Defend the indefensible: Huey Lewis and the News

It was only a prosthetic tool. Lewis was afraid to show the genuine Heuy unit.

I remember seeing a Behind the Music show about them, and they all talked about their love for classic R&B. And they showed a grainy videotape of one of their early shows, but the soundtrack played some twaddle from their first album (maybe even later, I forget). The band on videotape was jumping around like a bunch of pilled-up maniacs. I wanted to hear what they were playing - it clearly wasn't the song on the soundtrack. The juxtaposition left me thinking, "Geez, they LOOK like a great band - I wonder how badly these guys mellowed/sold out when they started recording?"

Did anyone here ever see Huey Lewis and the News in their pre-record-contract days? What were they like?

You should see more movies....

also, I thought it was cute and fun.

Betcha he refers to it as "Baby Huey"!

I'd still rather listen to 10 Hall & Oates songs than 1 Huey Lewis & The News though ...

_Sports_ is a stone-cold classic album all the way around. Also "Back To The Future"!!!!

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry),

HI DERE otm!

"If This Is It" gives me a lot of emotions.

They are playing in my town pretty soon and I have considered thinking about maybe seeing how much the tickets cost. Maybe.

"If This Is It," "Walkin' on a Thin Line," and "Jacob's Ladder" are pretty great.

always liked "do you believe in love." (mutt lange!)

'power of love' is epic imo

who are these people tbh

do you believe in love, sports, power of love

From I Love Vinyl What's On Your Turntable Now thread (where I just posted a picture of Picture This from '82):

that's the one w/ "Do You Believe in Love"? great song

― Stormy Davis, Sunday, May 30, 2010 8:42 PM (38 minutes ago)

"Workin' For A Livin'" and "Only One" (total hard-popping Lynott/ Boomtown Rats-style boys-on-the-street reminscence rock) are even better. And lots of Side One reminds me that Huey + News were marketed as a new wave powerpop band at first, and Huey's old band Clover backed up *My Aim Is True* -- very audible early Joe Jackson influence.

― xhuxk, Sunday, May 30, 2010 9:19 PM (2 minutes ago)

Really need to find a cheap copy of the debut LP one of these days (1980, didn't chart at all - and they look very Boomtown Rats on the cover of that one, iirc.)

no pleats?

A ILM formatting question: As I'm in the presence of somebody who actually knows how to do this, on "New Poll" in the section "I Love Music Poll Options: Enter all options, delimited by new lines" --- what are "new lines"? Does that mean just hit the return key to put different options on different lines, or do you type some kind of lines between the options?

It just means "hit return"
basically, if you took this post as an example, it would have 4 poll options

the third one would be blank

and all you assholes would probably vote for it

thanks for the info!

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/e3662085fb/american-psycho-with-huey-lewis-and-weird-al

Huey's appearance on WTF is actually pretty good, and clued me in to the fact that the first thing he and The News ever recorded was done as a joke that a record label actually ended up liking. I bring you Exodisco:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vut4dxua9wo

The floor of one room at the Power Station recording studio is littered with inflated plastic globes, bunched up like beach balls between two tall black speakers.

From those speakers comes the soft hum of a synthesizer, like the rising buzzing of a bee, sharply sliced by the sting of a funky, brass-accented beat.

The small crowd of listeners in the room start bobbing heads and bouncing legs. But all are a bit surprised by this song -- and those in zydeco, reggae, ska and jazz styles that follow -- because the album they're listening to at this preview session is Small World, the latest release from Huey Lewis and the News, due in record stores this week. The plastic globes are promotional props illustrating the album's title.

Lewis and his band have become one of the most successful American rock acts of the 1980s with their past two albums, Sports (1983) and Fore (1985), selling more than 15 million copies worldwide.

They have achieved that success with wry and rhythmic hits such as "Stuck With You" and "Hip to Be Square." But the News' chart-topping sound has never been considered particularly hip -- until now.

Just ask the band's longtime manager, Bob Brown, who's attending this studio session. "I'm not a rah, rah guy," says Brown, conceding the News' previous LP, Fore was a bit too conventional even for his tastes.

But Small World is a big musical leap forward for Lewis and the News -- one the band hopes won't fly over the heads of its existing fans. The album takes its listeners on a joyful jaunt of varied musical styles, guided by the News' compass, which has never failed them before.

Obviously, during their extensive world tour of 1986-87, Lewis and his pals did something in their off hours besides play golf. Small World was largely inspired, Lewis has said, by the nightclubbing the band did on the European leg of their tour.

They rediscovered the influence of Caribbean rhythms and the American jazz resurgence that are changing the sound of pop overseas and here as well.

Both influences shape the title track "Small World," which is split into two parts that open and close the album's first side. The smooth syncopated beat of "Small World (Part One)" is the first hint of what's to come. The song's lyrical idea is simple but earnest: "If we all give a little/ it could really help a lot/ it's a small world/ but it's the only one we've got."

However, "Small World (Part Two)" is the real surprise and treat. One of two instrumental tracks on the album, it features a cool and lovely tenor saxophone solo by jazz vet Stan Getz that's bound to win the News a place on jazz stations for the first time.

Another guest musician, Bruce Hornsby, brings zydeco-style accordion riffs to "Old Antone's," a party tune straight from New Orleans' French Quarter sung by Lewis in fractured Franglais.

The question this album may raise is whether the News are trendy newcomers to the styles they explore here. But one of the first tunes recorded for the LP, "Bobo Tempo," was written by Lewis with members of his previous band, Clover, in 1975. It's a smoky, lilting reggae vamp complete with snapping harmonica lines blown in unison with the Tower of Power horn section who do ace brass work throughout.

"Perfect World," the album's first single, also has links to Lewis' past. It was written by Alex Call, another Clover alumnus.

"I actually found that song in a little club in Mill Valley Lewis' hometown in California's Marin County, said Brown. "Alex was playing it one night when I walked in and I couldn't get it out of my head."

With a Caribbean ska beat, accented once again by those tremendous Tower horns, "Perfect World" is a perfect mix of familiar pop and exotic rhythms. The song talks brightly of keeping faith and dreams even though, as Lewis sings, there "ain't no livin' in a perfect world." True to their wry image, the band plays the song in its video version on a clean pastel stage -- placed in the middle of a Marin County garbage landfill.

Another contrast, between music and lyric, makes "Walking with the Kid" another delight. With growling guitar lines from Chris Hayes, the song sounds at first like the tale of two street toughs. But listen again; it's Lewis walking in the park on a Sunday with his young son, tackling, as he sings at one point, "Walking 101."

A soft and sweet reggae beat runs through two love songs which follow, "World to Me" and "Better Be True." Both also display the News' affection for the harmony singing of '50s R&B; and '60s soul music so evident on their earlier LPs.

"Give Me the Keys (And I'll Drive You Crazy) races away with the beat but what's notable here is that, with the punch and shining solos of the Tower of Power horn section, Lewis and the band make almost no musical concessions to '80s pop tastes. This is a brassy arrangement that could have been written 20 years ago -- and doesn't sound a bit dated.

Nor does "Slammin'," a funky guitar, organ and horn jazz jam in a Memphis mode that may well be one of the year's surprise dance hits. It supports Brown's assertion of the News' ability: "They're more than just a 4/ 4 rock band," he says.

After the massive sales of their two previous LPs, it was clearly time for Huey Lewis and the News to take some chances. Small World is a gamble for these guys -- but one with a rewarding musical payoff for the fans.

(Discovered when I heard 'Perfect World' just now and thought to myself, 'wait...are they trying to do ska?!')

That's some quality music writing right there.

can't believe I didn't post the factoid about CA Governor Gavin "when he was mayor of SF and a toady to corporate interests, we all compared him to Patrick Bateman, because the hair ffs" Newsom hanging with Huey Lewis at a wedding to this thread.

'But the News' chart-topping sound has never been considered particularly hip -- until now.'

I wish someone had alerted me when this happened.

Another guest musician, Bruce Hornsby, brings zydeco-style accordion riffs to "Old Antone's," a party tune straight from New Orleans' French Quarter sung by Lewis in fractured Franglais.

nb in this video huey lewis is only 39 years old:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEYZBEaBVsU

He came out 39 when he was born

LOL, was gonna say

I hope their fans were able to keep up with the boundary-pushing foray into exotic global rhythms evidenced on that track.

It's Hip To Be Ska

My brother works at Universal and they do shows for their Mardi Gras festival. He performed one year, and my brother was assigned to help escort them to the stage, then watched the show.

Tickets to these things come with your Universal ticket so not everybody at the show gives a fuck

He apparently was belligerent throughout the show, complaining that the crowd was too quiet and that they needed to be more excited

Small World; a New Jersey surely?

I don't think so -- it definitely wasn't bigger than (or, for that matter, nearly as big as) the albums that preceded it. Didn't even make the top 10 in the US.

Fore! was the NJ.

we settled this in the main thread or the poll, I think. In fact, Fore! is a charter member.

I'm trouble finding any other sources that describe any aspect of their music as 'funky' (as this article does twice).

Did you mean: "huey lewis" funny

Funky in the “winkerbean” sense

Lol

hey remember when we all saw huey's funky winkerbean in short cuts

it hit me like a hammer!

Good profile:

Without warning, the beloved pop star lost his ability to hear amplified music. Now, from his remote Montana ranch, he's on a search for answers. https://t.co/DcR4E8VGX7

— Esquire (@esquire) February 7, 2020

That was great, thanks.

these kinda slap tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCUL5fEpoNs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfBvZEyTYdI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzQlZZFqiS8

there's a line in one of his songs I can't stop thinking about

"I like the sound of breaking glass/And if you don't believe me, why did ya ask?"

WHAT DO YOU MEAN "why did ya ask??" it's your song!!

His hearing loss seems to be in the news today. Not in the news, only on social media, is that a high school friend of mine found his wallet in the middle of the street in NYC and returned it to him.

'what's your wallet look like, Mr Lewis'
'it's hip and be square'

A+

More like something about Times Square

They both were on their way to Broadway shows

this is pretty funky, a tad little feat maybe?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6ndpjH2D_Q

love seeing pedal steel in non-country contexts

What the what

https://www.theatermania.com/news/huey-lewis-musical-the-heart-of-rock-and-roll-announces-broadway-run_1719505/

With chart-topping songs such as “Hip to Be Square,” “Do You Believe in Love,” “Workin’ for a Livin’,” and “The Power of Love,” the musical follows a former rock singer who has traded in his guitar for a stable job in corporate America. He’s on the verge of closing the ultimate business deal and winning the girl of his dreams (who’s also the CEO’s daughter) — that is, if he doesn’t jeopardize everything by reuniting with his band for another shot at rock-and-roll glory.

Stephen Lynch is already calling his agent

Found out about that when a high school classmate of mine found a wallet in the theater district, figured out it was his and returned it to him.

I’m not surprised about the Broadway musical. If Billy Joel has enough big songs to carry a show like this then so does Huey.