The Righteous Brothers had a huge hit with “(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration,” which is today’s classic song of the day. Released as a single in February of 1966, this blue-eyed-soul tune peaked at #1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Cash Box Top 100. Billboard ranked it as the number-three single for all of 1966.
“(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration” was written by the legendary team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, intended as a follow-up to their “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” which was a huge number-one hit for the Righteous Brothers. Unfortunately, Phil Spector, who was producing the Brothers at that time, thought the new song sounded too much like the old song and passed on it.
(For what it’s worth, Cynthia Weil kind of thought the same, saying “It will always be “Lovin’ Feelin” sideways to me.”)
When Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield (AKA the Righteous Brothers) left Spector’s Philles Records (moving to Verve Records) in late 1965, Medley revisited “(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration.” It wasn’t quite finished yet, so he asked Mann and Weil to finish it up and they took it into the studio. Bill Baker did the arrangement and Medley produced it in Spector’s Wall of Sound style. To get the right sound, he called in a mix of Wrecking Crew veterans and newer studio cats. The vets included Don Randi and Michel Rubini on keyboards and Jimmy Bond on bass; the newer cats included Art Munson on guitar, Michael Patterson on piano, and Drew Johnson on drums.
The result was a track that sounded not a little unlike “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” which wasn’t a bad thing. It stayed at the top of the charts for three consecutive weeks and ended up being the Righteous Brothers’ last number-one hit.
Which leads us to today’s daily bonus video of the day, the Righteous Brothers singing “(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration” live on the February 21, 1966, episode of Hullabaloo. Yes, that’s Nancy Sinatra doing the introduction.
