Friday Night Cat Fight Podcast
“Unchained Melody”
The Friday Night Cat Fight takes on one of the most popular, most covered and best selling songs of all-time with “Unchained Melody.” Originally, it was written for the 1955 motion picture, “Unchained,” but after Les Baxter released an instrumental version of the tune on Capitol and it hit #1, it became one of the biggest songs of 1955, with versions by Al Hibbler and Roy Hamilton topping the R&B charts and charting top 10 on the pop lists. We’ll also feature some very unique and heartfelt renditions of “Unchained Melody” by Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps (1957), New York’s Vito & The Salutations (1963) and the mega-selling 1965 Righteous Brothers classic.
So listen and then vote for your favorite version of “Unchained Melody.” With over 500 covers of this tune, I couldn’t feature them all, but I think all six that are featured here are worth your time.
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This blog is dedicated to the preservation of the world's greatest music: 1940s-70s Rhythm & Blues and Rock n' Roll. When I'm not collecting records, I'm listening to them.
Back in the 70s (was it the 70s? Maybe 80s. Time grows fuzzy) I was at one of the 1st of Richard Nader’s “DooWop at the Garden” revivals. Fantastic show with Bobby Lester’s Moonglows (sans Bobby, who had passed a few months earlier), The Harptones, The Channels and much more, with Billy Vera’s band doing the accompaniment. But one of the highlights of the evening was when Nader introduced Al Hibbler in the audience, and Al got on stage and did an impromptu performance of Unchained Melody.
Still, it’s tough to vote against Bobby, and I have an affinity to the Salutations version, as the street corner group I sang bass with tried pretty hard to cover it.