Speaker 1: Pushkin Back to the Future turns thirty five this year,
Speaker 1: and for many people, Power of Love by Huey Lewis
Speaker 1: in the News is forever tied to Marty McFly hitching
Speaker 1: a ride on the back of cars with his skateboard
Speaker 1: waving at a jazzercize class. It's the quintessential eighties movie montage.
Speaker 1: But the string of top ten hits in his perfectly
Speaker 1: feathered bouffont, Huey Lewis catapulted into Michael j. Fox level fame.
Speaker 1: But Hue is far from a prefab pop star. In
Speaker 1: this interview, he talks to Bruce had Them about his
Speaker 1: career that spans nearly fifty years. He shares details of
Speaker 1: his tragic family history, his bohemian upbringing that includes late
Speaker 1: night parties with Alan Ginsburg, and how he bonded with
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson during the recording of We Are the World.
Speaker 1: Hue has tons of great stories and we wanted to
Speaker 1: spend time mining them before we get into talking about
Speaker 1: his music, including his classic eighties record Sports. This is
Speaker 1: broken record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmond.
Speaker 1: Here's Bruce Headlam and Huey Lewis. They start off talking
Speaker 1: about Hugh's recent health scare that's left him severely hearing impaired.
Speaker 1: How are you feeling today? I'm okay, I'm I'm actually
Speaker 1: pretty good. I'm a five today, which is almost as
Speaker 1: good as I get. But I was like two yesterday. Okay,
Speaker 1: And we should back up. You've got maars disease. It
Speaker 1: affects your hearing, your balance. Yeah, yeah, man, years is
Speaker 1: you know it? First of all, it's just it's a
Speaker 1: syndrome based on symptoms, so it's called a disease, but
Speaker 1: it's not really a disease. And frankly they don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been House Here Institute, Stanford Here Institute,
Speaker 1: Mayo Clinic, UCSF, UCLA, talk with doctor Stephen Rausch at
Speaker 1: Harvard Medical School, and Mass General Ironeer and nobody knows anything.
Speaker 1: Luxford told me. The real diagnosis for what you have, Hughey,
Speaker 1: is we don't know. So. But having said that, it
Speaker 1: fluctuates and it can get better and then it can
Speaker 1: get worse. The trouble. When it's bad, I can't hardly
Speaker 1: hear anything. When it's good, I'm with hearing aids. I'm
Speaker 1: pretty good, and I might even be able to sing,
Speaker 1: but I don't know that yet because I haven't been
Speaker 1: good long enough to try. So that's it I need.
Speaker 1: I need to stabilize. I need to get better and
Speaker 1: stabilize and then figure out a way to sing. Okay,
Speaker 1: but you do have a new album out, which we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about soon. But I want to back
Speaker 1: up first, okay and ask you a question everybody wants
Speaker 1: to know, which is did you really get a perfect
Speaker 1: score on your math SAT? Yes? I did did, and
Speaker 1: and I and I got a perfect score on my
Speaker 1: level two SAT as well. Okay, Now, were you this
Speaker 1: kid who studied all the time? No, I know, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I had a math aptitude that I cared
Speaker 1: nothing for because I you know, I took a break
Speaker 1: between high school and college, took harmonic and pitchecked around Europe,
Speaker 1: went back to Cornell, and you know, went to engineering school.
Speaker 1: I went to walked into the classroom and took a
Speaker 1: look around and said, this is not where I want
Speaker 1: to be. And you know, I wanted to be a poet.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be Bob Dylan, not a Boeing engineer
Speaker 1: or drunk a ge. Now your father was he was
Speaker 1: a doctor, right, what kind of doctor was he? He
Speaker 1: was a radiologist radiologist, but he was also a jazz drummer,
Speaker 1: jazz drummer and piano player. Where was he? Where did
Speaker 1: he perform? In San Francisco? He would just have jam
Speaker 1: sessions on the weekends with he and he played with
Speaker 1: a guy called Ralph Sutton, great Stride piano player. I
Speaker 1: was a neighbor and my I played drums with him
Speaker 1: and uh and we had people over the house all
Speaker 1: the time. We had Eddie Figure Role played bass um,
Speaker 1: my dad would play drums, Ralph play piano. We had
Speaker 1: Ben Webster in my living room at one point. Really well,
Speaker 1: when whenever these musicians would play San Francisco, sometimes Ralph
Speaker 1: would invite him out and then on a Sunday, my
Speaker 1: mom would make a big bunch of spaghetti and they
Speaker 1: have a bunch of red wine and they'd have a
Speaker 1: jam session. This happened when you were around. It was
Speaker 1: like yeah, yeah, was like nine or ten years old.
Speaker 1: They'd run the Marine outdoor Art, Art and Gardens Center
Speaker 1: in Mill Valley and they would have a jam and
Speaker 1: all the families and invite people. It was just like
Speaker 1: a Sunday afternoon and these cats are jam and they
Speaker 1: have fun and that was you know, a light went
Speaker 1: off when I saw that. I said, that looks like fun. Wow.
Speaker 1: And your mother is a fascinating story too. She escaped
Speaker 1: Europe during the war. My mother was born in Wood,
Speaker 1: Poland and in nineteen thirty nine. She's born in nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty four. In nineteen thirty nine, when the Nazis invaded Warsaw,
Speaker 1: word came down that the Nazis were coming, and my grandparents,
Speaker 1: although they were Catholic, thought well, I think we'll be okay.
Speaker 1: They thought maybe would just kind of blow over, but
Speaker 1: then apparently it wasn't going to. So they sent the
Speaker 1: kids out with their furs and all the you know,
Speaker 1: the jewels and the gold coins sewed into the lining
Speaker 1: of the furs, and my mom hitchhiked, basically got lifts
Speaker 1: from fans people, and all the way to Portugal and
Speaker 1: then Brazil with her. She was fifteen and her brother
Speaker 1: was ten, and they moved to Brazil. They had a
Speaker 1: relative there who put them up in a youth hostile
Speaker 1: arranged for them to stay in a youth hostile and
Speaker 1: my mother lived there for almost five years, at which
Speaker 1: time finally her parents, my grandparents got out of Poland
Speaker 1: because my grandmother had a thyroid condition that some Swedish
Speaker 1: surgeon was the only guy on the planet who knew
Speaker 1: about this, and the Germans were very interested in the procedure,
Speaker 1: so they allowed her a visa to leave to go
Speaker 1: to Sweden to have this procedure done. And they just
Speaker 1: kept going and went to America. They stated, they moved
Speaker 1: to Mathuin, Massachusetts, which was the textile capital of America,
Speaker 1: because my grandfather was a dichemist. He had a textile
Speaker 1: mill in Poland and he knew all about it, and
Speaker 1: they were kind of a wealthy, very cultured family and
Speaker 1: so on. Now in America, he was struggling tough to
Speaker 1: get a job with all the all the returning gis.
Speaker 1: He wasn't making any money. So he and my mother,
Speaker 1: he and my grandmother committed suicide together, and it was
Speaker 1: a huge blow to my mom. My mom, who was
Speaker 1: a commercial artist and was in New York City designing
Speaker 1: album covers and Walt Whitman's little primers and all this
Speaker 1: doing wonderful commercial work and you know, well dressed and
Speaker 1: neat and prim That's when she flipped out because America
Speaker 1: had been the had been the voice of freedom and
Speaker 1: everything for her because when she was traveling through Europe,
Speaker 1: whenever there was jazz, she was safe because there were
Speaker 1: gis gis and jazz met ah safety. So she was
Speaker 1: a music lover, so it was musical over two. So
Speaker 1: she marries my dad, who was playing jazz in New York,
Speaker 1: and they marry and then she reunited with her parents,
Speaker 1: and then her parents commit suicide, so she kind of drowsed.
Speaker 1: My uncle later explained to me that's when she turned
Speaker 1: off to the idea of America is a great place
Speaker 1: and became a kind of a bohemian, and my dad
Speaker 1: moved to California. My whole family moved to California nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty three or fifty four, and then she started hanging
Speaker 1: out with the beat Nicks in the early sixties and
Speaker 1: my parents split up. They got divorced in sixty two
Speaker 1: sixty one, I guess, so she was connected with what
Speaker 1: was going on in San Francisco with the Beats. Okay,
Speaker 1: did you know those guys when you were growing up. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: then my mom and my parents split up. My mother
Speaker 1: would hang at the No Name Bar, which is in Sasolito.
Speaker 1: It was the Tides bookstore in the No Name Bar,
Speaker 1: which were the two kind of beat nick enclaves, and
Speaker 1: the No Name Bar had jazz musicians and all that,
Speaker 1: and my mom would bring the bar home. You know,
Speaker 1: occasionally I'd wake up at three o'clock in the morning
Speaker 1: in the place I would be jammed with people and
Speaker 1: hippies and finger down Ginsburg in the corner and all
Speaker 1: kinds of poets and musicians and stuff. And then she
Speaker 1: married Blue Welch. She did well, they didn't actually get married,
Speaker 1: but they, yeah, the sixties version of getting married and did.
Speaker 1: He was a well known beat poet. He was friends
Speaker 1: with Furlingetti. He was I think a character in one
Speaker 1: of Jack Carrollax's character in one of Carrollas books. He
Speaker 1: went to read with Philip Whalen and Gary Snyder, and
Speaker 1: you know, a knew Kirby Doyle and Ferlingetti and all
Speaker 1: those people, and that was that was their world, you know,
Speaker 1: that was my mom's world for for a long time,
Speaker 1: did you know. And he was he was an amazing
Speaker 1: guy because he was a he was a great orator.
Speaker 1: I mean he could he you know, he was a
Speaker 1: William Carlos Williams devote the beats where W. C. Williams
Speaker 1: was a big influence for them. And that was street talk, right,
Speaker 1: that was poetry as speech speak, as as as people speak,
Speaker 1: and and that poetry should be spoken and not necessarily read,
Speaker 1: but spoken. And Lou was a great reader. He was
Speaker 1: a great teacher and a and a good poet. But
Speaker 1: he was an amazing reader. And in those days, there
Speaker 1: were poets on all the bills, you know, in the
Speaker 1: early sixties. I mean, I mean not only Neil Cassidy
Speaker 1: with the Dead and this, but poets typically would have
Speaker 1: a you know, in between bands, you'd have a poet.
Speaker 1: And Lou was a star. He was a really big star.
Speaker 1: But then he committed suicide as well. Well, that must
Speaker 1: that must have been a terrible shock to your mother. Then, yeah,
Speaker 1: but my mother, you know, my mom had had escaped
Speaker 1: Poland and right, and and then I mean I could
Speaker 1: tell you my mother's story in Brazil and all the
Speaker 1: stuff she experienced. It's just an unbelievable story my mother.
Speaker 1: I mean also, you know, her brother got captured by
Speaker 1: the Nazis and then released when they realized he was
Speaker 1: Catholic barely, and she had all kinds of she's got
Speaker 1: all kinds of stories. So for what she's experienced, she's
Speaker 1: never been sentimental or any of that. And she after
Speaker 1: her after her parents had committed suicide. It must have
Speaker 1: been to win the big thing for her. Really, she
Speaker 1: thought Louis had just disappeared. He engineered his own disappearance.
Speaker 1: What lou did really is he wrote a poem called
Speaker 1: the song Mountamil by his sings. In it, he describes
Speaker 1: his demise. He wanted to be recycled by vultures. What
Speaker 1: he did is he went in Nevada to Gary Snyder's
Speaker 1: camp and they were gonna There was a bohemian camp
Speaker 1: there and lou was gonna build a place there. But
Speaker 1: he was a vicious alcoholic. He was just and he
Speaker 1: could barely get up in the morning, and I was shaped.
Speaker 1: I would talk to him, said, Louis, you can do this.
Speaker 1: You gotta go. You got And I was probably one
Speaker 1: of the last people to talk to him. But when
Speaker 1: he ended up to Gary Snyder's, my mom had left.
Speaker 1: She'd gone to South America to leave him. She says,
Speaker 1: you don't need me, you're a drunk. I'm gone. My
Speaker 1: mom had gone to South America to travel and he
Speaker 1: went to Gary Snyder's and he was just totally depressed,
Speaker 1: and so he took his favorite revolver and went out
Speaker 1: for somewhere and then oh, shoot, Lou else was missing.
Speaker 1: And then the next day they said, oh, somebody saw him.
Speaker 1: It's okay. They called off the search. And that was Gary, who,
Speaker 1: having read the poem, understood that Lou what Lou was doing,
Speaker 1: and didn't want anybody to, you know, bother him or
Speaker 1: any of that stuff. So that's what And my mother
Speaker 1: would never really come to grips with it. She never
Speaker 1: really came to grips with the fact that he committed suicide.
Speaker 1: She thought he disappeared. Well, there was always that mystery, right,
Speaker 1: that did he disappear? But you're in your mind just
Speaker 1: like Jimmy Hoffa, Yeah, he was gone. You went through
Speaker 1: something very difficult. Your parents actually made you decide where
Speaker 1: you wanted to live, didn't they when they split? Is
Speaker 1: that true? No? No, I had custody. My mother had custody, okay,
Speaker 1: and I was only twelve. My mother customer. My father
Speaker 1: had visiting rights, visiting privileges, and he convinced me. He
Speaker 1: talked to me like he says, look, there's this school,
Speaker 1: you know, and you're a smart kid, and if you
Speaker 1: want to get on in life, you got to compete
Speaker 1: with the best. And he says, and I think there's
Speaker 1: an opportunity for you to go to prep school. I
Speaker 1: think it'd be a great thing for you to do.
Speaker 1: I said, Okay, says, but you're gonna have to want
Speaker 1: to do it because your mother's got custody. And if
Speaker 1: you want me to do this, I'll petition the court.
Speaker 1: But it's going to be a big pisson match, you know.
Speaker 1: And I said, well, I think it's probably a good idea.
Speaker 1: So then we went to court. My mother my mother
Speaker 1: was over here and my dad was over There was
Speaker 1: a horrible day and she's there screaming at one another,
Speaker 1: and the judge fortunately said let's go back in my chambers.
Speaker 1: So we go back into the judge's chambers and I
Speaker 1: was I was twelve, And he said, um, what do
Speaker 1: you know about this place? I said, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I a little bit of Do you want to go there?
Speaker 1: I said, I think I think I do. He says,
Speaker 1: how many people in a classroom? And I said eight
Speaker 1: to fifteen. I just read the brochure. I had just
Speaker 1: read the brochure, I said eight fifteen. He goes, how
Speaker 1: many in the student budd He said six hundred. He said, okay,
Speaker 1: that's enough. He went back and he said the kids
Speaker 1: can go to prep school. In July of sixty three,
Speaker 1: I turned thirteen. In August, I went away to prep
Speaker 1: school for four years, coat and tie, all boys, and
Speaker 1: neither one of my parents ever attended. They never visited
Speaker 1: you there, never now, So I really was gone by
Speaker 1: at that age. Nothing. My parents didn't love me, mind you,
Speaker 1: you know, it was just a different generation. My dad
Speaker 1: was a hardass. He was just you know, I never
Speaker 1: ever told him I loved him, even though I loved
Speaker 1: him and he loved me. And towards late in life,
Speaker 1: because you know, with my kids we say he love you, dad,
Speaker 1: I mean we tell each other we love each other,
Speaker 1: like six times a day, you know. My dad, so
Speaker 1: later on in life, and he was I bet he
Speaker 1: was in his eighties, and I finally said I I said, Pops.
Speaker 1: I called him pops, Pops. I love you, Pops. And
Speaker 1: I heard him on the other end go oh. I
Speaker 1: was also like I'm sorry, which I hadn't said that.
Speaker 1: He was thinking I only had a few more years
Speaker 1: to go. I don't the year that I would have
Speaker 1: got there. Uh did you like prep School? I hated
Speaker 1: it at first? I just you know, when I first
Speaker 1: went away, I cried myself to sleep. I was homesick,
Speaker 1: like crazy. It was horrible and it was all you
Speaker 1: do to keep my head above water. But after four years, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I after four years did I a lot?
Speaker 1: Did I like it? You know? Yeah? Kind of you.
Speaker 1: I'm really glad I went there. Let's put it that
Speaker 1: you were a baseball player, right, a baseball player? You
Speaker 1: what did you? What position do you play? Pitched and
Speaker 1: played shorts up? Okay, what are you going to play
Speaker 1: at Cornell? Was that part of the was? The box
Speaker 1: was checked when I went to Cornell? But I had
Speaker 1: been to Europe for a year, yeah, and been to
Speaker 1: North Africa. I went to Marrakesh for like a day
Speaker 1: and got so stone I couldn't leave for three months.
Speaker 1: Playing harmonica in this where you know? Were there players
Speaker 1: you were listening to back then? Were you listening to
Speaker 1: harmonica music? Yeah? Well yeah I was. I was. I
Speaker 1: was a blue snop. I was listening to you know,
Speaker 1: Walter and Sonny Boy, Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson, right,
Speaker 1: and and then then then big Walter and uh and
Speaker 1: James Cotton, I mean James Cotton. You know, Cotton was
Speaker 1: probably our biggest influence. Walter Cotton, Sonny Boy, that guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: were you singing by singing a little? But I never
Speaker 1: sang that I went to Europe. When I went to Europe,
Speaker 1: I had and my busking, I sang, that's that was
Speaker 1: part of my stick. And how did the how did
Speaker 1: the busking go real good? Really? I mean, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean in Morocco, I'm in Marrakesh, and I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I would play on the square. I mean the snake
Speaker 1: charmer was over here, and the you know, the the
Speaker 1: bicyclist acrobat who would ride around doing handstands on the
Speaker 1: bicycle was over here. And the two hash dealers who
Speaker 1: did their their spiel, the two growers, they had a
Speaker 1: whole big stick they did and they smoked these big
Speaker 1: hookahs and and there were there was a it was
Speaker 1: an entertaining thing. All this happened in the square. And
Speaker 1: I would busk on the square and I'd make like
Speaker 1: three dirhams. And the youth hostfelt was where I stayed.
Speaker 1: We called it Mukta's Home for Wayward Boys and Girls.
Speaker 1: We got one costs one dirham and all I could
Speaker 1: eat was a half a dirham, so I was I
Speaker 1: was a Derham and a half to the good. I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: the day I can't affordly, we'll be back with Huey
Speaker 1: Lewis and Bruce had them after a quick break, we're
Speaker 1: back with more from Huey Lewis. How did you first
Speaker 1: get connected with Clover? That's a good question. So now
Speaker 1: now I'm at Cornell and I'm playing harmonica in bands,
Speaker 1: and I finally decided I want to be a musician
Speaker 1: at Cornell. The African American Student Society and the STS
Speaker 1: took over Willard Straight Hall the on Parents weekend, all
Speaker 1: the African Marian kids took kicked all the parents out
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night and took over the
Speaker 1: place with guns. And this was on the cover of
Speaker 1: Newsweek magazine, and so the whole campus shut down and big.
Speaker 1: So you could take past fail for that that semester,
Speaker 1: because we're two weeks old. Immediately I took past fail
Speaker 1: on everything, and I didn't, you know, another semester didn't
Speaker 1: have to work right, So but eventually it started to
Speaker 1: catch up with me. Yeah. I called my dad and said, look,
Speaker 1: I'm dropping out. I want to be a musician. And
Speaker 1: he said, well, fine, you either know what you're doing
Speaker 1: or you don't. Your dad is a radiologist, says take
Speaker 1: a year leave of absence. I can't imagine a lot
Speaker 1: of radiologists having that conversation with their sons these my
Speaker 1: dad is, my dad is a bohemian. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: both parents are far out, you know. But so now
Speaker 1: I go back to I want to go back to California,
Speaker 1: because this is sixty nine. I finally say, Dad, I'm
Speaker 1: dropping out. He says, no prompt and I go back
Speaker 1: to California and I joined a some of my high
Speaker 1: school grade school friends a bluegrass band called Herford Heartstringers.
Speaker 1: They were like ten of us and we would busk
Speaker 1: at Fisherman's Wharf. That's where we really made some money.
Speaker 1: We had a ten piece bluegrass band, four of whom
Speaker 1: were in the band Clover, and so they recruited me
Speaker 1: for Clover. I played harmonica and they recruited me for Clover,
Speaker 1: and I joined Clover in about seventy two. I guess okay,
Speaker 1: and by that point Clover had made a cup, they'd
Speaker 1: made a couple of Albus. They made two albums in
Speaker 1: the sixties YEP with which were very well regarded in
Speaker 1: England for some reason. For some reason, they were very
Speaker 1: well because they were Andrew Lauder, who was who was
Speaker 1: at time a and R at Liberty Records inherited those
Speaker 1: records from Fantasy and the record was set was distributed
Speaker 1: by Liberty in England and it only sold about nine copies.
Speaker 1: It was an amazing record because the cover was the
Speaker 1: Clover four Clover guys including John McPhee with hair down
Speaker 1: to his waist, wearing coveralls like hippie coveralls, hair down
Speaker 1: to his waist, standing in front of seven foot high
Speaker 1: marijuana plants. And this is when Willie Nelson had a
Speaker 1: coat and die on you know, I mean, this is
Speaker 1: this is early days, you know, early country rock days.
Speaker 1: Well in London that was They just that blew their minds.
Speaker 1: And Andrew Lauder passed the album along to his bands,
Speaker 1: Brindsley Schwartz, Chili Willie and the Red Hot Peppers and
Speaker 1: those pub rock bands, and they really took to Clover
Speaker 1: and in fact, Brinsley Schwartz wrote a song and said
Speaker 1: going to saddle up and ride away to the hills
Speaker 1: where Clover play. So we we now were in Clover
Speaker 1: and we're playing clubs everywhere, and we don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: we don't know any of this, and now we go.
Speaker 1: We hear from it was a John Stewart who was
Speaker 1: from one of the old Kingston trio's, had a ROADI
Speaker 1: named Mark Ford and his drummer. John Stewart's drummer was
Speaker 1: Pete Thomas from Elvis Costello's drummer. Pete Thomas and Mark
Speaker 1: and U. Mark Ford, the ROADI lived in Mill Valley
Speaker 1: and we knew him real well. So on a break,
Speaker 1: Pete Thomas came with Mark Ford because he had mentioned
Speaker 1: to Mark Ford, have you ever heard of a band
Speaker 1: called Clover? And Mark says, yeah, they live in my hometown.
Speaker 1: So now we go. This English guy comes to our
Speaker 1: rehearsal Pete Thomas. He says, man, you guys have a
Speaker 1: big following in England. We said we do, We didn't
Speaker 1: know anything about it. So he told everybody in Britain
Speaker 1: that we were still alive and well. And then next
Speaker 1: thing we know, we're playing the Palomino in La and
Speaker 1: these four guys walk in flexually, six guys in little
Speaker 1: gray suits and short air and it was Doctor feel
Speaker 1: Good and Jake Riveria and Nick low was. Nick low
Speaker 1: was Wilco's guitar roadie, and they found out that Clover
Speaker 1: was playing. Oh my gosh, they show up to our
Speaker 1: show and that's we meet, and Jake and Dave Robinson
Speaker 1: hatched the plan to bring Clover to England to be
Speaker 1: produced by Nick Lowe and to take the country by storm.
Speaker 1: But the day we landed Punk Rocket, So this is
Speaker 1: like seventy six exactly simultaneously. In our first few months,
Speaker 1: our managers were Jake Riviera and Dave Robinson and within
Speaker 1: signing us and bringing us to London. In the first
Speaker 1: few months, they signed Graham Parker, Elvis Costello, created Stiff Records,
Speaker 1: Are Signed Reckless, Eric the damned all that stuff, and
Speaker 1: so Nick, they too pulled Nick off Clover and let
Speaker 1: him produce all that other stuff. And for Clover, they
Speaker 1: they hooked us up with Mutt Langer uh To. The
Speaker 1: theory was with us, we had long hair and all
Speaker 1: this stuff. Let's make these guys a rock and roll
Speaker 1: American rock and roll record and compete and aimed them
Speaker 1: for America because because it ain't gonna work here in Britain. Right,
Speaker 1: did you tour at all in England? Oh? Yeah, we
Speaker 1: toured with Linda Lewis. First we toured with Graham Parker,
Speaker 1: and then we toured with Thin Lizzie. How was Graham
Speaker 1: Parker's one of my favorites? How was it touring with
Speaker 1: Graham Parkers? Horrible? We got can't they hated us, we
Speaker 1: got we got ship thrown on us in every gig.
Speaker 1: Graham was a lovely guy. Yeah, but there was a horrible,
Speaker 1: horrible tour. And then we went on tour with Lizzie
Speaker 1: and the same thing. I mean, our road manager was
Speaker 1: a guy called Frank Martinette. Frank real great guy. So
Speaker 1: he said, Frank, you're gonna have to introduce because we're
Speaker 1: building support Finn Lizzie plus support. Right. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is like you might have just walk the plank, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? I mean, this is the this
Speaker 1: is the rock and roll version of walking the plank.
Speaker 1: So curtain's down, we're barely getting it together. Now, curtain
Speaker 1: goes up as the audience just going Lizzie right, and
Speaker 1: then Frank comes out and goes hi, everybody, and they go.
Speaker 1: He goes, hey, Finn, Lizzie will be right out, and
Speaker 1: they go, but first here's clover and they go boom,
Speaker 1: and then stuff starts flying and and uh, I mean,
Speaker 1: it was a horrible first night. It was all we
Speaker 1: could do to get through most of the songs. But
Speaker 1: as soon as it ended and I walked offstage, waiting
Speaker 1: in the wings was Philip Linnip and Philip said, may
Speaker 1: I have a word? Yeah, he says, come, come, come
Speaker 1: to my dressing room. We get in the dressing room
Speaker 1: and he started to critique our set and helped me.
Speaker 1: It really became my mentor, helped me with everything on
Speaker 1: the set list and what songs we should play and
Speaker 1: what I should do. And eventually, you know, I stayed
Speaker 1: with him once in a while. He dressed me out
Speaker 1: of his closet. He played on all his solo records,
Speaker 1: and he really taught me more than not musically necessary,
Speaker 1: but everything else. How to run a rock band? What
Speaker 1: did he what did he tell you about that stage stuff?
Speaker 1: How to run how it wasn't It wasn't how he
Speaker 1: told me. It's how he conducted himself, how how he
Speaker 1: ran his crew, and his band. It was fascinating and
Speaker 1: how he treated the fans. He was Philip was an
Speaker 1: amazing guy. And he's the one that kind of gave
Speaker 1: me confidence that I could sing more and do more
Speaker 1: my own thing a little bit. And then so while
Speaker 1: you're there, I think it is at that time some
Speaker 1: of Clover backs up that and his first on my
Speaker 1: and is true his first record? And then you play
Speaker 1: is it was it that trip where you played for
Speaker 1: on Nickelo and Dave Edmonds? Right? That was that was
Speaker 1: a little later those two there. Yeah, Clover the rhythm
Speaker 1: section plays backed up Elvis for My Amis Troupe and
Speaker 1: Nick produced it. And then so we made two records
Speaker 1: and they didn't happen. We came really close, but didn't
Speaker 1: happen until the band breaks up. When John McPhee and
Speaker 1: drummer Kevin Wells have written a song and they want
Speaker 1: to go their own solo route. They mcpee eventually joins
Speaker 1: the Dubies. So we split up and I go back
Speaker 1: to Marin County and I just start a little jam session.
Speaker 1: They asked me to run a jam session every Monday night,
Speaker 1: and we just did a Monday night live fun, just
Speaker 1: a jam where we had comedians and and just goofy stuff,
Speaker 1: and I had a house band that I selected, which
Speaker 1: was four of them was new member you know, going
Speaker 1: soon to be news guys, and I started singing all
Speaker 1: the songs and I am seed the deal, and then
Speaker 1: I sang the songs and the thing got to be
Speaker 1: very popular. We got offered a free studio time, so
Speaker 1: we went into the studio with our Monday night live
Speaker 1: band and we cut a disco version of Exodus that
Speaker 1: we were playing them from ex Exi Disco. We called it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really funny. But I was mindful that I wasn't
Speaker 1: going to try to make anything happen. I was going
Speaker 1: to do things for the heck of it like the
Speaker 1: punks did. So when I got the free studio time,
Speaker 1: I said, you know what, We're gonna cut exa diisco
Speaker 1: because it was just fun. And so now at this
Speaker 1: point you've been in the music business for some time, though,
Speaker 1: did you for you were you just goofing off or
Speaker 1: did you think in your back and mind, no, this
Speaker 1: is going to be one day I'm going to be
Speaker 1: big and one day it's going to be Not Yet
Speaker 1: I'm not thinking I'm thinking to myself. The lesson here
Speaker 1: is don't worry about record deals or records or in
Speaker 1: just have fun, play music and do this thing. Do
Speaker 1: not worry about your stupid career anymore. So that's what
Speaker 1: we did. We cut Exo Disco. I mean, how stupid
Speaker 1: is using two days of studio time to cut a
Speaker 1: disco version of Exodus. It's ridiculous. So now I got
Speaker 1: this tape and like days later, Nick Low calls me
Speaker 1: and says, we want you to come over and I
Speaker 1: want you to play on one song of mine and
Speaker 1: Edmonds wants and we rock By wants to cut bad
Speaker 1: as Bad and Edmonds wants to sing it. I said great, Sure,
Speaker 1: so he says, well can we fly over? Yeah, So
Speaker 1: I fly over to London. I land, go straight to
Speaker 1: the studio, cut the Nicolos song, cut Bad is Bad.
Speaker 1: Then we the record company comes down, their record company
Speaker 1: and listens to the tracks. Everything's fine, there's there's a
Speaker 1: there's a kind of a lull. I say, you guys
Speaker 1: want to hear something funny? He's sure, So I play
Speaker 1: Exo Disco for him right. Well, the record company loves it.
Speaker 1: They go, wow, that could be a hit. I said,
Speaker 1: well great, Yeah, he said, come see us, we'll make
Speaker 1: a singles deal. I said, great tomorrow, okay, Sure they leave.
Speaker 1: So I go to Jake. I said, Jake, what do
Speaker 1: I do? He says, no problem. He says, get eleven
Speaker 1: points and three thousand pounds, which in those days was
Speaker 1: really good. It was almost six grand. So I get
Speaker 1: three thousand pounds, he says, and they might want you
Speaker 1: to do some other work, like saying on it or
Speaker 1: you know, put some if they want to do anything,
Speaker 1: say fine, but you pay for the studio time and
Speaker 1: don't leave without the three thousand pounds. I said, okay.
Speaker 1: So the next day I went to the record label.
Speaker 1: Sure enough, made a singles deal for Exo Disco. Come,
Speaker 1: I got a second three. I got a check for
Speaker 1: three thou. I go back to California. I call my
Speaker 1: Monday Night Live compadres. I go, hey, boys, we got
Speaker 1: a little action. You know, I got a singles deal here.
Speaker 1: So they say great, but they wanted me to sing
Speaker 1: on it a little more right. They want a little
Speaker 1: more voke. Because I hadn't didn't do a lot of vocals,
Speaker 1: mainly an instrumental. I said, no problem, I'll sing it
Speaker 1: at all problem. So we go back to the studio
Speaker 1: and I go, hey, I need to sing a little
Speaker 1: more on that I got, so we need some studio time.
Speaker 1: Come to find out they've erased part of the master
Speaker 1: that the multi track. So I screamed bloody murder. I said,
Speaker 1: what am I gonna do? I just made a singles deal.
Speaker 1: For this deal, they want me to sing. They I
Speaker 1: gotta recut it now. They said, well, no problem, We'll
Speaker 1: give you as much time as you need. I said,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna need a week. They said, no problem, you
Speaker 1: got it. I said, okay, wow. So then what I
Speaker 1: did is I took the master track, put it onto
Speaker 1: two of the tent of the twenty four track multi,
Speaker 1: sang on a third track, mixed it down to another
Speaker 1: two track, done with it took two hours, three hours,
Speaker 1: I lost a generation of tape, and it sounded you
Speaker 1: could tell actually wasn't very good. But I knew it
Speaker 1: didn't mean anything. And with the rest of the week,
Speaker 1: I cut three other songs with my band, the original
Speaker 1: songs that got us our record contract and our manager.
Speaker 1: You're saying, to hell with it paid off? Okay? See
Speaker 1: that was That was the zen Thriddle. For me was
Speaker 1: quit trying to make it and you will. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back with Huey Lewis after a short break. We're
Speaker 1: back with the rest of Bruce's interview with Huey Lewis
Speaker 1: for your second album, Though You Did, which you made
Speaker 1: with mud Lang. Yeah, you've called that the Deal with
Speaker 1: the Devil? What did you mean? They kind of coaxed
Speaker 1: that out of me, To be honest, That's why we
Speaker 1: insisted on producing our own record on Picture of This
Speaker 1: because I wanted to make those decisions, the commercial decisions, ourselves,
Speaker 1: because we knew we're gonna have to live with them forever.
Speaker 1: And so that's how we started producing ourselves. But you
Speaker 1: knew at that point, Look, we're going to be a
Speaker 1: pop band now, We're not going to be a jam band.
Speaker 1: We're not going to be well, there were no jam
Speaker 1: bands zero. It's nineteen eighty there's nothing but hit singles,
Speaker 1: and we, as you correctly surmise, we're more like a
Speaker 1: jam band than we were. So the hardest thing for
Speaker 1: us was to get a hit single, and that's what
Speaker 1: we So we wanted to produce ourselves because we wanted
Speaker 1: to make those decisions ourselves. But we starting with do
Speaker 1: You Believe in Love? And then later with Sports, because
Speaker 1: do You Believe in Love was our only hit on
Speaker 1: that record, and it sold two hundred fifty thousand copies,
Speaker 1: which is kind of break even for those times. But
Speaker 1: on Sports, which we produced ourselves, we literally aimed every
Speaker 1: track right at radio because we knew we needed a
Speaker 1: hit single to exist. We didn't know we're gonna have
Speaker 1: five of them, but we knew we needed one. And
Speaker 1: that's that's why Sports it sounds like it does a
Speaker 1: record of its time, a collection of singles. And we
Speaker 1: always confident you could deliver a single, though, that we
Speaker 1: could get a single, could deliver a single. No, that's
Speaker 1: that was I was not confident at all that we
Speaker 1: could do single. That's why I got the Mutt Langer song.
Speaker 1: That's why I cut Heart and Soul on Sports because
Speaker 1: they sounded like hits to me, and and that became
Speaker 1: your first hit, right Heart and Soul. Hart and Soul
Speaker 1: was our first single off of Sports, and that did
Speaker 1: did that do the Was that the best the highest
Speaker 1: ranking single on that Yeah? I don't know. He got
Speaker 1: to top ten. I think it got six. We didn't
Speaker 1: have the first number one we had was Power Love.
Speaker 1: I think all those sports singles none of them got
Speaker 1: to number one, but the album went to a number one,
Speaker 1: right because you had If This Is It, Heart of
Speaker 1: rock and Roll, New Drug, New Drug, Heart and Soul, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and If This Is It and Walking on a Thin
Speaker 1: Line was single. Okay, Now I do have one bone
Speaker 1: to pick with you about Heart of Rock and Roll
Speaker 1: because I grew up in Canada and the version we
Speaker 1: heard when you were listing the cities at in you
Speaker 1: say Toronto, Montreal, and everybody was so happy. And then
Speaker 1: I moved to the States twenty years ago. I hear
Speaker 1: the song and the radio that's not on the version
Speaker 1: down here, and they're funny. And I'll tell you another
Speaker 1: I'll tell you another funny anecdote to that same thing.
Speaker 1: How that happened. When the song looks like it's gonna
Speaker 1: be a single, I'm gonna be a hit. They got
Speaker 1: me back in the studio to sing every song every
Speaker 1: city in the world, basically, I mean they wanted me
Speaker 1: to do. So. If I'm in Sweden, I'm hearing Stockholm,
Speaker 1: and so now I'm in Canada, we're doing Canada in Toronto. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, but and nic goes Halifax, and I'd never
Speaker 1: been to Halifax, right, and I went time out. I
Speaker 1: can't say Halifax, Okay, why, I said, because the harder
Speaker 1: rock and roll can't be in Halifax. I said, I
Speaker 1: just can't. So I drew the line at Halifax. And
Speaker 1: what's funny about that is that now the next year
Speaker 1: we do we opened our tour in Canada and we
Speaker 1: started we started New and Land, uh and and and
Speaker 1: and now we traveled to Halifax, and I go see Halifax,
Speaker 1: and we go out, we have a night off. We
Speaker 1: go to this little pub and there's this great rhythm
Speaker 1: and blues band there at Halifax. And Halifax is the
Speaker 1: most soulful, little funky town I've ever been to. And
Speaker 1: I could put it could Halifax is a lot funkier
Speaker 1: than half of the cities I've mentioned in this song.
Speaker 1: It was funny. So when you when you hit it
Speaker 1: big here in your early thirties by this point, yeah,
Speaker 1: you've been doing this a long time. I think you're married,
Speaker 1: you may have one of one of your kids, that's try.
Speaker 1: What was it like to be suddenly one of the
Speaker 1: biggest stars in the world, Well, you know it was
Speaker 1: it wasn't overwhelming because I'd been doing it so long
Speaker 1: and I'd seen so much, right, I mean, I'd seen Philip,
Speaker 1: and I'd seen all this stuff, and so I understood,
Speaker 1: I mean, I understood that. And I even sat the
Speaker 1: boys down at a certain point when we were opening
Speaker 1: for thirty eight Special and and and our record was
Speaker 1: taken off and we were just killing it, and it
Speaker 1: was so much fun because we'd show up at the gig.
Speaker 1: All we do is support, you know, we play what
Speaker 1: an hour maybe in front of thirty eight Special. We
Speaker 1: show up at seven, eat a big crew meal, and
Speaker 1: then go on stage at seven thirty or eight, and
Speaker 1: we're done at nine, see you, you know. And I
Speaker 1: remember and we were tearing the crowd up because our
Speaker 1: record was what was going and we do as many
Speaker 1: encores as we wanted, and I remember sitting everybody down.
Speaker 1: We're in a nice little disguy. I said, boys, enjoy
Speaker 1: this because it's you know, Unfortunately, we're gonna be headlining
Speaker 1: our own shows pretty soon. We'll have to bring our
Speaker 1: own lights and our own sound, and the critics are
Speaker 1: going to be after us, and we're gonna have to cut.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to sound checks is going to be
Speaker 1: at eleven in the morning and we're gonna bubble. And
Speaker 1: I said, this right here, this is as good as
Speaker 1: it gets. Riding on the bubble right now, feeling this momentum,
Speaker 1: riding this rocket ship to the top, and enjoy this
Speaker 1: because it only happens once in your whole life. And
Speaker 1: we did. We, I can honestly say, because we weren't
Speaker 1: spring chickens. We knew what was going on, and we
Speaker 1: took it with a measure of salt and had fun.
Speaker 1: Were you still enjoying it when you when you were
Speaker 1: the top, when you were the airliners? I didn't like
Speaker 1: the profile so much. You know, airports, malls, shopping malls,
Speaker 1: they were really hard because I get I was bombarded
Speaker 1: with stuff and and I you know, I'm used to it,
Speaker 1: and I got good, good at it. You talk them down,
Speaker 1: he says, wait, wait, Look, you have to talk to
Speaker 1: your crowd. You know, the more you try and be
Speaker 1: a recluse, the worst they get. So you got to
Speaker 1: go right after them and say, look, I can't sign
Speaker 1: all your autographs. There's a hundred of you. You got it,
Speaker 1: so just please, but thanks very much. But there was
Speaker 1: a lot of explaining, and a lot of moving out
Speaker 1: of places, and worried about going over there because of
Speaker 1: all those people. And and now I don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about that. But I mean, you would strange things.
Speaker 1: You were You were on the USA for Africa, but
Speaker 1: you weren't supposed to sing, and then you did sing? Right,
Speaker 1: How did that happen? Well, you know, we got invited
Speaker 1: to do that, do it. We do the chorus and
Speaker 1: now we're done, and they take breaks and we're in
Speaker 1: I'm in the lounge, um, you know, telling jokes and whatnot.
Speaker 1: We're just having fun. Thinking it's over and I get it.
Speaker 1: And a guy comes to assisted because he says, hey,
Speaker 1: Quincy wants to see it. Really, So I go out,
Speaker 1: say Quincy, hey. He says, hey, Hue, we're smelly smelling.
Speaker 1: Get over here. That they called Michael smelly because he
Speaker 1: was so clean. And Michael Jackson comes. Jackson was called
Speaker 1: smelling smelly, right, And so Quincy says, sing him your line,
Speaker 1: and Michael sings the line and he says, singing, Hue,
Speaker 1: I sang the line. He says, you got it. It
Speaker 1: was Prince's line, but Prince didn't show up. Prince boycotted
Speaker 1: the Prince's line. I got Prince's line, yeah, because you're
Speaker 1: early in the song. No, no, no, I'm on the bridge.
Speaker 1: I just believe there's Oh wow, that's right. That was
Speaker 1: gonna be Prince. Yeah. Did Michael sing it well when
Speaker 1: he sang it to you? Oh yeah. And Michael was
Speaker 1: right there for the whole recording session, Okay, him than me.
Speaker 1: I had the line right after Michael. So so we
Speaker 1: when we cut, we stood there while we cut, and
Speaker 1: you know, there were a bunch of bad takes and
Speaker 1: guys screwed up and everything. So I got to interact
Speaker 1: with Michael and he was amazing. I mean, first of all,
Speaker 1: he knew he didn't miss a trick, you know, in
Speaker 1: the terms of the recording. And to look at him,
Speaker 1: you think he was just kind of He had the
Speaker 1: big dark glasses, the aviator shades on, and tons of makeup.
Speaker 1: You know, he's just full pancake makeup. There were baby
Speaker 1: moons on his glasses. He had so much makeup on,
Speaker 1: you know, so you think, oh, this guy, he's out
Speaker 1: of it. Well he was not out of it. He
Speaker 1: knew exactly what was going on because I remember when
Speaker 1: we did the round the first pass to sing lead,
Speaker 1: we had like five microphones and they were fifteen singers,
Speaker 1: so we all three to each mic. One guy would
Speaker 1: would lean in, sing his part and get back, the
Speaker 1: middle guy would lead in sing back, and the last
Speaker 1: guy kind of like that. So when we start, it
Speaker 1: starts with here comes when we eat a certain call,
Speaker 1: when the world must come together as one. Then Steve,
Speaker 1: they have happy people dying. Oh wait, wait wait, stop
Speaker 1: stops up and so he stops everything, and then we
Speaker 1: go back and start again, and he intentionally messes it up.
Speaker 1: You know, he's cute. He's just messing around, you know,
Speaker 1: Stevie's just messing around. And so now they go back
Speaker 1: and they started again, and now they get maybe down
Speaker 1: to al Jaro, and he messes up. And now they
Speaker 1: started again, and they get down to somebody else before
Speaker 1: they stop and they go back. And now Humberto Gadaka,
Speaker 1: the engineer, comes out to tweets the microphones, and I go, hey, Humberto,
Speaker 1: what I said, Hey, could you just let it play
Speaker 1: all the way through so we can at least to
Speaker 1: have a whack in our line. I mean, Stevie Wonder
Speaker 1: has had four takes already, and I got none. He's
Speaker 1: Stevie wonder, you know. And and he goes back he said,
Speaker 1: oh sure, no problem, goes back in, and Michael says me,
Speaker 1: good idea, good idea. I said, thanks. And now we
Speaker 1: do a pass and it's not very good, and he
Speaker 1: lets it all go. You can test him, all right,
Speaker 1: Quince said, let's do another one. We do another pass,
Speaker 1: and we actually nail it. I don't know if it
Speaker 1: was the second one, our third one, but we do
Speaker 1: this one pass that's real good all the way around boom.
Speaker 1: And then I look and I see him say to
Speaker 1: a sequency through the glass to indicate the Combertica, save
Speaker 1: that one. And then he says, all right, let's do it.
Speaker 1: Let's just do another one. And right then Michael grabs
Speaker 1: my arm and says, are they going to save that
Speaker 1: last one? I said, yeah, they're saving the last one.
Speaker 1: He's just good. I said, yeah. He says, because that
Speaker 1: was it, wasn't it? I said, yep, that was it? Okay,
Speaker 1: and that was it anymore? Yeah? Oh wow? Uh. And
Speaker 1: then you you did Power of Love, you did for
Speaker 1: the for the movie. Yeah, and that was your first
Speaker 1: number one, first number one, and you I think we
Speaker 1: should mention you've written other than hart and Soul. You
Speaker 1: write all the songs as well or co write the songs. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you wrote the Power of Love. Yeah, power Love.
Speaker 1: Power of Love is you know we Steven Spielberg and
Speaker 1: Bob Zamechas and Bob Gail and Neil Canton, who produced,
Speaker 1: directed and wrote the film, asked to take a meeting
Speaker 1: with usaid Ambulin Entertainment. Ambulin was brand new. Zamecha said,
Speaker 1: you know, we've just written this film called Back to
Speaker 1: the Future, and our our lead character, Martin Wickfly, his
Speaker 1: favorite band would be Huey Lewis and the news. How
Speaker 1: would you like to write a song for the film?
Speaker 1: I said, flattered, but I don't know how to write
Speaker 1: for film necessarily. And I don't mean to be offend you,
Speaker 1: but I don't fancy writing a song called back to
Speaker 1: the Future. And they said, oh, no problem, you can
Speaker 1: call it whatever you want to call it. We just
Speaker 1: won't one of yours. I said, great, I'll send you
Speaker 1: the next thing. We were right, and that was it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the way I remember it. Zamechas remembers us sending
Speaker 1: down a demo of Power of Love and him saying
Speaker 1: to me that him told me that it wasn't up
Speaker 1: enough up quote unquote, And so the verses in a
Speaker 1: minor key, right, so, and I can't remember what version
Speaker 1: we had. I know we had two bridges. But and
Speaker 1: then according to Zamechas, we made some changes. And I
Speaker 1: suppose that could be what Johnny when Johnny's participation, which
Speaker 1: are those major stabs at the beginning, bom bom bom
Speaker 1: bom bomp. I think we might have Johnny kla our
Speaker 1: sax vote, guitar player and co writer. I think maybe
Speaker 1: he added those to Chris. But then Chris and I
Speaker 1: had written the song, and that's what Johnny did. I
Speaker 1: think he added that part and then we sent it
Speaker 1: down and then Bob Zamechas wrote, so it started with
Speaker 1: that verse which has the kind of funkier Yeah. Oh,
Speaker 1: I say they wanted a little happier sound off the
Speaker 1: top though, And then you had one of the great
Speaker 1: cameos in Hollywood history, was certainly one of the great
Speaker 1: seven second cameos. Was a line written for you? Or
Speaker 1: did you say? Did you say it is written? Or
Speaker 1: I pad it it was written? You're too loud and
Speaker 1: I put your too darn loud. Yeah, sorry, is it? Sorry? Boys?
Speaker 1: You're just sorry? Boys, You're just too darn loud. Oh
Speaker 1: it's fabulous. You've done some acting. But yeah, I love it,
Speaker 1: I dig it, I enjoy it. I'm not afraid to
Speaker 1: say that I have fesban aspirations. Okay, but you you
Speaker 1: only do that. You've done hot in Cleveland, You've done
Speaker 1: some TV. Uh. People must have been throwing movie scripts
Speaker 1: at you all the time. But but there's stuff where
Speaker 1: I'm Huey Lewis or I'm a rock star or yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't want to do I you know, that's not
Speaker 1: you know, Sports was we reduced ourselves and we literally
Speaker 1: went after we needed a hit single. Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: that was the last thing and we and we really
Speaker 1: just tore our hair out over hit singles and you know,
Speaker 1: and we were we were mean to each other over
Speaker 1: that because it wasn't good enough and the horn chart
Speaker 1: and stuff. I mean, I was, I was pretty pretty mean,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty ambitious and pretty mean. And I vowed
Speaker 1: when the Sports hit like crazy, I said, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do anything for commercial reasons anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna if it doesn't have a creative component to it,
Speaker 1: I'm not in and so you know, I've just pretty
Speaker 1: much kind of stuck by that right well for not
Speaker 1: the next AIB but the obum after that, you stand
Speaker 1: gets playing a couple of Yeah, that's another great story.
Speaker 1: But the way that worked is my dad was a jazzer,
Speaker 1: as I told you, and he tells me. I'm talking
Speaker 1: to my dad and he goes, hey, man, Zoot Sims
Speaker 1: died and they're doing a benefit for Zuit. I said, really,
Speaker 1: and he says, man, that'll be that'll be something. Man.
Speaker 1: They got Jimmy Jones trio and gets and all these people.
Speaker 1: I said, well whatever, So secretly I got tickets for
Speaker 1: my old man, for my dad and I to go
Speaker 1: see this this thing. So then I told him we
Speaker 1: got tickets. He said, oh, that's great. Great, So we
Speaker 1: go and and he doesn't know anything about my career
Speaker 1: because my dad's a jazzer and his advice to me
Speaker 1: always was, you know, I'd say, I'm making I'm working
Speaker 1: on a new record. Dad. You go great. He says,
Speaker 1: are you playing harmonica? I said, yeah, I'm playing a
Speaker 1: little bit. He says, hey, man, I mean you need
Speaker 1: to play harmonica. I said what I'm telling you, He says,
Speaker 1: play harmonica. Here's let me tell you something. Just keep
Speaker 1: practicing that harmonica because they can't take that away from you.
Speaker 1: He says this Huey Lewis shit here today, gone tomorrow.
Speaker 1: And that was my dad's advice to me. Did he
Speaker 1: ever come and see you? Much later? I pull him
Speaker 1: to Worcester Centrum. We sold out three nights of the centrum.
Speaker 1: I flew him back to Boston see his mother, who
Speaker 1: he hadn't talked to him forty years. You know. He
Speaker 1: was a hard ass Irish think Eugene O'Neill. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: So now my dad I get tickets to this jazz
Speaker 1: benefit for zue Tims and we go to the place.
Speaker 1: We were there early and and they go, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: there's Hughie you know. Oh yes, sir mister Lewis. And
Speaker 1: my dad can't believe how well I'm treated. And they
Speaker 1: march us down to the two aisle seats. Small club anyway,
Speaker 1: but two aisle seats in like the third row, perfect
Speaker 1: best seats in the house. And sitting right there's Phil Ellwood,
Speaker 1: the music critic. And my dad knows everything about jazz
Speaker 1: I mean, he plays jazz, but he knows everything. He's
Speaker 1: a music college. He can name everybody in Jimmy lunsford'span,
Speaker 1: he can name everybody in Chick Webb's orchestra. He knows everything,
Speaker 1: you know. And so he sees and he reads Phil
Speaker 1: Elwood all the time. And Phil Ellwood says, oh my god, Hughey, Lewis,
Speaker 1: how are you doing? Man? A big fan, says Ellwood.
Speaker 1: And my old man sees Ellwood recognizing his son, and
Speaker 1: can't even believe it. I said, this is my dad. He's,
Speaker 1: oh my god, you're Phil Ellwood. Yeah. But so I
Speaker 1: sit my old man down and Ellwood next to Elwood
Speaker 1: and they just start talking about jazz and stuff and
Speaker 1: all these guys and blah blah blah, all the stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, while I'm sitting there, when we're kind of
Speaker 1: waiting for things, I feel a tap on my shoulder
Speaker 1: like this, and I turn around and it's gets and
Speaker 1: he's got his horn on and he's he's standing over
Speaker 1: me with his horn. He goes, you're Yue Lewis right?
Speaker 1: I said, yesis yeah, my girlfriend wants to eat your shorts.
Speaker 1: I oh, I'm sorry. He says, hey, and I look like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, it stand Yess. He says, hey, hey,
Speaker 1: why don't you let me play on some of your ship.
Speaker 1: He says, you know I can play that crap too.
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, I'm sure you can. Yeah, yeah, whatever.
Speaker 1: He's here. He gets a card out, and he gave
Speaker 1: me a card and said, stand gets. He goes have sacks,
Speaker 1: will travel and handed me the card and I put
Speaker 1: in my pocket. My old man's beside himself, and on
Speaker 1: the ride home, my old man says, if you don't
Speaker 1: take him up on that offer, I will never ever
Speaker 1: forgive you. He says, he has cancer and he's not
Speaker 1: going to be around that long. And you need you need.
Speaker 1: My dad was a radiologist and knew all this oncology
Speaker 1: stuff that in those days, and he knew about gets
Speaker 1: this condition and all this. So that's so that we
Speaker 1: spent six months looking for a tune that would work
Speaker 1: for Stand and then Chris came up with that little
Speaker 1: riff and I wrote small World just four gets as
Speaker 1: a as a vehicle. Now you did you guys kept touring,
Speaker 1: you kept making new albums, but you didn't before this album.
Speaker 1: You didn't do a new album for about twenty years, right,
Speaker 1: I think two thousand was your last. You're not an
Speaker 1: album of original material, right. We've done a couple of
Speaker 1: things since then, but they were due to Soulsville. We
Speaker 1: did an R and B. Stacks really a Memphis tribute
Speaker 1: right now? Were you a big Stacks fan? I was, okay,
Speaker 1: because what's great about that record? You do respect yourself?
Speaker 1: And I think a couple of Salomon Brook songs, but
Speaker 1: most of them are songs most people don't know. That's right, Like,
Speaker 1: you've got a couple of great Johnny Taylor songs free,
Speaker 1: just the one I'm looking for, right right? Good for you,
Speaker 1: that's see. The theory was because people have done original
Speaker 1: versions of old songs like Mustang Sally or or you know,
Speaker 1: man Knocking on Wood or soul Man or something. And
Speaker 1: I so it was either do a completely original version
Speaker 1: of soul Man or those of a really recognizable song,
Speaker 1: or find songs that weren't so recognizable that people didn't
Speaker 1: know anything about and do faithful versions of those. And
Speaker 1: I thought that would be more fun. Yeah, So tell
Speaker 1: me a little your new album U seven songs, and
Speaker 1: that's because you ran, because that's how many Kanye had
Speaker 1: No No that's the reason. No. Um, you know, some
Speaker 1: of it, like like your single her Love is Killing Me,
Speaker 1: that sounds very much like an eighties everybody says that.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't hear it. You know what,
Speaker 1: the comment I get more than anything else is that
Speaker 1: it's just vintage Huey Lewis and the News. It sounds
Speaker 1: like Huey Lewis and the News right away, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a Huey Lewis and the News record. I mean,
Speaker 1: all with all the songs, I go, really, what does
Speaker 1: Huey Lewis and the News sound like? I mean, we're
Speaker 1: all over the map. I don't. I don't well, I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, I think the single does. It's got
Speaker 1: that kind of crunchy eighties guitar. But some of the
Speaker 1: other ones like uh, when We're young and while we're young,
Speaker 1: young and remind me why I still love you, it's
Speaker 1: got they're more. They're kind of back to your seventies
Speaker 1: funk days a little more. It's got that kind of
Speaker 1: country thing. Was it nice to kind of feel like
Speaker 1: doesn't have to it doesn't have to sound like power
Speaker 1: of love. We can do what we want. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, The truth is, I just follow the song.
Speaker 1: I mean, the song is the hardest part the whole deal.
Speaker 1: You got to have. A song needs to be about something.
Speaker 1: You have to have a perspective, and at my ripe
Speaker 1: old age, I mean, you know, it's hard to find
Speaker 1: an original perspective. You're writing a rock and roll song,
Speaker 1: so it's really it's kind of like a haiku. I mean,
Speaker 1: you really are trying to reinvent the wheel here with
Speaker 1: a pop song, and you don't want to cover past stuff.
Speaker 1: And I've already written all bunch of stuff. So what
Speaker 1: am I going to do with this? Riple can't sing
Speaker 1: about cars and girls anymore? What am I gonna do?
Speaker 1: You know a second, you do sing about cars and girls?
Speaker 1: I do? Yeah, pretty girls everywhere? All right, Pretty well,
Speaker 1: that's Eugene Church singing about girls. Okay, fantastic. It is great.
Speaker 1: So what what happens now You've got this album out.
Speaker 1: You're dealing with these health issues we talked about, what's
Speaker 1: what's the prognosis for that? Well, it's not the end
Speaker 1: of the world, you know, I mean, did it ever
Speaker 1: seem like the end of the world? It did in
Speaker 1: the first for the first couple of months. I was
Speaker 1: so depressed, you know, and then I don't know why,
Speaker 1: I guess, you know, shame on me for that, I suppose,
Speaker 1: but I was. I was just horribly depressed, thinking I
Speaker 1: was never gonna sing again. You know. I don't miss
Speaker 1: doing five shows a week, you know, but I missed
Speaker 1: doing a show every now and again. And I miss
Speaker 1: I missed the camaraderie. I miss I missed the circus
Speaker 1: that was rock and roll touring the twenty five of us.
Speaker 1: You know, it was a fun thing. It's a great
Speaker 1: it's a great way to it's a great way to live.
Speaker 1: It's you get to kind of live like a teenager,
Speaker 1: you know, It's it's a lot of fun. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: I hope you get to live that way again. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. This has been so wonderful. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thanks the Huey Lewis for sharing his story. We certainly
Speaker 1: hope he's back on stage soon. Hughey's new album Whether
Speaker 1: is out now. You can hear it along with the
Speaker 1: rest of our favorite be cuts by checking out the
Speaker 1: playlists we made for this episode at Broken record podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. Also, if you sure to check out our
Speaker 1: YouTube channel, where we can find all our past episodes
Speaker 1: and some great bonus material as well. You can subscribe
Speaker 1: at YouTube dot com slash broken Record podcast. Broken Record
Speaker 1: is produced with help from Jason Gambrel, Mia LaBelle Leah Rose,
Speaker 1: and Martin Gonzalez for Pushkin Industries. Our theme musics by
Speaker 1: Kenny Beats. Thanks for listening. I'm justin Richmond.