Huey Lewis is known for his slick harmonica skills and for being the lead singer of Huey Lewis and The News. The band achieved prominence through thanks to its third album, "Sports," and its contribution to the iconic '80s movie "Back to the Future." Does anyone remember "The Power of Love" from the soundtrack? Lewis actually began his music career in the '70s playing for the band Clover, which was known for backing singer Elvis Costello. But Lewis' rise to the top of the music charts in the '80s has included some wild tales of hitchhiking across New York, learning how to play the harmonica during rides, and stowing away on a flight to Europe. This is the life, career, and tragedy of Huey Lewis.
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00:00For a few years in the 1980s, Huey Lewis and the News were the kings of the music hill.
00:05The group's poppy and crisp rock and Lewis' distinctive voice helped the band score a
00:10string of beloved hits. Here's a look at the real-life story of Huey Lewis.
00:15Huey Lewis was born in 1950 in New York City as Hugh Anthony Gregg III. When he was four
00:21years old, however, his jazz-drumming radiologist father and commercial artist mother moved
00:26to San Francisco's Marin County. The area was a center for the Bohemian arts movement,
00:31and it was closer to nature than the Big Apple. Lewis was a very smart kid with an early interest
00:37in music, so the club-filled area fueled his interests. Unfortunately, the blissful family
00:43life didn't last for long, because the musician's parents divorced when he was still young.
00:48In a 2001 interview with journalist Jill Kramer, Lewis said that the divorce happened when
00:54he was 11 or 12, and hinted that the split wasn't entirely amiable. However, in a 2019
01:00post on the Huey Lewis and the News' official Facebook page, the singer notes that the cloud
01:05of divorce had an unexpected silver lining. His mother started renting out a room in their
01:10home, and the tenant just happened to be a folk musician called Billy Roberts, whose
01:14instruments of choice were the guitar and the harmonica. As Lewis noted in the Facebook
01:19post,
01:20"[Billy Roberts had a zillion harmonicas, and he gave me a bunch of his old ones. That's
01:24how I first got into them."
01:26Huey Lewis was a clever kid, so it's no surprise that he was bound for a pretty decent school.
01:31However, in an interview with journalist Jill Kramer, the artist revealed that things took
01:36a dark turn when his dad wanted to send him to a prep school, and his mother emphatically
01:41didn't. They weren't together anymore at that point, and things were already pretty contentious.
01:46Lewis' mother even took his father to court over the issue of their son's education. In
01:51the end, the case was resolved when the judge asked Lewis what he personally thought about
01:55it. He ended up choosing to go away to prep school, but he found the experience markedly
02:00different from the brochures. In reminiscing about his prep school experience, Lewis had
02:05this to say,
02:06"'My dad had given me the catalog that had a picture of this gorgeous quad with ivy-covered
02:11buildings and big trees and a guy crossing the quad with a gal, Buffy and Biff, and she
02:16was tremendous-looking.'"
02:17Unfortunately, the pretty lady in the catalog turned out to be a marketing trick, and the
02:23young man ended up spending four years in a school full of other Biffs.
02:28In 1968, Huey Lewis took a year off before college and spent it traveling the world.
02:33While this was no doubt a cool experience as a whole, it also led to some serious trouble
02:38for the soon-to-be music star. Lewis was a long-haired young man, which was significantly
02:44worse in dictator Francisco Franco's Spain than it might have been at, say, Woodstock.
02:50As a result, his hitchhiking endeavors were less than successful, and it wasn't uncommon
02:55for him to wait as long as 12 hours between rides. This gave him a chance to improve his
03:00musical skills, though. In remembering his time in Spain, Lewis told an interviewer,
03:05The only people who would pick me up were German tourists, so I'd play harmonica by
03:10the side of the road until my lips bled.
03:13Another Spain-themed pickle happened when Lewis was coming back from Morocco and lost
03:16his passport. It was Friday, and he had no money at all, save for what it would take
03:21him to get a new passport when the American embassy opened on Monday. Fortunately, those
03:26punishing harmonica exercises during the lonely hours by the road ended up saving him. He
03:31He bumped into a bunch of art students in Seville, and they were so impressed by his
03:35harmonica skills that they hooked him up with a guitar player. They ended up playing a pretty
03:40big concert, Lewis' first ever.
03:43No one can deny that Huey Lewis and the News were massive in the 1980s. However, Lewis
03:48and his merry men could have been even bigger, financially at least. In the early 1980s,
03:54Coca-Cola approached them to appear in their commercials, which would have been a huge
03:58deal. After all, Michael Jackson had just shown the world what celebrity endorsements
04:02could be, courtesy of his record-breaking $5 million deal with Pepsi.
04:08Lewis decided to pass on the opportunity, and while he had his reasons, he was still
04:13calling the decision idiotic in 2016, telling CNBC,
04:17"...we had just started selling out concerts, making more money than we'd ever made. And
04:22I thought, why would I do this for money? I'm an artist. I'm an artist and an idiot."
04:28In 1987, Huey Lewis suddenly lost all hearing in his right ear. This was a major problem,
04:34because he was at the absolute height of his career at the time, and hearing is generally
04:38considered a pretty important skill for a musician. In describing the moment he knew
04:42he was losing his hearing, Lewis told an interviewer,
04:45"...I felt like I had been in a swimming pool, and my ear was full. I couldn't shake it out
04:50or pop my ears."
04:51Lewis was eventually diagnosed with Meniere's disease, which the National Institute on Deafness
04:56and Other Communication Disorders defines as an inner ear disorder that can cause all
05:01sorts of problems, including vertigo and tinnitus. No medical professional could fix the issue,
05:07and one simply told Lewis to, quote, "...get used to it."
05:10Eventually, it became clear that this was his only option. Lewis soon discovered that
05:16amazing musicians like Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys also operated with a similar type
05:21of ear condition. As such, Lewis adjusted and was able to carry on his business as usual.
05:26Sadly, though, this wouldn't be his last struggle with hearing issues.
05:32The film version of Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho came out in 2000, and like the book,
05:37it wasn't shy of showing Patrick Bateman's love for Huey Lewis in the news. However,
05:42as MLive tells us, Lewis actually ended up boycotting the movie. This didn't have anything
05:48to do with the scene where an unhinged Bateman, played by Christian Bale, delivers a speech
05:53about Lewis' music before dispatching a professional rival, played by Jared Leto, with an axe.
05:59You like Huey Lewis in the news?
06:02In fact, Lewis was familiar with American Psycho before the film, and has told Rolling
06:06Stone that he's quite happy to be associated with it. The boycott came after he decided
06:11to pull Hip To Be Square from the movie's soundtrack album for reasons unrelated to
06:16the film itself. However, the people behind the movie claimed that he removed it because
06:20he was so disgusted by the film's violence. Understandably, the singer didn't much care
06:25for being set up as someone who was easily offended.
06:29As it happens, Bret Easton Ellis has expressed regret that he linked Huey Lewis in the news
06:33to his work in the first place. In 2014, Ellis told Billboard,
06:38"...they weren't a favorite band. I was much more a Bruce Springsteen person than a Huey
06:43Lewis person. But I didn't think they deserved it. I liked them more than the implied criticism
06:48of them that's in the text."
06:51Who you gonna call? To thank for the iconic Ghostbusters theme? It's a good question.
06:56Buckle up, because it's about to get complicated.
06:59Ghostbusters, what do you want?
07:01As Mental Floss and The Ledger Note tell us, the opportunity to write the Ghostbusters
07:06theme song came to Ray Parker Jr. after Lindsay Buckingham and Huey Lewis had both declined
07:12the honor. Parker certainly succeeded, but before long, Lewis' lawyers came knocking.
07:19Per Billboard, the reason was the alleged similarity between Parker's smash hit and
07:23Huey Lewis and the News' I Want a New Drug, which had come out just a few months before.
07:28The case was eventually settled out of court. In 2001, Lewis decided to weigh in on the
07:33ruling on a VH1 Behind the Music episode, saying,
07:38However, in the same Behind the Music episode, Lewis also made it pretty clear what he thought
07:48about the settlement money, saying,
07:56This prompted Parker to sue Lewis for breaching an alleged confidentiality clause from the
08:001984 lawsuit. Unfortunately, we may never find out how that lawsuit ended, because everyone
08:07involved has stayed silent on the issue since then.
08:10Rock stardom and domestic bliss seem to always be in direct opposition to each other. According
08:16to the Los Angeles Times, it seems that even the relatively wholesome Huey Lewis is no
08:21exception.
08:22He separated from his wife after they had two children. In an interview with the golf
08:26magazine Kingdom, Lewis notes that the pair got married in 1983 in Hawaii, but their union
08:32ended up lasting only six years. However, he does maintain that they're, quote,
08:36In 2001, Lewis reflected on the specifics of the relationship in an interview with Jill
08:42Kramer. He said he met his wife, Sydney, in the late 1970s, when she was the secretary
08:47for Bob Brown, Lewis' future manager. The musician also admitted that Huey Lewis and
08:53the News' peak success years were quite difficult for his then-wife, telling Kramer,
08:58I was gone a lot then, and I worried about it. It was mainly hard on my wife, because
09:02she had to take care of everything."
09:05In early 2018, Huey Lewis had to once again deal with hearing loss, and this time, things
09:10were even more difficult. As Rolling Stone tells us, Lewis was in Dallas to play a concert
09:15with his band when his hearing suddenly went haywire. Lewis told the music outlet,
09:20I heard this huge noise. It sounded like warfare was going on in the other room. I yelled,
09:25What is that? They said,
09:27It's just Pat Green, the opening act.
09:30Green hadn't suddenly switched to experimental heavy metal. Lewis simply couldn't make any
09:35sense of what he heard. Everything was just a horrible racket, and when it was time to
09:40perform, he couldn't hear his own voice, let alone find a pitch.
09:44After some rapid cancellation of upcoming shows, Lewis started once again seeking medical
09:49help for his condition. This proved futile, but as a minor comfort, the musician discovered
09:54that his condition came and went depending on the day. Some days, he can keep up with
09:59a phone conversation with hearing aids on. Other days, he won't even know if the phone
10:03rings.
10:04Tragically, the condition heavily impacts Lewis' ability to listen to music. On a bad
10:09day, he can't find a pitch, and the bass crumbles into a nasty static.
10:13When music is played, it just sounds like noise to me.
10:17While he could theoretically still perform on a good day, the periodical nature of the
10:21hearing loss makes touring borderline impossible.
10:26Huey Lewis was in a dark place when he was struggling with his second hearing loss in
10:302018. The condition left him with hearing that was coming and going, and music sounded
10:35like distortion in his ears. This essentially destroyed his ability to reliably perform,
10:41and it happened at a time when he and the News were working on a new album of original
10:45material, for the first time since 2001's Plan B.
10:50As such, Lewis found the experience so profoundly harrowing that he even considered ending his
10:55life. Lewis told Rolling Stone,
10:58"...there was literally a roaring tinnitus in my head. There was nothing I can do. I
11:02just lay in bed and contemplate my demise."
11:05Fortunately, the singer has learned to live with the situation, and he's even devised
11:10a scale of 1 to 10 to help others understand how well he's doing on a particular day. He
11:15regularly looks into treatments that might help restore his hearing to a state that would
11:20allow him to play live again. However, he's also accepted the idea that this might never
11:25happen.
11:26If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide
11:31Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK. That's 1-800-273-8255.