huey lewis

 Huey Lewis and the News burst out of San Francisco onto the national music scene at
the beginning of the decade, with their self-titled rock pop album released by Chrysalis,
though they really didn’t come into their own, commercially or artistically, until their 1983
smash, Sports. Though their roots were visible (blues, Memphis soul, country) on Huey
Lewis and the News they seemed a little too willing to cash in on the late seventies/early
eighties taste for New Wave, and the album—though it’s still a smashing debut—seems
a little too stark, too punk. Examples of this being the drumming on the first single,
“Some of My Lies Are True (Sooner or Later),” and the fake handclaps on “Don’t Make
Me Do It” as well as the organ on “Taking a Walk.” Even though it was a little bit
strained, their peppy boy-wants-girl lyrics and the energy with which Lewis, as a lead
singer, instilled all the songs were refreshing. Having a great lead guitarist like Chris
Hayes (who also shares vocals) doesn’t hurt either. Hayes’ solos are as original and
unrehearsed as any in rock. Yet the keyboardist, Sean Hopper, seemed too intent on
playing the organ a little too mechanically (though his piano playing on the second half
of the album gets better) and Bill Gibson’s drumming was too muted to have much
impact. The songwriting also didn’t mature until much later, though many of the catchy
songs had hints of longing and regret and dread (“Stop Trying” is just one example).
 Though the boys hail from San Francisco and they share some similarities with their
Southern California counterparts, the Beach Boys (gorgeous harmonies, sophisticated
vocalizing, beautiful melodies—they even posed with a surfboard on the cover of the
debut album), they also carried with them some of the bleakness and nihilism of the
(thankfully now forgotten) “punk rock” scene of Los Angeles at the time. Talk about your
Angry Young Man!—listen to Huey on “Who Cares,” “Stop Trying,” “Don’t Even Tell Me
That You Love Me,” “Trouble in Paradise” (the titles say it all). Huey hits his notes like
an embittered survivor and the band often sounds as angry as performers like the Clash
or Billy Joel or Blondie. No one should forget that we have Elvis Costello to thank for
discovering Huey in the first place. Huey played harmonica on Costello’s second record,
the thin, vapid My Aim Was You. Lewis has some of Costello’s supposed bitterness,
 Huey Lewis and the News burst out of San Francisco onto the national music scene at
the beginning of the decade, with their self-titled rock pop album released by Chrysalis,
though they really didn’t come into their own, commercially or artistically, until their 1983
smash, Sports. Though their roots were visible (blues, Memphis soul, country) on Huey
Lewis and the News they seemed a little too willing to cash in on the late seventies/early
eighties taste for New Wave, and the album—though it’s still a smashing debut—seems
a little too stark, too punk. Examples of this being the drumming on the first single,
“Some of My Lies Are True (Sooner or Later),” and the fake handclaps on “Don’t Make
Me Do It” as well as the organ on “Taking a Walk.” Even though it was a little bit
strained, their peppy boy-wants-girl lyrics and the energy with which Lewis, as a lead
singer, instilled all the songs were refreshing. Having a great lead guitarist like Chris
Hayes (who also shares vocals) doesn’t hurt either. Hayes’ solos are as original and
unrehearsed as any in rock. Yet the keyboardist, Sean Hopper, seemed too intent on
playing the organ a little too mechanically (though his piano playing on the second half
of the album gets better) and Bill Gibson’s drumming was too muted to have much
impact. The songwriting also didn’t mature until much later, though many of the catchy
songs had hints of longing and regret and dread (“Stop Trying” is just one example).
 Though the boys hail from San Francisco and they share some similarities with their
Southern California counterparts, the Beach Boys (gorgeous harmonies, sophisticated
vocalizing, beautiful melodies—they even posed with a surfboard on the cover of the
debut album), they also carried with them some of the bleakness and nihilism of the
(thankfully now forgotten) “punk rock” scene of Los Angeles at the time. Talk about your
Angry Young Man!—listen to Huey on “Who Cares,” “Stop Trying,” “Don’t Even Tell Me
That You Love Me,” “Trouble in Paradise” (the titles say it all). Huey hits his notes like
an embittered survivor and the band often sounds as angry as performers like the Clash
or Billy Joel or Blondie. No one should forget that we have Elvis Costello to thank for
discovering Huey in the first place. Huey played harmonica on Costello’s second record,
the thin, vapid My Aim Was You. Lewis has some of Costello’s supposed bitterness,
Hayes), is the album’s centerpiece—not only is it the greatest antidrug song ever
written, it’s also a personal statement about how the band has grown up, shucked off
their bad-boy image and learned to become more adult. Hayes’ solo on it is incredible
and the drum machine used, but not credited, gives not only “I Want a New Drug” but
most of the album a more consistent backbeat than any of the previous albums—even
though Bill Gibson is still a welcome presence.
 The rest of the album whizzes by flawlessly—side two opens with their most searing
statement yet: “Walking on a Thin Line,” and no one, not even Bruce Springsteen, has
written as devastatingly about the plight of the Vietnam vet in modern society. This
song, though written by outsiders, shows a social awareness that was new to the band
and proved to anyone who ever doubted it that the band, apart from its blues
background, had a heart. And again in “Finally Found a Home” the band proclaims its
newfound sophistication with this paean to growing up. And though at the same time it’s
about shedding their rebel image, it’s also about how they “found themselves” in the
passion and energy of rock ‘n’ roll. In fact the song works on so many levels it’s almost
too complex for the album to carry, though it never loses its beat and it still has Sean
Hopper’s ringing keyboards, which make it danceable. “If This Is It” is the album’s one
ballad, but it’s not downbeat. It’s a plea for a lover to tell another lover if they want to
carry on with the relationship, and the way Huey sings it (arguably the most superb
vocal on the album), it becomes instilled with hope. Again, this song—as with the rest of
the album—isn’t about chasing or longing after girls, it’s about dealing with relationships.
“Crack Me Up” is the album’s only hint at a throwback to the band’s New Wave days
and it’s minor but amusing, though its antidrinking, antidrug, pro-growing-up statement
isn’t.
 And as a lovely ending to an altogether remarkable album, the band does a version of
“Honky Tonk Blues” (another song written by someone not in the band, named Hank
Williams), and even though it’s a very different type of song, you can feel its presence
throughout the rest of the album. For all its professional sheen, the album has the
integrity of honky-tonk blues. (Aside: During this period Huey also recorded two songs
for the movie Back to the Future, which both went Number One, “The Power of Love”
and “Back in Time,” delightful extras, not footnotes, in what has been shaping up into a
legendary career.) What to say to Sports dissenters in the long run? Nine million people
can’t be wrong.
 Fore! (Chrysalis; 1986) is essentially a continuation of the Sports album but with an
even more professional sheen. This is the record where the guys don’t need to prove
they’ve grown up and that they’ve accepted rock ‘n’ roll, because in the three year
transition between Sports and Fore! they already had. (In fact three of them are wearing
suits on the cover of the record.) It opens with a blaze of fire, “Jacob’s Ladder,” which is
essentially a song about struggle and overcoming compromise, a fitting reminder of
what Huey and the News represents, and with the exception of “Hip to Be Square” it’s
the best song on the album (though it wasn’t written by anyone in the band). This is
followed by the sweetly good-matured “Stuck with You,” a lightweight paean to
relationships and marriage. In fact most of the love songs on the album are about
sustained relationships, unlike the early albums, where the concerns were about either
lusting after girls and not getting them or getting burned in the process. On Fore! the
songs are about guys who are in control (who have the girls) and now have to deal with
them. This new dimension in the News gives the record an added oomph and they
seem more content and satisfied, less urgent, and this makes for their most pleasingly
crafted record to date. But also for every “Doing It All for My Baby” (a delightful ode
about monogamy and satisfaction) there’s a barn-banning blues scorcher number like
“Whole Lotta Lovin’,” and side one (or, on the CD, song number five) ends with the
masterpiece “Hip to Be Square” (which, ironically, is accompanied by the band’s only
bad video), the key song on Fore!; which is a rollicking ode to conformity that’s so
catchy most people probably don’t even listen to the lines, but with Chris Hayes blasting
guitar and the terrific keyboard playing who cares? And it’s not just about the pleasures
of conformity and the importance of trends—it’s also a personal statement about the
band itself, though of what I’m not quite sure.
 If the second part of Fore! doesn’t have the intensity of the first, there are some real
gems that are actually quite complicated. “I Know What I Like” is a song that Huey
would never have sung six years back—a blunt declaration of independence—while the
carefully placed “I Never Walk Alone,” which follows, actually complements the song
and explains it in broader terms (it also has a great organ solo and except for “Hip to Be
Square” has Huey’s strongest vocals). “Forest for the Trees” is an upbeat antisuicide
tract, and though its title might seem like a cliché, Huey and the band have a way of
energizing clichés and making them originals wholly their own. The nifty a cappella
“Naturally” evokes an innocent time while showcasing the band’s vocal harmonies (if
you didn’t know better you’d think it was the Beach Boys coming out of your CD player),
and even if it’s essentially a throwaway, a trifle of sorts, the album ends on a majestic
note with “Simple as That,” a blue-collar ballad that sounds not a note of resignation but
one of hope, and its complex message (it wasn’t written by anyone in the band) of
survival leads the way to their next album, Small World, where they take on global
issues. Fore! might not be the masterpiece Sports is (what could be?), but in its own
way it’s just as satisfying and the mellower, gentler Huey of ‘86 is just as happening.
 Small World (Chrysalis; 1988) is the most ambitious, artistically satisfying record yet
produced by Huey Lewis and the News. The Angry Young Man has definitely been
replaced by a smoothly professional musician and even though Huey has only really
mastered one instrument (the harmonica), its majestic Dylanesque sounds give Small
World a grandeur few artists have reached. It’s an obvious transition and their first
album that tries to make thematic sense—in fact Huey takes on one of the biggest
subjects of all: the importance of global communication. It’s no wonder four out of the
album’s ten songs have the word “world” in their titles and that for the first time there’s
not only one but three instrumentals.
 The CD gets off to a rousing start with the Lewis/Hayes-penned “Small World (Part
One),” which, along with its message of harmony, has a blistering solo by Hayes at its
center. In “Old Antone’s” one can catch the zydeco influences that the band has picked
up on touring around the country, and it gives it a Cajun flavor that is utterly unique.
Bruce Hornsby plays the accordion wonderfully and the lyrics give you a sense of a true
Bayou spirit. Again, on the hit single “Perfect World,” the Tower of Power horns are used
to extraordinary effect. It’s also the best cut on the album (written by Alex Call, who isn’t
in the band) and it ties up all the album’s themes—about accepting the imperfections of
this world but still learning to “keep on dreamin’ of livin’ in a perfect world.” Though the
sang is fastpaced pop it’s still moving in terms of its intentions and the band plays
splendidly on it. Oddly this is followed by two instrumentals: the eerie African-influenced
reggae dance track “Bobo Tempo” and the second part of “Small World.” But just
because these tunes are wordless doesn’t mean the global message of communication
is lost, and they don’t seem like filler or padding because of the implications of their
thematic reprise; the band gets to show off its improvisational skills as well.
 Side two opens smashingly with “Walking with the Kid,” the first Huey song to
acknowledge the responsibilities of fatherhood. His voice sounds mature and even
though we, as listeners, don’t find out until the last line that “the kid” (who we assume is
a buddy) is actually his son, the maturity in Huey’s voice tips us off and it’s hard to
believe that the man who once sang “Heart and Soul” and “Some of My Lies Are True”
is singing this. The album’s big ballad, “World to Me,” is a dreamy pearl of a song, and
though it’s about sticking together in a relationship, it also makes allusions to China and
Alaska and Tennessee, carrying on the album’s “Small World” theme—and the band
sounds really good on it. “Better Be True” is also a bit of a ballad, but it’s not a dreamy
pearl and its lyrics aren’t really about sticking together in a relationship nor does it make
allusions to China or Alaska and the band sounds really good on it.
 “Give Me the Keys (And I’ll Drive You Crazy)” is a good-times blues rocker about
(what else?) driving around, incorporating the album’s theme in a much more playful
way than previous songs on the album did, and though lyrically it might seem
impoverished, it’s still a sign that the new “serious” Lewis—that Huey the artist hasn’t
totally lost his frisky sense of humor. The album ends with “Slammin’,” which has no
words and it’s just a lot of horns that quite frankly, if you turn it up really loud, can give
you a fucking big headache and maybe even make you feel a little sick, though it might
sound different on an album or on a cassette though I wouldn’t know anything about
that. Anyway it set off something wicked in me that lasted for days. And you cannot
dance to it very well.
 It took something like a hundred people to put Small World together (counting all the
extra musicians, drum technicians, accountants, lawyers—who are all, thanked), but this
actually adds to the CD’s theme of community and it doesn’t clutter the record—it makes
it a more joyous experience. With this CD and the four previous ones behind it, Huey
Lewis and the News prove that if this really is a small world, then these guys are the
best American band of the 1980s on this or any other continent—and it has with it Huey
Lewis, a vocalist, musician and writer who just can’t be topped.