military city of San Diego, when, at the end of a song, a black Marine shouted, "That was righteous, brothers!" They became the epitome of "blue-eyed soul": White singers who could sound like black singers, and appeal to fans of both races. Phil Spector, the leading record producer on the West Coast, saw them in San Francisco, and signed them on the spot.
Barry Mann was born Barry Imberman on February 9, 1939, in Brooklyn. In 1961, with Larry Kolber, he wrote "I Love How You Love Me," a hit for The Paris Sisters. And he had a hit under his own name, a tribute to rock and roll songwriters: "Who Put the Bomp (in the Bomp, Bomp, Bomp)."
That year, he married Cynthia Weil, born on October 18, 1940 in Manhattan. Together, working in the Brill Building on New York's Times Square -- with fellow songwriting couples Gerry Goffin & Carole King, and Jeff Barry & Ellie Greenwich -- they had several hits, including "Uptown" by The Crystals, which led to their connection with Spector; "On Broadway" by The Drifters, a song whose guitar part was actually played by Spector; and, later, "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" for The Animals, a song The Righteous Brothers, flush with the early success of "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'," actually turned down.
"You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" was recorded at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles on September 26, 1964. Spector, demanding as usual, also got a writing credit. His only contribution was writing the line at the end of the chorus: "'Cause it's gone, gone, gone, whoa whoa whoa whoa." As a producer, he was a genius; as a songwriter and a guitarist, less so; as a human being, considerably less than that.
Harvey Philip Spector had been born on December 26, 1939 in The Bronx, and spent his teenage years in Los Angeles. So all 5 major participants were born within 2 years of each other.
With his "Wrecking Crew" band and orchestra behind it, "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" is regarded as one of Spector's best "Wall of Sound" recordings, and one of the great recordings of the era, in any genre. It should be: Spector made them do 39 takes. At 3 minutes and 45 seconds, the length concerned Spector and his Philles Records partner, Lester Sill, who thought disc jockeys might not play a song if they knew it would be so long. (Many hit records had been split into "Part 1" and "Part 2," on opposite sides of a 45 RPM record.) So initial pressings falsified the length at 3:05 on the label, instead of 3:45.
(This is not the source of Billy Joel's line in "The Entertainer." Rather, his original "Piano Man" single had the 2nd half of the 2nd verse and the 1st half of the 3rd verse cut out, and that brought it from 4:30 down to 3:05.)
Medley sings the 1st 2 verses, and it's only on the bridge that Hatfield shows that he's more than a backup singer. This would be remedied on later hits for the duo: In what were essentially solo songs by Hatfield, they had big hits with covers of 1950s hits "Unchained Melody" in 1965 and "Ebb Tide" in 1966.
Cilla Black recorded "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" for the British market later in the year. Dionne Warwick had a hit with it in 1969. That year, Elvis Presley began singing it in his Las Vegas concerts and national tours. Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway had a hit with a duet of it in 1971. Long John Baldry and Kathi McDonald had a duet of it in 1979, where it was a hit in several British Commonwealth nations. It wasn't a hit in the U.S., but Medley told Baldry -- supposedly, the source for "John" in Elton John's stage name -- that he liked his version better than his own. And in 1980, Daryl Hall & John Oates had a hit with it.
The Righteous Brothers had a few more hits, including another Number 1 hit written by Mann & Weil, "(You're My) Soul and Inspiration," in 1966. In 1974, they had a comeback, hitting Number 3 with Alan O'Day's "Rock and Roll Heaven." In 1987, Medley and Jennifer Warnes hit Number 1 with "(I've Had) The Time of My Life," from the 1960s nostalgia film Dirty Dancing.
In 2003, still touring together, The Righteous Brothers were elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On November 5 of that year, they were supposed to play a show in Kalamazoo, Michigan, but Hatfield didn't show up. Medley and their road manager, Dusty Hanvey, went to his room at the Radisson Hotel. He was found in bed, dead.
The autopsy showed that he had cocaine in his system. Medley was shocked, saying he'd never known Hatfield to use any kind of drugs, nor had he. But the autopsy also showed "there was already a significant amount of blockage in the coronary arteries." In other words, at age 63, Hatfield was "a heart attack waiting to happen."
Phil Spector's misdeeds would finally catch up with him, and he died in prison in 2021. As of February 7, 2022, Bill Medley, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil are still alive. They had a daughter, Jennifer, who grew up to become a psychotherapist, known professionally as Dr. Jenn.
UPDATE: Weil died in 2023. Unlike the husband & wife teams of Gerry Goffin & Carole King, and Jeff Barry & Ellie Greenwich, they stayed together to the end. Barry Rillera, who introduced The Righteous Brothers to each other, died in 2022.
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February 7, 1965 was a Saturday. Comedian Chris Rock was born.
Baseball and football were out of season. There were 4 games in the NBA:
* The New York Knicks beat the Detroit Pistons, 109-106 at the old Madison Square Garden.
* The Baltimore Bullets beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 116-112 at the Baltimore Civic Center (now the CFG Bank Arena). Walt Bellamy had 30 points and 30 rebounds. Jerry West scored 39, and Elgin Baylor 38, in defeat.
* In a game that featured, quite possibly, the 2 best players in basketball history -- and Michael Jordan was about to reach his 2nd birthday -- the Philadelphia 76ers beat the Cincinnati Royals, 127-122 at the Cincinnati Gardens. For the Sixers, Wilt Chamberlain scored 31 points and grabbed 14 rebounds -- by his standards, an ordinary game -- and Hal Greer had 30 points.
For the Royals, the team now known as the Sacramento Kings, Oscar Robertson scored 50 points, and, despite being 6-foot-5, 8 inches shorter than Chamberlain, grabbbed 13 rebounds.
* And the St. Louis Hawks beat the San Francisco Warriors, 108-101 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis.
The NHL's entire "Original Six" were in action:
* The New York Rangers lost to the Boston Bruins, 3-2 at the Boston Garden.
* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-1 at the Montreal Forum.
* And the Chicago Black Hawks beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 6-3 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.
And in English soccer, North London team Arsenal crossed to West London, and lost to Chelsea, 2-1 at Stamford Bridge.
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