Thursday, November 06, 2003

Bill Medley, left, and Bobby Hatfield of The Righteous
Brothers are shown in this undated photo.

KALAMAZOO, Mich.  (AP) - Bobby Hatfield, who with partner
Bill Medley pioneered "blue-eyed soul" as the Righteous
Brothers with hits like Unchained Melody and You've Lost
That Lovin' Feeling, died Wednesday night of undetermined
causes at a hotel, his manager said.  He was 63.

Hatfield's body was discovered in his bed at 7 p.m.  EST, a
half- hour before the duo was to perform at Miller
Auditorium on the Western Michigan University campus,
manager David Cohen said.  "It's a shock, a real shock,"
Cohen said during a telephone interview.  Medley, who teamed
with Hatfield 42 years ago, was "broken up.  He's not even
coherent," Cohen said.

Hatfield's body was taken from the hotel about 10 p.m.
directly to Lansing, where an autopsy was to be performed,
Joe Hakim, an executive with the Radisson Plaza Hotel in
Kalamazoo, told the Kalamazoo Gazette.

Miller Auditorium executive director Bill Biddle told the
audience at 7:05 p.m.  that the 7:30 p.m.  show had been
cancelled because of "a personal emergency of an unspecified
nature."

Hatfield had been sleeping most of the day in his room,
Hakim said.  When he didn't answer a wakeup call about 6
p.m., hotel staff and authorities entered the room and found
Hatfield's body.

The Righteous Brothers were inducted into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame earlier this year.

Their signature 1964 single, You've Lost That Lovin'
Feeling, has been cited by numerous sources as the
most-programmed song in radio history.  Later 1960s hits
included Soul and Inspiration and Unchained Melody.

Robert Lee Hatfield was born Aug.  10, 1940 in Beaver Dam,
Wis.  His family moved to Anaheim, Calif., when he was four.

Hatfield organized singing and instrumental groups in high
school while helping his parents with their dry cleaning
business.

An avid athlete, Hatfield considered a career in
professional baseball, but found his true calling in music
- a love he pursued while attending Long Beach State
University, where he formed a band and performed at bars
and proms.

Hatfield teamed up with Medley in 1962 as part of a
five-piece group called The Paramours.  According to the
Righteous Brothers Web site, a black marine called out
during one of their performances, "That was righteous,
brothers!" They renamed themselves the Righteous Brothers
before the release of their first album in 1963.

After splitting up in 1968, they reunited in 1974 and
returned to the top of the charts with Rock and Roll Heaven.

Unchained Melody was featured in the 1990 movie Ghost, and a
re-recorded version earned Hatfield and Medley a Grammy
nomination.

EOF