Bill Medley and Bucky Heard set out last January on what was billed as The Righteous Brothers farewell tour.
But farewell doesn’t mean forever.
On Valentine’s Day, Friday, Feb. 14, two days before Medley and Heard bring their “Righteous Brothers: Lovin’ Feelin’ Farewell Tour” to Fox Tucson Theatre on Sunday, Feb. 16, Medley will release his new solo album, “Straight From The Heart.”
Early reviews have been overwhelmingly positive, which has got the 84-year-old velvety-voiced bass-baritone thinking that he might have jumped the gun on this whole farewell thing.
“I would love to go out and perform this album,” he said during a phone interview last month. “I’m real proud of this album. I’d be more than happy to go out there and and do that for a couple of years.”
“Straight From The Heart,” a collection of a dozen country ballads featuring guest appearances by a host of big names from Vince Gill and Michael McDonald to Keb’ Mo’ and Shawn Colvin, is Medley’s first solo release in a decade and his first-ever country record.
The album includes his renditions of Buck Owens’ “Crying Time,” Garth Brooks’ “The Dance,” George Jones’ “He Stopped Loving Her Today” and Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.”
“I’m not a country singer, I just love doing those songs,” he said. “I really just wanted to do these songs that I just love, and I love old country songs. I think they’re for a blues singer. They’re just the best, best blues you can sing.”
Medley also loves singing the songs he did with his original Righteous Brothers partner Bobby Hatfield. The pair were together a year when they had their first No. 1 hit, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” in 1964.
“We loved, loved, loved the record, but it was way too long, and my voice, I sounded like I was on the wrong speed,” Medley said. “But everything that was wrong with it, I think, kind of made it more important.”
The Righteous Brothers will take the stage at the Fox on Sunday, Feb. 16.
The song became the pair’s career song that was resurrected more than 20 years later in the 1986 Tom Cruise megahit film “Top Gun.”
Hollywood has helped keep Medley and The Righteous Brothers in the conversation. The year after “Top Gun,” Medley’s duet with Jennifer Warren, “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life,” anchored the Patrick Swayze-Jennifer Grey blockbuster film “Dirty Dancing”; in 1990, Hollywood used The Righteous Brothers hit “Unchained Melody” as the soundtrack for the iconic pottery wheel love scene between Swayze and Demi Moore in “Ghost.”
“It was shocking beyond belief. I mean, to have ‘Lovin’ Feeling’ in ‘Top Gun’ one year, then the next year they do ‘Dirty Dancing’ and it becomes a monster, and then the next year they do ‘Ghost’ with ‘Unchained Melody’ and we we’re just hotter than we have ever been,” Medley recalled, his voice giddy with excitement. “And the reason I think it was so impactful, I mean, it wasn’t like these were just songs that were in the movie. These were songs that were key elements to the movies, and really played into the movies.”
The Righteous Brothers had a string of hit singles going back to 1963, the year they started their partnership, which lasted until Medley went solo in 1968. They reunited in 1974 but hit pause again two years later when Medley’s first wife, Karen Klaas, was killed and Medley “retired” for six years to raise his 10-year-old son. He and Hatfield reunited in the 1980s and performed together off and on until Hatfield’s 2003 death at the age of 63.
Sunday’s concert will include a few of Medley’s solo hits sprinkled into those Righteous Brothers songs that he never tires of singing. He loves seeing the audience’s reaction, including when his daughter, McKenna Medley, joins him for “Time of My Life.”
“Every time I go on stage, I feel like I’m 25 years old, and it’s because of the audience,” he said. “I think the audience feels like they’re 25, too. It’s a real marriage between The Righteous Brothers and the audience.”
Sunday’s concert begins at 7 p.m. at the Fox, 17 W. Congress St. Tickets are $20 to $99.50 through foxtucson.com.
