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Claudia Turner VanLydegraf
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
704
Registered: 06-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, November 06, 2003 - 01:33 pm: |   |
I don't know how many of you lived and sang and were affected by the songs of the Righteous Brothers, but I certainly was.
I was 18 when I first met Bobby Hatfield and Bill Medley. They were playing an obscure dive in Fresno, Ca one night, a Thursday if I remember correctly. The song that they were most famous for had either just come out or was just about to. They were sitting in a bar, talking sports and music with a couple of guys I used to know and I was walking by the bar on my way to work at the local hangout, a drive-in called Mars Drive-In. I was a carhop. The Hells Angels and all the really "with it" people in town gathered there almost every night for soda and hamburgers and fries. Anyway, I was walking to work and one of my friends poked his head out of the door and called me over to introduce me to the two guys. We talked a bit and my friend, who knew I was an artist of sorts, asked me if I could do a portrait of the two guys, cause someday they might be famous. We talked it over and they agreed to stay in town for one more day and I would meet them the next day and draw some pictures of them for the bar.
The next day I walked back to the bar with my charcoal and some paper. They had decided that they wanted life size pertraits, to frame the mirror in the bar, and they supplied the whiteback paper, actually it was butcher paper, and I proceeded to stand them both the way I wanted them and started drawing. Now Bobby is (was) 6'4" or 5" tall, so I had to have a ladder to do him completely, as I am only 5'4". It took about 3 hours to do both of them, and then I glued the pictures to the wall space that was designated for them and sprayed the protraits with shellac, and they stood on either end of the bar for nearly 25 years. I got to know each one of them sort of, during that time that I was drawing them. We talked a lot.
I have seen several of their shows over the years and they played Reno often, both for Hot August Nights and several of the casinos. They sent tickets to several of the shows, after they found out that I lived here. It is a very sad day for me. They were both really fine young men when I knew them. I don't know what ever happened to the drawings, as the bar was rebuilt some years ago. But I will always remember that whole afternoon, talking to them. And drawing them. Very sad day today. They were scheduled to play here at the Silver Legacy next week.
I just feel like I could cry all day. I loved his voice, it got right down into the depths of my heart and soul. He and Bill were just a month and 9 days apart in age, and both grew up in the same area of southern CA. SAD, SAD DAY!!!
Claudia
(Message edited by cltvcoyote on November 06, 2003) |
Laurel Johnson
Unity Member
Post Number:
2401
Registered: 01-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, November 06, 2003 - 01:55 pm: | |
Yes, those of us who are a certain age can attach many of the happenings in our youth to the sounds of the Righteous Brothers. Ron and I heard it on the news this morning.
What a lovely memory you have of them, though, Claudia. To have known them in their prime, at their brightest and best, was a gift. |
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