Wise Medley knows when he needs a Brother’s help

“Here’s the cool thing about being 75,” Bill Medley tells us. “I can do anything corny I want.”

Specifically, he was talking about a moment in the relaunched Righteous Brothers’ show at Harrah’s Las Vegas where he asks veterans to stand up.

But as a larger statement, it speaks volumes to Medley’s years of entertaining casino audiences. The decades of stage time give the rock ’n’ soul veteran an instinctive wisdom about just when to exercise his license to corn — and, more important, when not to.

Medley put the Righteous Brothers name on ice for 12 years after Bobby Hatfield died in 2003, but he didn’t stop performing. If you wonder how an emotional, heartfelt “Unchained Melody” could be followed immediately by the Vegas-shtick throwaway “Koko Joe,” both are part of the duo’s schizoid catalog.

Medley’s self-aware stage banter also makes you think he couldn’t help but know it was time to bring in some backup; that adding 50-year-old Bucky Heard to pick up the late Bobby Hatfield’s vocals wasn’t just a smart business move to get the Righteous Brothers name back on the billboard.

That part seems a solid bet. Last week’s launch of a three-month trial run wedged the duo, an eight-piece band and three backup singers onto what’s left of the Harrah’s stage in front of the “Million Dollar Quartet” set.

Despite opening-night sound issues and uneven moments, it’s the name nostalgia that’s been largely banished to locals casinos and now in short supply on the Strip. And a 6 p.m. time slot just might turn out to be more of a plus than a minus for the target audience.

But a guy who has been on stage as long as Medley also must have sensed he needed a stage foil, and to lighten his own load.

At this point in life, Medley is better on the verse than the chorus. His signature baritone can still raise the hairs on your arms when a song begins but no longer blends like it did when it climbs into anything approaching a high register.

Heard and Medley have a solid rapport, with Heard — who spent years as a “Legends in Concert” Blues Brother — understandably looking happy to be there, and Medley polished with the banter: “Thank God that’s not me,” Medley says after his new partner sings himself red-faced on Roy Orbison’s “Cryin’.” “These pants aren’t that tight.”

But the new team is just as important for its moments apart as together.

Leaving the younger Heard to handle “Ebb Tide” lets the new guy be credible in his own right, but also lets Medley save his more weathered voice for better effect.

A subdued “Unchained Medley” serves as a tribute to Hatfield and their Righteous career on the side screens. Medley makes you listen to the words to this overheard song all over again, his voice taking on a hushed, almost Leonard Cohen resonance.

And he actually topped that one with the evening’s real surprise, “This Will Be the Last Time,” from a solo blues album Medley released two years ago, “Your Heart to Mine: Dedicated to the Blues.”

John Wedemeyer added a great guitar solo, and the four-piece horn section gave a clue as to what the mostly local band is likely to jell into once it works through the cautious nature of its first week.

Why couldn’t the whole show be like that song? Why not skip the cheesy stuff such as “Rock and Roll Heaven,” which Medley himself doesn’t even care for, based on his jokes. And while you can’t cut the “Dirty Dancing” smash “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life,” it sure sounded like bad karaoke by Medley and daughter McKenna, who have performed it for years in his solo show (could be a case of opening-night sound gremlins).

But go back and read Medley’s line at the top, or this variation:

“I’m 75 and I’m still singing ‘Little Latin Lupe Lu’, he proclaimed.

Yes, he is, and we are happy to see him do it.

Read more from Mike Weatherford at reviewjournal.com. Contact him at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com and follow @Mikeweatherford on Twitter.