He’s taught that lovin’ feelin’

Alex Coolman

When Bill Medley was first making a name for himself as one of The

Righteous Brothers, he proved that music had a power to surprise people,

shaking up their expectations about what was normal and acceptable. In

his case, that meant singing rhythm and blues tunes in a style that, at

first, seemed too “black” for white radio.

More than three decades later, it’s Medley’s daughter who is a budding

player, and Medley’s learning all over again about the power of music to

take people in unexpected directions.

The 59-year-old Newport Beach crooner and his offspring, 34-year-old

Darrin and 12-year-old daughter McKenna, will perform Wednesday at the

Balboa Pavilion in a benefit for the Ensign Fund of the Newport Harbor

Educational Foundation.

As concert-goers will get a chance to see, the younger Medleys share

their father’s enthusiasm for performing, but their act is no more

predictable than Bill’s was back in the ‘60s.

McKenna, a seventh-grader at Ensign Intermediate School, has a beautiful

voice, Bill says, but she’s more interested in “alternative” rock than

the kind of soulful crooning Bill is known for. To her ears, the best

sounds today come from Limp Bizkit, the hammering rock/rap crossover

darlings of alternative radio, rather than the composers like Barry Mann

and Carole King who were behind The Righteous Brothers’ hits.

Bill says he has urged McKenna to take up an instrument to complement her

vocal talent.

“She’s starting to play the drums, and it’s really not what I had in

mind,” he joked.

The drumming enthusiasm is one shared by Darrin, who played all through

his youth and still occasionally lays down a few beats, though he has

pursued a career as a businessman rather than as a musician.

Bill said the threesome will perform a variety of material at Wednesday’s

show, including some tunes from Bonnie Raitt, Bryan Adams and The Everly

Brothers. Bill will do a few numbers from his solo career, and McKenna

will sit in for one song with the local teenage rock band Disturbing The

Peace.

Funds from the program will be used to enhance educational opportunities

for Ensign’s students. A small percentage of the proceeds also will

benefit the school’s music department.

Supporting Ensign is a priority for Bill not only because his daughter

attends the school, but also because he got his musical start in similar

organizations.

“When I was young, I was in all the junior high choirs,” he said.

The smooth tone Bill developed as a choir singer took a turn toward the

soulful side when he began to collaborate with Bobby Hatfield in 1961.

The Righteous Brothers’ initial success, Bill said, had a lot to do with

the fact that radio disc jockeys assumed, based on the vocal quality of

their music, they were black artists.

When The Righteous Brothers would go to meet with radio station

officials, they were frequently greeted with wide eyes and sudden

coolness from people who used to be fans: the disc jockeys for black

stations didn’t want to play music by a pair of white guys, and the disc

jockeys for white stations hadn’t got used to the gritty Righteous

Brothers sound.

“We were like Limp Bizkit in our day,” Bill said, only half joking. “We

kind of opened up a lot of doors for other white acts and for white

stations to play other black acts.”

In the wake of The Righteous Brothers’ twin mega-hits “You’ve Lost That

Lovin Feelin” and “Unchained Melody,” the racial borders for R&B; artists

became considerably more flexible, he said.

These days, Bill and Hatfield, also a Newport Beach resident, take their

act on the road as Righteous Brothers for a few months out of the year,

and each has his own solo career.

Bill, who lives on the Balboa Peninsula with his wife and daughter, says

he spends a lot of his nonperforming time “playing a little golf with the

guys at the Peninsula Point Racquet Club” and trying to take it easy.

“I’m on the road so much that when I do get home, my first priority is to

spend time with my family,” he said.

The singer finds it difficult to feel completely at ease when he’s not

traveling, simply because he’s continually looking forward to the next

gig.

“When you come home off the road, you find yourself trying to rest up to

go back out,” Bill said. “Half the time is trying to get your sanity

back, and half the time is enjoying yourself.”

Newport Beach is therapeutic for the performer for its low key vibe,

which Bill says is an antidote to the hype of the music business.

“[On tour] you have to be a like a politician. You have to be pleasant,”

he said. But around Newport “you can let your guard down. ... Around

here, I’m just Bill. I’m not even Bill the singer. And it’s terrific.”

But if Bill is aware of the music industry’s foibles, that’s not to say

that he’s lost his affection for it. He speaks with confidence of

McKenna’s prospects as a developing performer.

“It’s kind of McKenna’s world,” he said. “And if anybody had a future in

the industry it would probably be McKenna.”

* WHO: Righteous Brother Bill Medley with McKenna and Darrin Medley

* WHAT: Benefit concert for the Ensign fund

* WHERE: Balboa Pavilion, 400 Main St., Balboa

* WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday

* HOW MUCH: General seating $50, VIP seating $100

* PHONE: (949) 675-1187