They Thought This Righteous Brothers Song Was Too Slow — It Became One of the Most Played Songs in History
In 1964, The Righteous Brothers were about to record a song that did not sound like an obvious pop hit.
It was slow.
It was dramatic.
And at nearly four minutes long, it was considered dangerously lengthy for radio.
The song was “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’.”
Producer Phil Spector had teamed with songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil to create something specifically for Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield.
But when Mann first heard the finished recording over the telephone, he reportedly thought something was wrong.
It sounded so slow that he believed the record was being played at the wrong speed.
That was exactly the sound Spector wanted.
Bill Medley’s deep baritone opened the song almost like a lonely conversation. Bobby Hatfield’s higher voice entered later, and gradually the recording grew into one of the greatest examples of Spector’s famous “Wall of Sound.”
There was another problem.
The finished track ran about 3 minutes and 45 seconds.
In the mid-1960s, many radio programmers preferred records closer to three minutes. Spector worried DJs might refuse to play it simply because it looked too long.
So he used a trick.
The record label listed the running time as approximately 3:05.
The song was actually around 40 seconds longer.
By the time a DJ realized it, the record was already playing.
The trick might have helped get the song onto the air, but what happened afterward had nothing to do with deception.
Listeners loved it.
“You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1965 and also topped the British chart.
More importantly, it changed the lives of Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield.
The Righteous Brothers were suddenly international stars.
Decades later, the song achieved something even more extraordinary.
In 1999, BMI named “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” the most-played song on American radio and television during the 20th century, with more than eight million performances at that time.
The song that once seemed too slow and too long for radio had become one of the most frequently played recordings radio had ever known.
That is one of the great ironies in pop history.
Phil Spector once worried that DJs would reject the record because of its length.
Instead, they kept playing it for decades.
Sometimes the rules of pop music tell you what should become a hit.
And sometimes one extraordinary record proves that the rules never mattered very much at all.
Barbara Mandrell Retired From Music at 18 — One Night at the Grand Ole Opry Changed Her Mind
Long before Barbara Mandrell became one of the biggest stars in country music, she had already decided her music career was over.
She was only 18.
That decision sounds almost impossible in hindsight.
Because Barbara Mandrell had been preparing for the stage practically since childhood.
Born in Houston on Christmas Day in 1948, she learned accordion and how to read music before entering first grade. After her family moved to California, she began studying steel guitar at about ten years old while also learning saxophone at school.
Then someone important noticed her.
Country guitarist Joe Maphis saw the young Mandrell performing at a music trade convention in 1960.
He was impressed enough to bring her into his Las Vegas act.
Barbara was still a child, yet she was already sharing a musical world populated by professional country performers.
Before long, she appeared on the Los Angeles television program Town Hall Party and joined a national package tour headlined by Johnny Cash.
By 14, she was performing with her family band at military bases in the United States and Asia. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
It looked as though music had already chosen her.
Then Barbara walked away.
She had fallen in love with Ken Dudney, the drummer in the Mandrell family band.
Dudney eventually joined the Navy and trained as a pilot.
The couple married in 1967.
Barbara decided that was enough.
At 18, she retired from music.
For someone who had spent much of her childhood performing, it was an extraordinary choice.
But the retirement did not last.
When Dudney was away with the Navy, Barbara visited her family in Tennessee.
One evening, she attended a taping of The Porter Wagoner Show before the Grand Ole Opry.
As Barbara watched the performers, something came back.
She leaned toward her father, Irby Mandrell.
She told him she could do what she was watching onstage.
More importantly, she wanted to do it again.
She asked whether he would manage her.
Her father believed in her.
The decision made that night changed everything. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
Barbara soon signed with Columbia Records.
In 1969, she entered the Billboard country chart with her version of Otis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.”
More hits followed.
By 1972, she had joined the Grand Ole Opry — the same institution connected to the night that helped convince her to return.
Then the career accelerated.
“Sleeping Single in a Double Bed” reached No. 1.
Her version of “If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don’t Want to Be Right)” also topped the country chart.
But Mandrell was becoming more than a recording artist.
She could sing.
She could dance.
She could play multiple instruments.
And onstage, she could move between traditional country, pop, soul, gospel, and show-business spectacle without losing her identity.
By the beginning of the 1980s, Barbara Mandrell was everywhere.
From 1980 to 1982, she starred with her sisters Louise and Irlene on NBC’s Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters, bringing country music into millions of American homes every week.
And the industry recognized what was happening.
The Country Music Association named Mandrell Entertainer of the Year in 1980.
Then she won again in 1981.
She became the first artist in CMA history to win the award in consecutive years. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
That same period produced the song that would become inseparable from her name.
“I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool.”
The song looked back at a time when openly loving country music was not always fashionable.
Then country culture exploded into the American mainstream.
George Jones appeared on the recording, and the song became another No. 1 country hit for Mandrell
The title almost seemed to describe Barbara herself.
She had been playing steel guitar as a child long before television superstardom.
She had toured before she was old enough to drive.
She had quit.
She had started again.
And she had reached the top.
Her life would still bring serious challenges.
In 1984, a devastating automobile accident left Mandrell with multiple injuries and required a long recovery.
Yet she returned again, continuing to record, tour, and act before eventually retiring from performing in 1997. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
In 2009, Barbara Mandrell was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
It was a remarkable ending to a story that could easily have stopped decades earlier.
At 18, Barbara Mandrell thought she was finished with music.
Then she sat in an audience in Nashville and watched other performers doing what she had once done.
Something inside her changed.
She told her father she wanted another chance.
He believed her.
And the young woman who had retired before her career truly began eventually became one of country music’s defining entertainers.
