How did you first hook up with Phil Spector?

Phil Spector, we used to, first time we met Phil was, we did a show in San Francisco, a huge show in this place called the… the Cow Palace. And the Ronettes were on the show and Crystals and a few of Phil's acts. So he came down, he was conducting the band and we met him there. But I think his people, Jack Nitzche and a lot of his people had been saying, boy you, you should record these Righteous Brothers, or something, that's what we were told. And the next thing we knew that Ray Maxwell whom owned Moonglow Records came to us and said, Phil Spector, ah, wants to record you. And, ah, and he wants the lease, the remainder of your contract from me. And he wanted to know if we would be up for that. And we said, sure. Even though, ah, we, our music wasn't anything like Spector music at that time. And so we went over to a hotel room to, to hear a song that was written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil called "You've Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’". They sang it, Barry Mann and Phil Spector sang it and they both have high little, kind of thin voices. And so they sang it and when they got [sings] you lost that lovin’ feelin’, ... well they sounded like the Everly Brothers to me. I, I said now what a beautiful song for the Everly Brothers but I, it's not a great song for us 'cause were doing "Little Latin Lupe Lu", "Cocoa Joe" just real rock and roll stuff. And, ah, but they started teaching it to us and we lowered the key, lowered the key, lowered the key and finally it became [sings] you never closed - down there. And it kind of became a different record.

What was he going for with you guys?

I can't imagine what, what Phil was thinking about when he said, yeah, I want to do the Righteous Brothers. I don't, because it had been, at least 90 percent of the stuff that he was doing at that time, maybe 100 percent was all female. It was all real catchy, cute kind of stuff and, ah, so I don't know. And the truth is I don't even know what made us think that, yeah, that would be a good idea to go with Phil, you know. I, I do think that maybe, I was told, Barry Mann I think told me once that when they wrote "Lovin’ Feelin’" they had a, a Four Tops song in mind. And, ah, so I don't know. I, I really don't know because, yeah, we were doing nothing but really kind of garage rock and roll. And he must have heard something in his head, you know 'cause "Lovin’ Feelin’" certainly was a different record.

For him a big departure.

Big, big departure for him and for us and for the industry I think. And I think maybe that's why it was such a big hit. It just, it was just such a different rec., kind of slower than it seemed like it should be, lower, this low voice it sounded like maybe it was on the wrong speed. It was longer than it was, should have been. But boy it sure was a big record.

What did you think when they first played the tracks of "Lovin’ Feelin’"? What did it sound like to you?

Well I, I was involved, I, Phil let me come into the studio. He wouldn't let anybody come into the studio while he was recording the tracks. He would let all the other producers and other artists and everybody 'cause he was just, he was the guy, you know. And everybody wanted to see how he did it and what he was doing. So he would let all those people come in while we were putting our voices on but I got the opportunity to sit there and watch him work on the tracks. And, so I pretty much was used to the track by the time it was finished 'cause I started, you know, from the beginning, ah… I just thought it was amazing what he, what he was doing. And I loved what he was doing. And it, but if I, if I wouldn't have been involved, if I had just come in and the track would have been finished and he said, now sing. I would have said, man, this track is, maybe weird, you know, and odd to us. But, but because I was there from, you know, the very beginning it wasn't odd to me.

What did you think of Phil as a producer? What did you think of his techniques and the way he produced a record?

I think Phil Spector was, is a genius. I think he is today and I thought he was then, because, yeah, I had, I had produced the early Righteous Brothers, not that I was a producer, I was just, you know, the guy there that, that knew how to put it together or had an opinion how to put it together. And Phil, he, he would just stay, stay there for hours because it was like, I think "Lovin’ Feelin’" was two or three track, I'll say it's four track but he had like eighteen people, eighteen people just playing the rhythm; pianos and guitars and stuff, all in this small room in Gold Star. And he would stay there for hours and hour, like eight hours and say, no, play this right there. And it was very simple boring kind of stuff. And I can remember when we were doing a record called "Just Once in my Life" that followed "Lovin’ Feelin’". He had worked on the track for about three hours and I said, Phil, I said, it sound phenomenal. He said, you think that's good enough? I said, absolutely. So he recorded it at that point. And then he went on to keep going to, further away. And by the time he was finished it was apples and oranges, what I would have taken wasn't nearly, nearly as good and as precise as what Phil came up with. He was, he was a genius, he just heard something in his head and didn't stop until he had it.

How about with the vocals?

Yeah, we, yeah he made us sing a lot more than we were accustomed because like I said earlier we, we would go in and record songs that we already knew. We would do them real quick. I would make the tracks. Bobby and I would come in, buy two six-packs of beer and go up to the mike and literally start singing; Bobbie would do something that would knock me out and I'd say, oh, wait a minute, let me do that with you and, and vice versa and that's how we came up with. And, but with Phil it was real, real precise and, and like I say when we were putting the vocals on that, that was show time for Phil. He would have all the other huge producers in there watching him and the Rolling Stones would be in, in the booth watching what he was doing and we would be doing our vocals. So sometimes that was a little disturbing to us because he would be, we would be looking in the booth and they would all be laughing 'cause he would be cracking jokes. And we're standing out there for like eight hours. And finally we just, we had to say, you know, we, we're not a sideshow. We, you know, we, we want to do the best vocal that we can. We don't mind singing it a hundred times because we can hear that it's getting better but, but you know the side show part, we weren't real thrilled about, you know.

Do you think the dynamic range of "Lovin’ Feelin’" made the song so successful?

Well you mean the, the range of the low to the high, that sort of range? Yeah, it, it was a pretty simple process. There, there's one note in "Lovin’ Feelin’" that goes real high [sings] you lost that lovin’ feelin’, real high note. Well to get to that note you got to start down, you know, 'cause we first started learning that higher, you know, [sings] you never close your eyes. Then I'd get to that note and I couldn't, we couldn't hit that high note so we'd lower it, a little lower, a little lower, a little, down to [sings] you never close your eyes. And in the song it had a huge range to it anyway, that's how Barry and Cynthia write and but because it got so low and so kind of adult sounding and dramatic and it was a beautiful love song and I just think maybe it was, maybe it was one of the first real love anthems for a huge audience, you know, a huge, just huge audience that was ready to come up and fall in love, you know. And, and when we do it in a show today, you can just see people, they just react amazingly to it. They just, you can see them just whissht, right back to 15, 16 years-old.

It's more adult sounding than "Be My Baby".

Oh yeah, yeah, because you would have thought [sings] you never close your eyes any more. That would have been a Phil Spector, you know, but it was real, real dramatic and real pretty and, you know, it was just a phenol… first off, it's a great song. It's one of the great songs, I, I still love to sing it. And Spector, I mean Phil did a phenomenal production job on it, you know. And we did, we did a good vocal. So it was like putting all that together, it just made a really great record.

I'm talking about when you turned white. Your sound was on pop and R and B charts. What do you attribute that to?

What do I con… contribute, being on the R and B charts and the pop charts Well I …

Start again.

Ah, what, what do I contribute being on the R…

It's unusual for a white act to be on both charts at that time. Obvious question but why do you think your sound ___ on both charts?

Well that's a real good ques., I don't know how we ended up on rhythm and blues charts and, and, and the pop charts but other than sp., in the sixties the Righteous Brothers sounded very, very black, you know. And we weren't trying to do it as a gimmick because, like I said earlier, I used to listen to those records and that, that was my schooling. I mean Ray Charles taught me how to sing. He sat me down in my room and taught me how to sing. And, so when somebody said get up on the stage and sing, that's how I sang, you know, Little Richard started coming out and Ray Charles. And over the years you, you find yourself, you know, in the studio but, so we sounded, you know, pretty, pretty rhythm and blues. And we recorded R and B and I think that's the thing that we're, ah, we're very, very proud of the fact that, that, ah, the black audience accepted us and took us in. I mean that's, that's the thing that I'm the most proud of because they didn't have to, you know, but I, but I, I think they felt that, that we were real honest about it and not trying to rip anybody off and, ah, but they certainly could have said, hey, listen, you know, we have a lot of great black artists out there that, that need to be on the charts instead of these two white guys but they were, they were wonderful to us and, ah, so I think that's why we ended up on the R and B charts.

You were 24, 25 when "Lovin’ Feelin’" and the next single came out? Was the success hard to handle?

Well being 24 years old and recording "Lovin’ ... Lovin’ Feelin’" and having that hit was amazing because at the same time we recorded "Lovin’ Feelin’" we were also doing Shindig so we were becoming nationally known at the same time. Then we recorded "Lovin’ Feelin’" and with both of those things we just went from, from there to there overnight. And I mean we thought it was weird enough having hits, you know, in, in California with "Lupe Lu" and, and those, those, that was amazing enough but then to be known in Chicago and New York and all these places without ever being there, was like a freak-out. And when you're 24 years-old and there's a lot of money coming, ah, girls approaching you that you wouldn't have thought about approaching, you know, before hit records, you know. I mean we, we get guys coming up to us all the time and say, boy, I first got lucky to your music and it was great and I said on stage before, I said, we didn't make music for guys to get lucky to, we made music so we could get lucky. It had nothing to do with them. Ah, so yeah, you know, when there's a lot of, that's a real head-trip when there's a lot of money coming in and then it's your world, you know. Like I've always said about Elvis when he passed away I think he was like mentally 19 years-old because your growth kind of stops when you become successful and it's your rules now. So, ah, yeah it, it was a real mind blower.

Did you like working with Phil Spector? Was he as eccentric as we hear?

Well I think Phil was, was out there. I think he was, I think in, in the early sixties when we worked with Phil I think he was trying to be, you know, have this aura about him or something that he was, you know, like maybe that… the Howard Hughes of rock and roll or, you know, ah, that he was weird. I think he was trying to get that image and… but we didn't have any trouble with Phil at all and we didn't find him weird. He became a good friend of ours and, ah, and all the above. So it, it just wasn't, it wasn't, he wasn't weird and it wasn't weird. He was making almost records that were considered weird because it was this Wall of Sound and it was so different. And he was a little, a little different, he was a little odd. He was a little to the left or a little to the right but he was not a problem for us and we liked, you know, Phil a lot. I don't know how Phil feels about us now because of the split and, and all of that. But, ah, we, we would have stayed with Phil, we wanted to stay with Phil for the rest of our recording career but Moonglow and, and, and Phil got into some sort of dispute that you can record, you can't record. So it wasn't our idea to leave. Our, our people came in and said, you have to leave, we have to go make records. 'cause in those days you stop recording for six months and you probably were gone. But we certainly did not want to leave Phil.

Do you wish you'd stayed?

Oh absolutely. I mean I think we did all right by leaving but we certainly would have rather stayed. I mean he, he was making phenomenal records. The Righteous Brothers probably through the sixties and maybe seventies and all of that, all, all depending on the Righteous Brothers held up and how Phil held up and, and all the above, probably would have been a lot, lot bigger because we didn't necessarily have that many hit records. We just had the right kind of hit records, we didn't have a lot of them.

Another big record "Unchained Melody" came out on the B side. Tell us the story behind that.

Well Phil, Phil went into, ah, Carole King and Gerry Goffin who wrote this song, "Hung on You", great song, beautiful song. We still do it in the show, it's one of our favorites. And, ah, ah, see Phil would produce the singles and I would produce the albums 'cause he, it, it would have taken all year long to, ah, do an album. And in those days you'd do like two or three albums a year. So I went in and produced "Unchained Melody" even though I think Phil takes credit for producing "Unchained Melody". I went in and, ah, produced "Unchained Melody". He, he took "Unchained Melody" put it on the B side of "Hung on You" and, and released "Hung on You" and for some reason they started playing "Unchained Melody" and it became a huge hit and which was pretty odd because on, on the album, "Unchained Melody" was Bobby Hatfield's single. He would always do a single and I would do a single. So it was Bobby, ah, basically singing by himself. I produced it and Bobby sang it. Ah, so I think "Hung on You" went to maybe the 30s or 40s or something but "Unchained Melody" became a huge hit and then recently was in the movie "Ghost" which kicked, kicked it up all over again but, ah, "Unchained Melody" was one of our favorite songs. I think Bobby and I flipped a coin to see who would sing it because we were both real, real big fans of Roy Hamilton and Roy Hamilton had done a, a version of "Unchained Melody". So Bobby did it and, yeah, it, it just took off. And I don't that was, really pleased Phil, you know, that, that, ah, that song took off and that the "Hung on You" didn't but it worked out fine.