SINGAPORE — He may be 73, but age is just a number for singer Bill Medley, who was one-half of the 1960s pop duo The Righteous Brothers.

At an age when most people might be thinking of retirement (if they’re not retired already), Medley isn’t kicking up his heels just yet. Not that he doesn’t deserve to.

As The Righteous Brothers, Medley and Bobby Hatfield scored with hits such as Unchained Melody and You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling. (The latter song has since become the most played song on American radio ever.)

They split up in 1968, but reunited in 1974 and toured regularly after that (with a break between 1976 and 1981), until Hatfield passed away in 2003, just hours before a Righteous Brothers concert.

Medley had also embarked on a solo career during that time, which peaked in 1987, when he recorded (I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life with Jennifer Warnes for the film Dirty Dancing. The song became a No 1 worldwide hit and earned him a Grammy and an Oscar, among other awards.

“Lovin’ Feeling is 50 years old this year,” he said. “We got together in 1962, so this would’ve have been 52 years if Bobby Hatfield was still alive. We had an incredible run and I still love it.”

Earlier this month, he released his latest album Your Heart To Mine, which contains songs by the singers who influenced him back in the 1950s, such as Ray Charles and Sam Cooke. “Doing that album was different from doing other albums, because they were songs that I absolutely loved and waited my whole career to do. That was a labour of love,” he said over the phone.

Medley also published his book, hot on the heels of the album, aptly titled Time Of My Life: A Righteous Brother’s Memoirs. “I was just talking to my son about that, and he said, ‘Did you tell them everything?’ I said I talked about the good, the bad and the ugly,” said Medley.

Next month, on May 10 and 11, Medley, along with iconic ’50s American vocal group The Platters, will be performing at the Sands Theatre at Marina Bay Sands. “It’s my first time over there and I’m really excited about it,” he said, adding that he’ll be singing all the Righteous Brothers hits as well as a few new ones, too.

It may be corny to say he’s really had the time of his life, but for Medley, it’s probably a truism.

Q: The Righteous Brothers biggest hits were Lovin’ Feeling and Unchained Melody. And you must have sung them thousands of times. Do you get bored of singing them over and over?

A: It’s interesting. It’s kind of a sick thing, actually. The minute you walk on stage, you feel like you’re 25 again. The minute you start singing Lovin’ Feeling or Unchained Melody or those songs, the audience just comes alive and they start remembering what they were doing when the song was a hit. Then it’s like doing the song for the first time. But if I had to sing it in the shower every night, I’d probably kill myself! As long as I have an audience, I’m fine.

Q: Those two songs have also become the highest-earning songs ever in American music history.

A: Over here in America, Lovin’ Feeling is the most-played record in the history of American radio, which is really amazing. And ever since Ghost came out and they put Unchained Melody in the movie, it just became bigger than life, too. So we have a couple of monsters on our hands.

Q: Are those songs a bane or a boon? They kind of overshadowed everything that came after.

A: You know, there’s a saying in our business: Be careful what you record, because you might be singing it for the rest of your life. But Lovin’ Feeling is such a great song that was written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, and Phil Spector did a great production of it. And Unchained Melody is such a beautiful song, so they’re not hard to sing. But there are songs that we recorded that we felt, ‘Do we have to do this again’? But not those two.

Q: On talent shows, you can almost expect someone to perform Unchained Melody. Do you cringe when you hear them do so?

A: Everybody seems to take a run at that song on shows like American Idol – at least one person takes a shot with that. I don’t cringe; it’s pretty much an honour when they do it. It’s like when Elvis used to do You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling, people used to say, “Doesn’t it upset you when Elvis does it?” I’d say, “No, it’s an honour. He wouldn’t do it if he didn’t love it.”

Q: Your Heart To Mine is your first album since Damn Near Righteous in 2007 — and that album was your first since 1993!

A: Yeah, it was a long time! I wasn’t really looking to record. But some producers tracked me down and they had three or four songs that were written by this kid out of Nashville. And I just loved the songs because they were really simple and soulful. So I said, “Yeah, if I can do those songs like that, really simply, I’ll do the CD.” It came out then the record company went under almost right away or something, so it didn’t get as much exposure. But it’s one of my favourite albums.

Q: Let’s talk about (I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life, which was a massive hit everywhere.

A: I’d done a lot of movie songs and I think I did about 31 songs for movies and so they’d called me to do this song for Dirty Dancing. And the guy said, “You have to do it.” And I said, “It’s called Dirty Dancing; it sounds like a bad porno movie.” So I asked who’s in it and they said, “Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey.” Now this was before they had any big success, so I said, “Who are they?” So I turned it down. But they sent a demo of the song and I liked the song. But my wife was expecting my daughter during the time they wanted me to record the song, so I said, “I can’t go to New York to record it” because I promised my wife I’d be there at the birth. So she had the baby and I forgot all about the song. I turned it down for three months. And they called me again and told me Jennifer Warnes wants to do it, only if she can do it with you. And I love Jennifer Warnes, I’d love to sing with her. We felt the movie wasn’t going to do anything. But we just wanted to work together, so we went into the studio and did the song. And holy moley, that movie came out and it was the biggest thing in the world. And our record became No 1 all over the world at the same time. It was just gigantic. And now I have my daughter singing that with me. It’s great. That song won everything that it was up for — Academy Award, Grammy Award — that was a good year for me. And even though it was 24 years ago, I’d thought I had one foot out of the business at that time, and then we did that song … it’s just a real blessing to have songs like You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling, Unchained Melody and I’ve Had The Time Of My Life in your catalogue, you know. And Little Latin Lupe Lu was a song I wrote when I was 20 and I’m still doing it. I never thought I’d be doing it on stage at 73, but the audience loves it.

Q: What’s the biggest life lesson you’ve learnt?

A: I’ve been through the mill, you know, the ups and downs, but what I’ve really learnt — and it took me a while — is that you don’t take the highs too seriously, nor the lows too seriously. And that goes for life in general. Don’t take the great things too seriously, because they’re going to go away, and don’t take the bad stuff so seriously, because that’s going to go away. This too shall pass. Get in that middle lane and have a good time. Don’t overdo the drinking and don’t do any drugs. Moderation is the key to success.

Q: Was it easy revisiting the past for your book?

A: We were young boys — 23 and 25 — and we were in Las Vegas with Frank Sinatra and you’re going to do some pretty stupid things! I think it’s during the first two years you kind of get caught up in it, then reality comes around and you say, man, this is stupid. But we lived through it — I never did drugs or get caught up in that. I did drink a lot of beer — I did my part there! But I quit that about 20 years ago. Now I don’t drink, I don’t smoke … I’m a pretty boring guy. But you really have to make a conscious effort to not get sucked in. You know they say: “Man, if I knew I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.” It’s true. Some guys did, and some guys didn’t and they paid a horrible price for it.

Q: If you could change something from your past, what would it be?

A: My first wife and I were divorced, and she was the mother of my son, who’s 48 now. And she was murdered in 1976. And that was just awful, horrendous — she was raped and murdered — it was so horrible. If I could change anything, that would be the first thing I would change. It was horrible because my son was 10. I was a bachelor at the time and I took five or six years off to go raise my son, which was the best thing that I ever did. That was a real life lesson in itself and it pulled me backed into the reality of Life. You know, when you’re a star, it’s really your world. It’s your rules, you can do whatever you want, you got more money than you need and all that. So when I was torn away from that and I became a single parent, it was pretty scary, but boy, did I learn a lot. It was wonderful.

Q: Paul Anka said that he had to continually tell himself to not get caught up being a pop star.

A: Well, Elvis was a very good friend of mine and I kind of saw how all that happened. And he was just too protected — everything he said was very funny, and everything he did was great — you know, that just isn’t the real world. And we have a tendency to get caught up in that, when everyone is saying how wonderful you are or what a genius you are. It’s all BS. None of us are geniuses, we’re just a bunch of lucky guys who sing.

Q: What would you like the Bill Medley legacy to be?

A: I can remember when Bobby and I first started out, we talked about what we were going to do when the fad was over. And I’m still waiting for the fad to be over. You don’t really plan anything. The whole thing is a dream. I’m a 73-year-old guy going onstage, doing something a 15-year-old boy dreams about. So there’s no real plan, because you don’t even know why you’re here. I guess the main thing is, when I go onstage and I see the audience light up, I would say that Bill Medley was somebody who made a lot of people happy. That’s about all. But I am proud of that. You read fan mail and stuff and … I’ll hear all the great stories about how our music affected people’s lives and it’s just wonderful.

WHAT: Bill Medley and The Platters in concert

WHEN: May 10 and 11, 7.30pm

WHERE: Sands Theatre, MasterCard Theatres at Marina Bay Sands

TICKETS: S$228 (VIP), S$198, S$168, S$138 and S$108 from SISTIC