William Thomas Medley (born September 19, 1940 in Los Angeles, California) is an American singer and songwriter, best known as one half of The Righteous Brothers singing duo.
Medley met his singing partner Bobby Hatfield while attending California State University, Long Beach. The pair began singing as a duo in 1962. Their first single was "Little Latin Lupe Lu"; their first hit was "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'", produced by Phil Spector in 1964. Follow-up hits included "Ebb Tide", "(You're My) Soul and Inspiration" and "Unchained Melody".
The duo broke up in 1968, but returned with another hit in 1974, "Rock And Roll Heaven", and they continued to appear together until Hatfield's death in November 2003. The Righteous Brothers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March 2003 by one of their biggest fans, Billy Joel.
Medley also had a moderately successful solo career. In 1968, he released "Peace, Brother, Peace" and "Brown Eyed Woman" both of which were Top 40 Pop hits. He also released several solo albums during the 1970's and 1980's. In 1984 and 1985, he charted 5 singles on the country charts with the biggest of these being the Top 20 country hit, "I Still Do". In 1987 his duet with Jennifer Warnes, "(I've Had) The Time of My Life", was included on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack album and the single reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The song also won a 1988 Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and an Academy Award for Best Original Song. Among his other notable songs are "Most of All You", the closing theme to the movie Major League; "Friday Night's A Great Night For Football" from Tony Scott's movie, The Last Boy Scout; and the theme song for the Growing Pains spinoff, Just The Ten of Us.
Bill Medley also recorded a vocal track for the song Lullabye on Jimmy Chamberlin's (of Smashing Pumpkins fame) solo album, Life Begins Again.
Bill Medley appeared in the two-part episode "Finally!" of the hit TV show, Cheers.
Bill Medley appeared as a guest singer on The Late Show with David Letterman, sitting in with Paul Schafer and the CBS Orchestra throughout the night on January 8, 2008.
Medley's daughter, McKenna Medley, is herself a singer and as of November 2006 was performing in Branson, Missouri as opening act for The Comets.
Medley's son, Darrin Medley, also sings, and has been performing with Paul Revere & the Raiders.
Bill Medley currently performs at Dick Clark's American Bandstand Theater in Branson, Missouri.
References
^ http://theoriginalcomets.com/_wsn/page5.html
^ http://http://www.paulrevereraiders.com/new/pages/band.htm
External links
Bill Medley bio on The Righteous Brothers website
Bill Medley serves on the Board of Directors of the OC Pavilion
Interview with Bill Medley
Dick Clark's American Bandstand - Branson Homepage
This article on a singer-songwriter from the United States is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
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Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Medley"
Categories: 1940 births | Living people | American male singers | American rock singer-songwriters | Blue-eyed soul singers | Grammy Award winners | People from Los Angeles, California | People from Santa Ana, California | United States singer-songwriter stubs
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