Bill Medley

“There's this Bruno Mars guy. I met him in Hawaii when was doing Elvis imitations at the age of about five or six years old. There's a lot of old school in him. He's got a depth that I just love.”

“I know there are a lot of tough stories out there about Sinatra, but he was so sweet to Bobby and me. He even had us replace him one night in the main room. He didn't get Sammy or Dean; he said, 'I want the kids to do it.' Man, what an honor.”

“There was nothing about Bobby I didn't like... I guess I never understood why he took a left-hand turn when real success came. We got along better from 1990 until his death in 2003. I had accepted him for who he was.”

“First off, you can't replace Bobby Hatfield. I was just blessed to be able to sing with maybe the greatest singer in the world as a first tenor.”

“That was the toughest thing I ever had to do: tell my son that his mum was gone. I was a bachelor living on the beach, but I had to pull it together very quick for my boy.”

“I just can't stand being in airports anymore. I just can't stand it.”

“It sounds odd, but I was a singer and started writing songs, and I didn't have anything in mind. Maybe it crossed my mind that it would be cool to have a hit record and a career, but that was so out of reach that I don't think I thought about it that much.”

“The Old Vegas is gone. It's not that it's necessarily better or worse; it's just totally different.”

“I don't know what I would do if it wasn't music, 'cause I'm really a one trick pony.”

“When you have the biggest record in the country, everybody wants you; everybody needs you, and they need you now.”

“We were so busy that right before we recorded the follow-up single to 'Lovin' Feelin' I had a nervous breakdown. I just folded. I had to stay in bed for a couple of months and rest.”

“When 'You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling' hit, we were doing a show called 'Shindig!' and the Righteous Brothers suddenly became big business.”

“Man, we were so opposite. One guy sang high, the other low. One guy tall, one short. We were like a quartet without the two guys in the middle. If you were putting two guys together to make hit records, you wouldn't have picked Bobby and me.”

“Every time I go on stage, it's like a first date. I put on my best clothes, shave, and get as handsome as I can. Then I say the cutest things I know to say, and I become the very best Bill Medley I can be because I want to win my date over. My audience is the date that I want to impress every time.”

“George Klein says that Elvis had five real friends outside of his circle, and I was blessed to be one of them. I spent a lot of time with Elvis in Vegas and at Graceland.”

“Elvis was a great guy. We'd just horse around together or go to see a movie. He drove me around Graceland in a golf cart. He was a fan of our music and was curious about how I sounded so black.”

“I think 'Lovin' Feelin' was probably one of the most - probably in '64 and '65, one of the more dramatic love songs for these kids to grab hold of. I mean, they had been listening to, you know, kind of cute songs, and 'Lovin' Feelin' was just a strong, powerful song.”

“Little Richard was it for me, man. Later, it was Ray Charles and Bobby 'Blue' Bland, B.B. King.”

“The Righteous Brothers started out in Orange County, California. It was about the whitest place in the country, but the black marines from the nearby base heard there were two guys singing rhythm and blues, so they came down to hear us. At the end of our songs they'd yell out, 'That's righteous, brother!' and that's how we got our name.”

“All my memories of being in Las Vegas with Bobby were great. Frank Sinatra brought us to the Sands Hotel in 1965. When we worked that lounge, it was a great lounge. I think it was bigger than the showroom. We were two 25-year-old dumb kids from Orange County in Las Vegas with The Rat Pack.”