大象传媒

by Bob Stanley of

When the came over to promote You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling in early 1965, they were rather taken aback by our own rather anaemic cover - and didn't hold back.

"WHAT do we think of Cilla's version? Well, we don't like it...for a start we don't think she sings the song in the way that it's meant to be sung. When we first heard that Cilla Black had recorded it we were pleased and complimented" they told NME's Norman Jopling, "we just don't think that there's enough, well, soul there."

Soul was their raison d'etre. Before Phil Spector produced them, the Righteous Brothers were regulars on US TV show Shindig and a hot club act - uptempo screamers like Little Latin Lupe Lu and Justine were a long way from the funeral pace of Lovin' Feeling, though both styles suited Bill Medley's Ray Charles-influenced bearish baritone and Bobby Hatfield's high, flying tenor. They had class, and it's rather shocking that, though they had 21 US Hot Hundred entries, Lovin' Feeling was their only UK Top 10 hit. Medley reckoned that their secret was "to create a mood rather than articulate words. When the lyric is good, then you hear the words."

Bill Medley wasn't afraid of a little competition. As well as handling production duties on their second US number one, (You're My) Soul And Inspiration in 1966, he produced a brace of terrific, highly emotional singles for other acts - and Jerry Ganey's - which were both very much in the Righteous bag and should have been hits.

So why didn't great singles like Goffin and King's catch on over here? Arguably their thunder was stolen by the Walker Brothers, whose lack of American success is equally baffling to the British. Both countries, it seems, only had room for one rich baritone fronting a soulful wall of sound. Lucky for us that in the digital age we can hear both sets of Brothers as often as we like.