By the summer of 1986, Huey Lewis & the News were household names, thanks to the success of the No. 1 album "Sports."
The band's previous album sold 10 million copies alone in the United State. It was a case of being in the right place at the right time. So how did they follow up "Sports?" By keeping their next album (and CD) in a "athletic" atmosphere.
"Fore!" was named after what you yell on an errant shot on a golf course (and a sport the members of the band enjoyed playing). But "Fore!" also was the fourth album for the band, whose star grew with each new release. The first single to come from the album was "Stuck With You," a simple pop hit that would double as an adult contemporary single. Backed by a perfect tongue-in-cheek music video featuring group leader Lewis and a female friend (played by actress-now-journalist Keely Shaye Smith Brosnan) getting out of a party neither want to be at in, only to be shipwrecked (where they landed after sailing on "Myot," Lewis' "yacht") on an island that is occupied by various members of the group dressed in costume (some not), the song zoomed to No. 1 the week of September 20, 1986, spending three weeks at the top, the band's second No. 1 hit after the movie hit "The Power Of Love" from Back To The Future the year before.
Still, how did Lewis and the band get into this position? The story starts in 1972 when then 22-year-old Lewis (real name Hugh Anthony Cregg III) and a keyboardist named Sean Hopper became members of a San Francisco Bay-area band called Clover. Clover recorded some albums in the 1970s, but none really gained any huge notoriety, so the band moved out of San Francisco and re-located to England after British singer Nick Lowe caught their act in Los Angeles one night and persuaded the guys to go to England. They would gain a following there and do work with Elvis Costello. Lewis, meanwhile, gained notoriety as a harmonica player in Europe, his work showcased on Thin Lizzy's "Live And Dangerous" live album, in which he was pointed out in shows by group lead singer Phil Lynott.
But the problem for Clover was that the music they were doing in England had begun to fade out and punk rock and new wave were becoming all the rage, leaving the members of the group to return to the United States by the late 1970s.
Back in the Bay area, the band was still popular, but a new act was coming up to challenge Clover for supremacy in San Francisco. That band, Soundhole, included drummer Billy Gibson, saxophonist/guitarist Johnny Colla and bass player Mario Cipollina. The rivals, though, found out from each other they had a lot more in common than they realized, one of those facts being both worked with Van Morrison.
In 1978, Lewis secured a record deal to record singles, and he liked Soundhole's sound so much, he recruited Gibson, Colla. Cipollina and Hopper to help with recording in the studio, calling themselves Huey Lewis & The American Express. They recorded two songs for a single -- a hokey disco version of the famous theme from "Exodus" known as "Exodisco" and the other being "Kick Back," a song Lewis had performed numerous times with Clover over the years.
In 1979, they brought on a new member, guitarist Chris Hayes, and secured a record deal on their own for Chrysalis Records when a demo tape they did landed in the hands of Bob Brown, the manager of another well-known band in the Bay area, Pablo Cruise, and who would end up being their longtime manager as well. Chrysalis executives loved their sound and all was right, but there was one thing they wanted the band to do.
Ditch the name. Not that they didn't dig it. They feared that the company American Express would sue the band for using the name, so the members agreed and came up with the name that would stick forever -- Huey Lewis & The News.
The band recorded its 1980 self-titled debut with Boz Scaggs' producer, Bill Schnee. A number of people thought the album would be a big hit, but for the most part, no one noticed, like the band recorded an album in anonymity.
The turning point came a year later in 1981 when getting ready to record the next album. The band turned to an old friend: Robert John "Mutt" Lange was the man who cut his teeth as a producer in the 1970s producing Clover's albums. This time, though, it wasn't his production work they needed from Lange.
Lewis asked Lange to submit a song for the album. He gave the band a song Lange sang lead vocals for in the 1970s for a group called Supercharge titled "We Both Believe In Love." Lewis loved the song ... just not the title. So he changed it to "Do You Believe In Love?" and wouldn't you know it -- the song became Huey Lewis & The News' breakthrough in early 1982, peaking at No. 7 that spring.
"Picture This" shipped gold, selling over 500,000 copies, and went to the Top 15 on the album chart.
But delays on the next album, which would be called "Sports," put such a damper on the band that Lewis and the band went back to doing small clubs in the interim while traveling on bus, a tour that would be called the "Working For A Livin'" tour in honor of one of the singles released from "Picture This."
It was that work on the 1983 tour prior to the release of "Sports" that may have pushed the album to great things and the band into superstar status by the summer of 1984 as "Sports," released in mid-September 1983, finally reached its apex on June 30, 1984, hitting No. 1 on the album chart just as Bruce Springsteen's "Born In The U.S.A." album and Prince's "Purple Rain" soundtrack were about to catch fire and dominate the rest of the year.
That led to the band being asked to record music for the Michael J. Fox movie Back To The Future in 1985 and "The Power Of Love" being the band's first No. 1 hit. But as soon as they could, the band went back into the studio to record the fourth album, "Fore!" for which Hayes and Lewis co-wrote "Stuck With You." It was No. 1 in the U.S., Canada and Zimbabwe and a Top 15 pop hit in over a dozen countries. "Stuck With You" featured perfect backing harmonies by the News members with Lewis leading the way on lead vocals.
"Fore!" would produce five Top 10 hits for Lewis & Co., two of which -- "Hip To Be Square" and "I Know What I Like" -- had backing vocals sung by various members of some of the band's buddies -- the San Francisco 49ers, including future Hall of Famers Ronnie Lott and Joe Montana.
"Stuck With You" remains to this day the group's biggest hit and the biggest of their three No. 1 hits. "Stuck With You" debuted within the Top 40 on August 9, 1986, at No. 33 and immediately jumped up to No. 24 the next week. From there, it traveled from No. 24 to No. 15 to No. 9, then No. 6, No. 3 and finally No. 1, where it kept Lionel Richie at No. 2 with "Dancing On The Ceiling," which if it had hit No. 1 would have extended Richie's remarkable run of writing at least one No. 1 hit a year to nine straight years.
In other words, Huey Lewis & The News helped end the streak. Surely, the two acts can get a laugh out of it these days.
These days, the band continues to tour and in February-March 2016, are expected to help headline a "Cruise Back To The 1980s" cruise with fellow 1980s rock bands that will leave dock from Fort Lauderdale and travel to Grand Turk, San Juan, St. Thomas and Half Moon Cay. Other acts on the cruise include A Flock Of Seagulls, Was (Not Was), Richard Marx, Modern English, Naked Eyes, Starship, Tiffany and Wang Chung and will be hosted by former MTV VJs (and current Sirius XM 80s on 8 channel personalities) Mark Goodman, Nina Blackwood and Alan Hunter with DJ duties performed by rapper Biz Markie.
Cipollina left the band in 1994 and Hayes made his exit in 2009 to be with his family, but the other four members of the band, including Lewis, continue to enjoy what they do for a living.
Whether you like it or not, we're "stuck with them."
Really, it's not a bad thing at all.
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