What Happened To Huey Lewis

Whatever Happened To Huey Lewis
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Band Member Bios. LEAD VOCALS, HARMONICA – Huey was born a long time ago in New York City. He moved to Marin County, California when he was 4 years old (better sandboxes!). At the tender age of 13, he went east to boarding school at the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, where he began to play the harmonica.
After the multi platinum success of their albums Sports (1983) and Fore! (1986), album sales declined and interest in Huey Lewis and the News started to wane. However, the band continued to tour and release the occasional studio album.
Sep 01, 2007 Best Answer: Huey Lewis & the News continues to tour to this day; however, the lineup has changed significantly since the band's heyday. Mario Cipollina left the band shortly after 1994's Four Chords and Several Years Ago album and tour. His replacement.
Feb 05, 2019 Mix - Huey Lewis & The News - Whatever Happened to True Love (1982) YouTube; Carson Can’t Keep Up with Rodney Dangerfield’s Non-Stop One-Liners (1974) - Duration: 11:51.

Overview (3)

Born	in New York City, New York, USA
Birth Name	Hugh Anthony Cregg III
Height	6' (1.83 m)

Mini Bio (1)

Huey Lewis, frontman of the pop rock band Huey Lewis and the News, was announced as the grand marshal, a fitting selection for a parade themed “Events of the ’80s.” The 2018 Winterfest Boat Parade is scheduled to set sail along the Intracoastal Waterway Dec. WSVN is a proud sponsor.

Huey Lewis was born on July 5, 1950 in New York City, New York, USA as Hugh Anthony Cregg III. He has been married to Sidney Conroy since 1983. They have two children.

Spouse (1)

Sidney Conroy

(1983 - present) ( separated) ( 2 children)

Trivia (25)

Attended Monte Vista High School in Danville, CA.

Has two children, son Austin (born 1985) and daughter Kelly (born 1983).

In 1967 he graduated from Lawrenceville Prep at the age of 16 in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.

He has a brother named Jeff.

Huey dropped out of Cornell University to spend a year living in Europe playing the harp.

Attended Cornell University, majoring in engineering, but dropped out after his junior year, because he was in a band called Clover and they were preparing for rock stardom. Clover (minus Huey Lewis) provided the instrumentals for Elvis Costello's debut album, 'My Aim Is True'.

When the band 'Clover' broke up, he formed Huey Lewis & The News, the so-called 80s Band.

Huey Lewis successfully sued Ray Parker Jr. for plagiarizing the medley to his song 'I Want A New Drug'. They settled out of court and agreed not to talk about the case in public. In 2001, Lewis talked about the case in public when he revealed that Parker paid to settle the suit on an episode of VH1's Behind the Music (1997). Parker then sued Lewis for violating the terms of their agreement.

On the song 'Hip to be Square', from the album 'Fore!', the backup singers at the end of the song include San Fransisco 49er stars Dwight Clark, Ronnie Lott and Joe Montana.

The original name of his band was 'Huey Lewis and the American Express'. It was later changed to Huey Lewis & The News, due to legal reasons.

Huey Lewis & The News won the British Phonographic Industry Award for International Group in 1986.

Contrary to popular belief, Lewis did not forbid 'Hip To Be Square' from being included on the CD soundtrack release of the movie American Psycho (2000) . He licensed the song for use in the film, but the producers failed to secure the appropriate rights to put it on the soundtrack, forcing it to be recalled and the song removed (though early pressings had already been shipped to stores and sold).

During an interview, he said that he learned how to play the harmonica while hitchhiking across Europe.

According to a Behind the Music (1997) interview, his favorite album he ever recorded was 'Small World' (1988), which was a commercial failure.

Played in a band called Clover prior to forming the News.

Played as a backing harmonica musician for Thin Lizzy, and for their vocalist, Phil Lynott, on Phil's solo recordings. Lewis is the harmonica player on the now-legendary Thin Lizzy live album, 'Live and Dangerous'.

Tattoo (Givin' It All Up For Love), on the Picture This album (Huey's second album), is a cover of a Phil Lynott song (whom he had played with prior to forming the News).

Has a small cameo in Back to the Future (1985), a film for which he also contributed two songs.

His father, Hugh Anthony Cregg Jr., was an American of Irish ancestry, and his mother, Maria Magdalena, was from Warsaw, Poland.

'The Power of Love' from Back to the Future (1985) earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song.

He canceled the remainder of the 2018 Huey Lewis and the News tour due to suffering a hearing loss before a show in Dallas, Texas. Doctors told him that he has Meniere's disease, a disorder that causes a fluid build up in the inner ear.

Personal Quotes (1)

A lot has been written and said about why he was so great, but I think the best way to appreciate his greatness is just to go back and play some of the old records. Time has a way of being very unkind to old records, but Elvis' keep getting better and better.

Background information
Huey Lewis and the News in 2006
Origin	San Francisco, California, U.S.
Genres	Rock, pop rock, blue-eyed soul, blues rock
Years active	1979–present^[1]
Labels	Chrysalis, Elektra, BMG
Associated acts	Clover
Website	www.hueylewisandthenews.com
Members	Sean Hopper Bill Gibson John Pierce Stef Burns
Past members

Huey Lewis & The News Performing at Snoqualmie Casino

Huey Lewis and the News is an American rock band based in San Francisco, California. They had a run of hit singles during the 1980s and early 1990s, eventually achieving 19 top ten singles across the BillboardHot 100, Adult Contemporary, and Mainstream Rock charts.

Their most successful album, Sports, was released in 1983. The album, along with its videos being featured on MTV, catapulted the group to worldwide fame. Their popularity expanded when the song 'The Power of Love' was featured in the 1985 film Back to the Future. 'The Power of Love' reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

The News combined a rock backing with soul and doo-wop harmony vocals, and Lewis's distinctive voice.

1History
4Members

History

Whatever Happened To Huey Lewis

In 1972, singer/harmonica player Huey Lewis and keyboardist Sean Hopper joined the Bay Area jazz-funk band Clover. Clover recorded several albums in the 1970s, and in the middle of the decade transplanted themselves to Britain to become part of the UK pub rock scene.

Without Lewis, they eventually became the original backing band for Elvis Costello's first album My Aim Is True. Lewis also worked with Irish band Thin Lizzy, contributing harmonica to the song 'Baby Drives Me Crazy,' recorded onstage for the Live and Dangerous album. Thin Lizzy bassist/vocalist Phil Lynott introduces Lewis by name during the song. The band returned to the Bay Area by the end of the 1970s.

Clover's main competition in the Bay Area jazz-funk scene was a band called Soundhole, whose members included drummer Bill Gibson, saxophonist/rhythm guitarist Johnny Colla, and bassist Mario Cipollina. Like Clover, Soundhole had spent time backing the famous singer and recording artist, Van Morrison. After getting a singles contract from Phonogram Records in 1978, Huey Lewis joined Hopper, Gibson, Colla, and Cippolina to form a new group, Huey Lewis & The American Express.

Although they played gigs under this name, in 1979, they recorded and released a single simply as 'American Express.' The single, 'Exodisco' (a disco version of the theme from the film Exodus) was largely ignored. The B-side of this record, 'Kick Back,' was a song that had previously been performed live by Lewis and his former band, Clover. In 1979, the band was joined by lead guitarist Chris Hayes and moved to Chrysalis Records, which occurred after their demo tape was heard by Pablo Cruise manager Bob Brown, who helped them land a record deal with the label. Chrysalis did not like the name American Express, fearing trademark infringement charges from the credit card company, so the band changed their name.^[2]

Later in 1980, the band released their first studio album, a self-titled LP, Huey Lewis and the News. It went largely unnoticed. In 1982, the band released their second studio album, the self-produced Picture This. The album turned gold, fueled by the breakout success of the hit single 'Do You Believe in Love,' written by former Clover producer 'Mutt' Lange. Largely because of the single, the album remained on the Billboard 200 album chart for 35 weeks and peaked at No. 13. The follow-up singles from Picture This, 'Hope You Love Me Like You Say You Do' and 'Workin' for a Livin', followed, with limited success.^{[citation needed]}

Due to record label delays on the release of their third studio album, Sports, Huey Lewis and the News was back to square one in late 1983, touring small clubs in a bus to promote the record (eventually known as the 'Workin' for a Livin' tour). The new album initially hit number six in the U.S. when first released. However, Sports slowly became a number-one hit in 1984, and went multi-platinum in 1985, thanks to the band's frequent touring and a series of videos that received heavy MTV airplay. Four singles from the album reached the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100: 'Heart and Soul' reached number eight, while 'I Want a New Drug,' 'The Heart of Rock & Roll,' and 'If This Is It' all reached number six. The album has sold over 10 million copies in the U.S. alone.

At the beginning of 1985, the band participated in the all-star USA for Africacharity single 'We Are the World,' with Lewis taking a solo vocal. The song topped music charts throughout the world and became the fastest-selling American pop single in history. They were to play the Philadelphia leg of the Live Aid benefit concert that July, but pulled out two weeks before the concert over concerns that the money raised by the single and other efforts had not been spent to benefit Ethiopian famine victims, earning them vociferous criticism from USA for Africa organizer Harry Belafonte.^[3] A year later a Spin article suggested that much of the money raised from the single and concert had been misspent.^[4]^[5]

Their song, 'The Power of Love,' was a number-one U.S. hit and featured in the 1985 film Back to the Future, for which they also recorded the song, 'Back in Time.' Lewis has a cameo appearance in the film as a faculty member who rejects Marty McFly's band's audition for the school's 'Battle of the Bands' contest. As an inside joke, the piece the band plays is an instrumental heavy metal version of 'The Power of Love' (Lewis's response: 'Hold it, fellas ... I'm afraid you're just too darn loud'). 'The Power of Love' was nominated for an Academy Award.

Following the success of 'The Power of Love' and Back to the Future, Huey Lewis and the News released their fourth studio album, Fore!, in 1986. Fore! followed the success of Sports and reached number-one on the Billboard 200. The album spawned the number-one singles, 'Stuck with You' and 'Jacob's Ladder,' as well as the mainstream rock hit 'Hip to Be Square.' In all, the album had five top-ten singles on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified triple platinum.

The band continued to tour throughout 1987, and released Small World in 1988. After the previous two multi-platinum albums, Small World was considered 'noticeably weaker,' peaking at number 11 and only going platinum.^[6] The album had one top-ten single, 'Perfect World,' which reached number three on the pop chart.^[7]

At the end of the Small World tour in 1989, the band took a break from recording and heavy touring, and parted ways with Chrysalis Records. In 1991, they released Hard at Play on the EMI label in the USA and Chrysalis in the UK,^[8] which went back to the R&B/rock sound of their earlier albums, and released the hit singles, 'Couple Days Off' (number 11) and 'It Hit Me Like a Hammer' (number 21). The album was certified Gold (eventually hitting the one million sales mark) and the band headlined another world tour in support of the release, which would be their last album of new material for a decade.^{[citation needed]}

The band once again changed labels, this time signing with Elektra Records, releasing a cover album in 1994 called Four Chords & Several Years Ago, featuring doo-wop and rock songs from the 1950s and 1960s. The album charted on the Billboard 200 and had two hits on adult contemporary radio.

In early 1996, the band released the greatest hits album, Time Flies, which focused primarily on the releases from Picture This, Sports, and Fore!, and included four new tracks.

Into the 21st century

The band playing at Brighton Beach in August 2008

The band's lineup has changed moderately since its heyday. Bassist Mario Cipollina left the band in 1995, and was replaced by John Pierce. Tower of Power, which often served as the band's touring horn section in the 1980s, ceased their work with the band in 1994. Horn players Marvin McFadden, Ron Stallings and Rob Sudduth joined the group in their place as 'The Sports Section.' In 2001, Chris Hayes retired to spend more time with his family after performing on the album Plan B. Guitarist Stef Burns became Hayes' successor. James Harrah has filled in for Burns occasionally. On April 13, 2009, touring saxophonist Ron Stallings died from multiple myeloma and was replaced by Johnnie Bamont.^[9]

In 2001, the News released their first album in seven years, Plan B, on Jive Records. It only briefly made the charts, with the lead single, 'Let Her Go & Start Over', becoming a minor adult contemporary hit. In December 2004, Huey Lewis and the News recorded their first live album, Live at 25, at the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in Chico, California, commemorating the band's 25th anniversary. In 2008, they recorded the theme song to the action-comedy film Pineapple Express at the request of Seth Rogen.^[10] The song is played over the end credits of the film and appears on the film's soundtrack album.

The band returned to the studio in 2010, recording their first album of new material in nearly a decade. The album, entitled Soulsville, is a Stax Records tribute album recorded at the legendary Ardent Studios.^[11]^[12] They would continue to tour regularly, playing around 70 dates a year, until 2018, when the band halted all touring after it was revealed that Lewis was suffering from Ménière's disease, an inner ear disorder.^[13] In January 2019, Huey Lewis and the News signed with BMG Rights Management and will release their first studio album of new songs since 2001.^[14] The new album, to be released in 2020, will contain songs recorded prior to Lewis's hearing loss.^[15]

'Ghostbusters' song lawsuit

In 1984, Ray Parker Jr. was signed by the producers of Ghostbusters to develop the film's eponymous title song. Later that year, Huey Lewis and the News sued Parker, citing the similarities between the 'Ghostbusters' song and their earlier hit 'I Want a New Drug'. According to Huey Lewis and the News, this was especially damaging to them since 'Ghostbusters' was so popular (it rose to number one on the charts for three weeks). The dispute was ultimately settled out of court.^[16] Lewis has stated that his experiences with the producers of Ghostbusters were indirectly responsible for his getting involved in the movie Back to the Future (1985).

In the 2001 Behind the Music special, Huey Lewis stated: 'The offensive part was not so much that Ray Parker Jr. had ripped this song off, it was kind of symbolic of an industry that wants something – they wanted our wave, and they wanted to buy it. ... [I]t's not for sale. ... In the end, I suppose they were right. I suppose it was for sale, because, basically, they bought it.'^[17] As a result of this statement, Parker filed a suit against Lewis, claiming he violated the settlement's confidentiality agreement and sought an unspecified amount of compensatory and punitive damages as well as attorney's fees.

An issue of Premiere magazine would later feature an anniversary article about the movie Ghostbusters. In that article, the filmmakers at Columbia Pictures admit to using the song 'I Want a New Drug' as temporary background music in many scenes. They then said that they had made an offer to hire Huey Lewis and the News to write the main theme, but the band declined. In a 2001 Behind the Music special, Lewis said the band declined the filmmakers' offer because the band had a prior contractual obligation to do a long concert tour to promote their hugely successful Sports album, which had just been released at the time, and didn't have time to write a main theme for a movie. The filmmakers then gave film footage – with the Huey Lewis song in the background – to Ray Parker Jr., to aid Parker in writing the theme song.^[18]

American Psycho soundtrack

The band is mentioned numerous times in Bret Easton Ellis' 1991 novel, American Psycho, and the subsequent film. The chapter in the novel is entitled 'Huey Lewis & the News,' and consists of an extended essay about the band's recorded output and career. During the scene in the film where the main protagonist, Patrick Bateman, kills his colleague, Paul Allen, with an axe, Bateman plays the song 'Hip to Be Square' and waxes lyrical about the band:

'Do you like Huey Lewis & The News? Their early work was a little too 'new-wave' for my taste, but when 'Sports' came out in '83, I think they really came into their own – both commercially and artistically. The whole album has a clear, crisp sound, and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that really gives the songs a big boost. He's been compared to Elvis Costello, but I think Huey has a far more bitter, cynical sense of humor. In '87, Huey released this, 'Fore', their most accomplished album. I think their undisputed masterpiece is 'Hip to Be Square', a song so catchy most people probably don't listen to the lyrics – but they should! Because it's not just about the pleasures of conformity, and the importance of trends, it's also a personal statement about the band itself!'

'Hip to Be Square' was initially intended to be on the soundtrack album, but was removed from the album due to lack of publishing rights.^[19] As a result, Koch Records were forced to recall and destroy approximately 100,000 copies of the album. Koch Records president Bob Frank said, 'As a result of the violent nature of the film, Huey Lewis's management decided not to give the soundtrack clearance.'^[19] Lewis' manager Bob Brown claimed that the musician had not seen the film and that 'we knew nothing about a soundtrack album. They just went ahead and put the cut on there. I think what they're trying to do is drum up publicity for themselves.'^[19]

In April 2013, to mark the 30th anniversary of the band's album Sports, comedy video website Funny or Die created a parody of the axe murder scene featuring Huey Lewis as Patrick Bateman and 'Weird Al' Yankovic (who parodied 'I Want a New Drug' as 'I Want a New Duck' years before) as Paul Allen.^[20]

Members

Current

Huey Lewis – lead vocals, harmonica (1979–present)
Sean Hopper – keyboards, backing vocals (1979–present)
Bill Gibson – drums, percussion (1979–present)
Johnny Colla – rhythm guitar, saxophone, backing vocals (1979–present)
John Pierce – bass (1995–present)
Stef Burns – lead guitar, backing vocals (2001–present)

The Sports Section

Marvin McFadden – trumpet (1994–present)
Rob Sudduth – tenor saxophone (1994–present)
Johnnie Bamont – alto saxophone, baritone saxophone, flute (2009–present)

Former

Mario Cipollina – bass (1979–1995)
Chris Hayes – lead guitar, backing vocals (1979–2001)
Ron Stallings – tenor saxophone (1994–2009; died 2009)

Timeline