| Huey
Lewis & the News were a bar band
that made good. With their simple,
straightforward rock & roll, the San
Francisco-based group became one of
America's most popular pop/rock bands of
the mid-'80s. Inspired equally by
British pub rock and '60s R&B and rock &
roll, the News had a driving,
party-hearty spirit that made songs like
"Workin' for a Livin'," "I Want a New
Drug," "The Heart of Rock & Roll," "Hip
to Be Square" and "The Power of Love"
yuppie anthems. At their core, the group
were a working band, and they knew how
to target their audience, writing odes
to 9-to-5 jobs and sports. As the decade
progressed, the group smoothed out their
sound to appeal to the aging baby
boomers who adopted them, but by the
beginning of the '90s, the appeal of
their formula had decreased.
Nevertheless, the group remained a
popular concert attraction, and they
continued to have radio hits on adult
contemporary stations.
The roots of Huey Lewis & the News
lay in Clover, an early-'70s
country-rock band from San Francisco
that featured Lewis (vocals, harmonica)
and keyboardist Sean Hopper. Clover
moved to England in 1976 upon the urging
of Nick Lowe, who believed they could
fit into the U.K.'s pub rock scene. In a
short time, the group cultivated a small
following. Lowe produced the group's
first single, "Chicken Funk," which
featured lead vocals by Lewis and, the
following year, the band, minus Lewis,
supported Elvis Costello on his debut
album, My Aim Is True. Polygram released
two Clover albums that failed to find an
audience and when their leader, John
McFee, left the group to join the Doobie
Brothers, the band broke up and returned
to California. Before returning to the
States, Lewis played harmonica on Lowe's
Labour of Lust and Dave Edmunds' Repeat
When Necessary, which also featured
Lewis' song "Bad Is Bad."
Upon their return to America, Lewis
and Hopper began jamming at a Marin
County bar called Uncle Charlies, which
is where they formed American Express
with Mario Cipollina (bass), Johnny
Colla (saxophone, guitar) and Bill
Gibson (drums), who had all played in
Soundhole, one of Van Morrison's backing
bands in the late '70s. American Express
recorded a disco version of "Theme From
Exodus," calling it "Exodisco." Mercury
released the single, which was ignored.
In 1980, the group added lead guitarist
Chris Hayes and were offered a contract
by Chrysalis who requested that the band
change their name. The members chose
Huey Lewis & the News and the band's
eponymous debut was released later that
year to little attention.
Picture This, the group's second
album, was released early in 1982 and
the record became a hit on the strength
of the Top Ten single "Do You Believe in
Love," which was written by former
Clover producer Robert John "Mutt"
Lange. A couple other minor hits, "Hope
You Love Me Like You Say You Do" and "Workin'
for a Livin'" followed, and the band
began building a strong following by
touring heavily. Sports, the group's
third album, was released in the fall of
1983 and it slowly became a
multi-platinum success, thanks to
touring and a series of clever, funny
videos that received heavy MTV airplay.
"Heart and Soul" (number eight, 1983),
"I Want a New Drug" (number six, 1984),
"The Heart of Rock & Roll" (number six,
1984) and "If This Is It" (number six,
1984) all became Top Ten hits, and
Sports climbed to number one in 1984; it
would eventually sell over seven million
copies. Late in 1984, Lewis sued Ray
Parker Jr., claiming that his song
"Ghostbusters" plagiarized "I Want a New
Drug." The suit was settled out of
court. The News had their first number
one single in 1985 with "The Power of
Love," taken from the soundtrack to Back
to the Future.
Huey Lewis & the News returned with
their fourth album, Fore!, in 1986. The
record sailed to number one on the
strength of five Top Ten singles: "Stuck
With You" (number one, 1986), "Hip to Be
Square" (number three, 1986), "Jacob's
Ladder" (number one, 1987), "I Know What
I Like" (number nine, 1987), and "Doing
It All for My Baby" (number six, 1987).
The band was riding high on the charts
when they decided to expand their
musical reach with 1988's Small World,
dipping tentatively into various
American roots musics. While the record
produced the Top Ten hit "Perfect
World," it was a commercial
disappointment after two chart-topping,
multi-platinum albums, stalling at
number 11 on the charts and only going
platinum.
The News took three years to follow
up Small World with Hard at Play, which
was released on their new label, EMI.
Hard to Play failed to break the Top 20
and only produced one hit, "Couple Days
Off." The group's commercial heyday had
clearly passed, and the group took the
remainder of the '90s rather easy,
touring sporadically and releasing the
covers album Four Chords & Several Years
Ago in 1994. Their first release for
Elektra Records, the album generated one
adult contemporary radio hit, "But It's
Alright," and failed to go gold. |
