Huey Lewis and the News: Up Next Sports!

<v Speaker 1>Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Shirley You Can't
<v Speaker 1>Be Serious podcast. We are in the midst of our
<v Speaker 1>run of nineteen eighty four. We've got all kinds of
<v Speaker 1>good nineteen eighty four things going on right now. And
<v Speaker 1>here's an interesting fact. Everybody, nineteen eighty four had five
<v Speaker 1>number one albums, only five. This is the shortest list
<v Speaker 1>of number one albums in music history. And they are
<v Speaker 1>all iconic.
<v Speaker 2>They are iconic. I can't wait to discuss. We've got
<v Speaker 2>two albums from nineteen eighty four that were could compare
<v Speaker 2>the two favorites. Yeah, and then the week after that,
<v Speaker 2>we're going to talk about two movies from nineteen eighty
<v Speaker 2>four that our favorites, followed by.
<v Speaker 1>Two more movies with great albums with great album I mean,
<v Speaker 1>and that's it, okay, So let's talk So nineteen eighty four,
<v Speaker 1>we've already covered it. Thriller, right, Thriller has the number
<v Speaker 1>one record for two years in a row, which is
<v Speaker 1>the only album to ever have done that. So nineteen
<v Speaker 1>eighty three, in February, it becomes number one. It is
<v Speaker 1>number one until April of nineteen eighty four, when what album.
<v Speaker 2>Takes over Footloose.
<v Speaker 1>There you go. So Footloose takes over in April and
<v Speaker 1>stays there until the end of June. Where June thirtieth,
<v Speaker 1>Huey Lewis and the News Sports hits the number one spot.
<v Speaker 2>That is awesome, awesome. How long do they keep that.
<v Speaker 1>Title for it? Exactly one week? And then who takes
<v Speaker 1>over Born in the USA? Right right? So, which the
<v Speaker 1>album that we're comparing today, Those two guys middle of
<v Speaker 1>the year and Bruce holds it for a good four weeks.
<v Speaker 1>He's got all of July and then last guy to
<v Speaker 1>take over for the rest of the year. It's pretty easy.
<v Speaker 1>Guess it's Princess Proble Ray exactly. So teaser for a
<v Speaker 1>few weeks from now, we will have Footloose the movie,
<v Speaker 1>and Purple Rain the movie, and Footloose the album in
<v Speaker 1>Purple Ran the album that we're going to compare all
<v Speaker 1>of those things together. Super excited for that, and we
<v Speaker 1>will have hit every single of the five number one
<v Speaker 1>albums of nineteen eighty four.
<v Speaker 2>Man, it's gonna be amazing. I can't wait. Nineteen eighty
<v Speaker 2>four best year for music in the eighties.
<v Speaker 1>I think it's time to go back in time.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, wait, wait, okay, I'm sorry, fellows, you're just too
<v Speaker 2>darn loud.
<v Speaker 1>Fantastic. Okay, So we had a fantastic experience that Jason
<v Speaker 1>probably doesn't think as fantastic as I do. He had
<v Speaker 1>a flat tire today just before we started recording. Now,
<v Speaker 1>Jason has come and saved me before when I ran
<v Speaker 1>out against Yes, I'm a forty five year old man
<v Speaker 1>who did not fill up the time. I got so
<v Speaker 1>many practices going on the last I didn't have time
<v Speaker 1>to stop for gas, and so he came while I
<v Speaker 1>was stranded on the side of the road and filled
<v Speaker 1>me up with gas. I got to repay that favor
<v Speaker 1>today by picking him up when he got his flat tire.
<v Speaker 1>His was a little nicer for him because he made
<v Speaker 1>it to the tire fixing place. But we rode to
<v Speaker 1>the recording studio today listening to sports.
<v Speaker 2>And we put the top down, yep, we turned it up, yep,
<v Speaker 2>and we're blowing out I want a new drug.
<v Speaker 1>It was awesome. Yeah, it really really was.
<v Speaker 2>We're back to being eleven, except we can drive.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. So I've got to say I'm so excited to
<v Speaker 1>talk about Hugh Lewis and the News. This is the
<v Speaker 1>best album that I went back to in our entire
<v Speaker 1>history of doing everything so far. Wow, this was a
<v Speaker 1>huge album for me back in the early mid eighties,
<v Speaker 1>but one that I kind of lost touch with over
<v Speaker 1>the years. I mean, there are some songs that you
<v Speaker 1>know you're going to continue to hear on the radio
<v Speaker 1>no matter what. But I couldn't have told you three
<v Speaker 1>weeks ago that Bad is Bad was a song by
<v Speaker 1>Hue Lewis and The News. But when it came on,
<v Speaker 1>I knew every single word and I was it was
<v Speaker 1>the definition of nostalgia. I was taken back to that
<v Speaker 1>moment in time where I'm listening to my cassette tape
<v Speaker 1>of sports and loving every single song.
<v Speaker 2>Now, this is one of those unique albums where it's
<v Speaker 2>hard to find somebody who doesn't like this album. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>Like this appeals to my dad and it appeals to
<v Speaker 2>my son. People can listen to this, just turn it
<v Speaker 2>on and enjoy. It's just everything is like a toe tapper,
<v Speaker 2>feeling good, top down, turn it up song.
<v Speaker 1>I've talked to you about my brother before. He's the
<v Speaker 1>one that said we got to go watch Back to
<v Speaker 1>the Future. He's the one that said we got to
<v Speaker 1>go watch Diehard. He was huge influence in my life
<v Speaker 1>and it was because of him that I heard hue
<v Speaker 1>Lewis Sports Like. He was the one that had the tape.
<v Speaker 1>And so whenever we started talking about comparing these two albums,
<v Speaker 1>I texted him. I let him know, and he's like,
<v Speaker 1>call me, and so I called him and he told
<v Speaker 1>me about how at that time he was going into college.
<v Speaker 1>He went to college in eighty six, and so at
<v Speaker 1>that time he would try to tell people, you know, hey,
<v Speaker 1>what they meeting people for the first time. Who's your
<v Speaker 1>favorite band? He would start, He would say, Huey Lewis
<v Speaker 1>in the news. But at that point he almost felt
<v Speaker 1>like he had to apologize for it, because it was
<v Speaker 1>like people were like, oh, popular music whatever, And he
<v Speaker 1>kind of got to where he just automatically said, well,
<v Speaker 1>you know, I know it's pop, but I really do
<v Speaker 1>like Huey Lewis in the News. And so we started
<v Speaker 1>talking about that album together back and forth, and he
<v Speaker 1>texted me a little while later he said, I'm listening
<v Speaker 1>to it right now. I am no longer hiding the
<v Speaker 1>fact that I am an Avid Huey Lewis fan. I
<v Speaker 1>am free I liberated. I am liberated. I could wear
<v Speaker 1>my Huey Lewis badge with pride. So I told him
<v Speaker 1>sometimes there are folks out there who stick their nose
<v Speaker 1>up at popular music, and we just kind of give
<v Speaker 1>those people the finger.
<v Speaker 2>That's right, we celebrate it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's popular, and that's okay. It's popular because it's good. Right,
<v Speaker 1>We're not fooled here. It's popular because it's good. So
<v Speaker 1>come enjoy this album with us. But first, let's talk
<v Speaker 1>about the history.
<v Speaker 2>Let's go back in time.
<v Speaker 1>Before we get going, I just want to point something out.
<v Speaker 1>We have been talking to each other now for a
<v Speaker 1>couple of years, face to face. And one of the
<v Speaker 1>reasons that I can do that is because you don't
<v Speaker 1>have nose hair. Have you been talking to people and
<v Speaker 1>like you can't even concentrate on what they're saying because
<v Speaker 1>of their nose hair.
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely, they like tuck to you.
<v Speaker 1>It dangles, yes, it wiggles. It's a total distraction. Absolutely,
<v Speaker 1>And so let me let me say, if you are
<v Speaker 1>one of those guys, we have a product that is
<v Speaker 1>supporting the podcast that you need to check out is
<v Speaker 1>called The weed Whacker, and it is from Manscape.
<v Speaker 2>It is an amazing product. It trims your nose hair.
<v Speaker 2>It's not embarrassing. You just stick it up there. It
<v Speaker 2>takes care of it.
<v Speaker 1>You're not gonna look at people and bother them, right,
<v Speaker 1>And I'm one of those guys who's self conscious about
<v Speaker 1>my nose hair. So somebody that you're gonna see me
<v Speaker 1>and I'm gonna be like yanking them out and wincing
<v Speaker 1>in pain, don't do that. There is a special thing
<v Speaker 1>that they make and they've also just released in addition
<v Speaker 1>to the weed whacker, they have just released something called
<v Speaker 1>the lawnmower if you have other areas of your body
<v Speaker 1>that you're looking to trim up. And I'd like to
<v Speaker 1>point out that a giraffe is easier to see in
<v Speaker 1>the plane than it is in the forest, So that's
<v Speaker 1>that's wonderful. Yes, yes, it is.
<v Speaker 2>So very It's very good around sensitive areas, if you
<v Speaker 2>know what I'm saying.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. They have also an entire shavekit called the Ultra
<v Speaker 1>Smooth Package package. You get the idea. So who doesn't.
<v Speaker 2>Want their package Ultra smooth?
<v Speaker 1>Right, right, So don't forget to go to manscapes dot
<v Speaker 1>com and use the promo code fan Sided twenty to
<v Speaker 1>get twenty percent off your order and free shipping.
<v Speaker 2>Whack it perfect.
<v Speaker 1>So we talked about Bruce Springsteen last episode. Right. Bruce
<v Speaker 1>born September of forty nine at Monmouth Medical Center in
<v Speaker 1>Long Branch, New Jersey. Just a little over nine months later,
<v Speaker 1>Huey Lewis is born fifty miles away. Okay, isn't that crazy,
<v Speaker 1>Like they're so close in age, born just you know,
<v Speaker 1>a stone's throw away from each other in hospital in Manhattan,
<v Speaker 1>Long Branch in Manhattan. Worlds apart economically, But it's just
<v Speaker 1>interesting that these guys were so close together. But hue
<v Speaker 1>did not stay there very long. His mom had escaped
<v Speaker 1>from Poland during the war. Right, this is nineteen fifty, Right,
<v Speaker 1>the war has been over for five years, just a
<v Speaker 1>little while after he was born. Her parents had come
<v Speaker 1>to kind of join them, and they were pretty well
<v Speaker 1>to do or company owners. And then really in a
<v Speaker 1>bizarre thing, they both commit suicide. And it's just devastating
<v Speaker 1>to his mom, and she's like, I just can't, I
<v Speaker 1>can't live here anymore. And so they move all the
<v Speaker 1>way across the country to California, where Huey Lewis grows.
<v Speaker 2>Up Wow, I had not heard that. That's interesting.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so he his dad is a radiologist by trade,
<v Speaker 1>but a drummer by heart. Right. He loves music, loves jazz.
<v Speaker 1>When hue Lewis is a kid, he teaches him how
<v Speaker 1>to play the drums. Oh, by the way, Huey lewis
<v Speaker 1>not his given name.
<v Speaker 2>Right, his given name. His birth name is Hugh Anthony
<v Speaker 2>Craig the third right.
<v Speaker 1>So doctor Craig taught young Huey how to play swing
<v Speaker 1>drums because if you've got time, you've got the foundation
<v Speaker 1>of music. So he's a really bright kid. He skips
<v Speaker 1>second grade. Yeah, his mom they're out like near Berkeley
<v Speaker 1>and stuff. She really gets into the hippie scene, like
<v Speaker 1>they're in the baby Hippie. Yes, she goes full blown hippie.
<v Speaker 1>She ends up having an affair with this Beat generation
<v Speaker 1>poet named Lou Welch, who also has a weird like
<v Speaker 1>He is believed to have committed suicide but just like
<v Speaker 1>left a note and then nobody's ever seen him since then.
<v Speaker 1>It's but Huey credits him as inspiring his early teenage years,
<v Speaker 1>and I think probably has a lot to do with
<v Speaker 1>his songwriting and musical tastes. Huey's first albums are Gary
<v Speaker 1>Us Bonds and Bobby Waddell. Okay, and then he gets
<v Speaker 1>to go to a concert of Paul Butterfield at the
<v Speaker 1>town Hall and the only seats left are the seats
<v Speaker 1>on the stage. I don't know how that happens, Like,
<v Speaker 1>I mean, do they do that anymore? I don't think so. Right,
<v Speaker 1>So he gets to sit on stage and watch this
<v Speaker 1>concert and he's like, this is what I want to do, right,
<v Speaker 1>this is incredible. So she has the affair, the parents
<v Speaker 1>get divorced. He's about thirteen at this time. It's tough
<v Speaker 1>experience for him. The judge asks him what he wants
<v Speaker 1>to do. He doesn't want to pick between him and
<v Speaker 1>his dad proposes, Hey, why don't you go to this
<v Speaker 1>prep school? Right? And so he ends up at this
<v Speaker 1>prep He gives his dad gives him a brochure for
<v Speaker 1>the prep school where it's like a beautiful campus and
<v Speaker 1>this guy walking with this you know, kind of buffy
<v Speaker 1>hot sorority girl looking girl hot pants, right yeah, and
<v Speaker 1>he's like, oh, this sounds good. And then he goes
<v Speaker 1>over there and it's an all boys school.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah exactly, Like that's a bait switch.
<v Speaker 1>If I ever heard it.
<v Speaker 2>I heard him talking about it. He said, think dead
<v Speaker 2>poet society.
<v Speaker 1>So he comes in and he wants to set himself apart.
<v Speaker 1>So he becomes the guy who how to play the
<v Speaker 1>harmonica right, and he becomes an R and B snob.
<v Speaker 1>He said he wouldn't listen to anything contemporary at the time.
<v Speaker 1>He was only listening to old R and B blues,
<v Speaker 1>that type of stuff, And so that's who he was
<v Speaker 1>growing up. He ends up graduating because he skipped a grade.
<v Speaker 1>He ends up graduating at age sixteen. Now he's no slouch.
<v Speaker 1>He scored a perfect eight hundred on the math portion of.
<v Speaker 2>The SAT I know.
<v Speaker 1>In addition to that, he's also like a world class pitcher.
<v Speaker 2>He's a very good baseball player.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so he's got this plan. He's going to go
<v Speaker 1>to Cornell. He's all States, so he's going to play
<v Speaker 1>ball over there. And his dad says, you're your own guy.
<v Speaker 1>I've let you run your own life. Do this one
<v Speaker 1>last thing for me, go to Europe and bum around
<v Speaker 1>for a year. He didn't really want to do it,
<v Speaker 1>which is just the absolute reverse, right right, right, No,
<v Speaker 1>don't go directly to college. You're a year young, go
<v Speaker 1>out there and bum around Europe.
<v Speaker 2>I want to make one comment. Yeah, when you're talking
<v Speaker 2>about his perfect math score and his baseball ability, I've
<v Speaker 2>heard him talk about this, right. He very much under
<v Speaker 2>sells his talent. So he's like, yeah, you know, I
<v Speaker 2>kind of got lucky on the math portion. And David
<v Speaker 2>Letterman's like, you don't get lucky in math, right, you
<v Speaker 2>don't get lucky.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>And then the guy was interviewing me and said, now
<v Speaker 2>you were going to play baseball like you were a
<v Speaker 2>good player, and he's like, ah, you know, I thought
<v Speaker 2>I wanted to be a baseball player, but then I
<v Speaker 2>turned eight. Oh, but yeah, he was gifted as an athlete,
<v Speaker 2>played baseball and basketball in high school and then this
<v Speaker 2>amazing feat in math and said nah, I.
<v Speaker 1>Just got like yeah. And so he's excited to go
<v Speaker 1>to college and his dad says, yeah, go be a hippie,
<v Speaker 1>hitchhike and bomb. So he hitchhikes just to get over
<v Speaker 1>to New York. Right, he's in California, hitchhikes just to
<v Speaker 1>get over to New York where he's going to try
<v Speaker 1>to fly. Although he's only got about three hundred bucks
<v Speaker 1>on him, and so what he does is he's talking
<v Speaker 1>to people about how to sneak on to like a
<v Speaker 1>cargo plane, and so he ends up driving out to
<v Speaker 1>the cargo thing. He can't figure out how to get on,
<v Speaker 1>so he ends up back in the regular passenger flights.
<v Speaker 1>He befriends somebody at the ticket counter and he's like,
<v Speaker 1>I've heard this secret about a silver pin. And the
<v Speaker 1>guy's like, well, until I get a FOURK in an hour,
<v Speaker 1>and I'll tell you what to do. He's like okay,
<v Speaker 1>and so sure enough, like these are the days of
<v Speaker 1>very lack of security planes and basically you could buy
<v Speaker 1>a ticket for anywhere you just and then take a
<v Speaker 1>silver pen. You write Europe or whatever it is on
<v Speaker 1>your ticket, and all they do is see your ticket
<v Speaker 1>and send you on your way. Examine what it is.
<v Speaker 1>And so he ends up basically scamming a flight out there.
<v Speaker 1>They hand him a pack of cigarettes as he gets
<v Speaker 1>on the plane. That's how long ago this was. Here's
<v Speaker 1>a pack of four cigarettes for the flight.
<v Speaker 2>See enjoy, enjoy, Hey smoke up, Johnny.
<v Speaker 1>So he ends up in Europe and hitchhikes again down
<v Speaker 1>front from London down to North Africa and then he says,
<v Speaker 1>I wanted to leave North Africa, but I was so
<v Speaker 1>stoned I couldn't. He needed a new drug.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, exactly, exactly, so you know when you talk about
<v Speaker 2>North Africa. Yeah, he said he played in the town
<v Speaker 2>square in Marrakesh.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>So he's out there with like snake charmers and like
<v Speaker 2>fortune tellers, and he's got a harmonica and a hat,
<v Speaker 2>and he said, so he would play. He said to
<v Speaker 2>earn you know, three or four durham I think is
<v Speaker 2>their currency. He said it costs one durham to stay
<v Speaker 2>in the youth hostel and half a durham to eat.
<v Speaker 2>He's like, what else do I need? Man, I'm making it.
<v Speaker 1>Yes. So he stays out there busking on the harp
<v Speaker 1>for like three months, and then eventually he gets back
<v Speaker 1>to the United States, sking on the harp. Yeah, busking
<v Speaker 1>is playing music for money on the streets and the
<v Speaker 1>harp is there. You go.
<v Speaker 2>So, I got to tell you about this great story
<v Speaker 2>that I heard Huey Liwis talking about while he was
<v Speaker 2>in Europe. Okay, he's hitchhiking all over Europe and he
<v Speaker 2>meets this guy named Michael Jeffries. So he's decided, Okay,
<v Speaker 2>I'm leaving Marrakesh. I want to get to Portugal and
<v Speaker 2>eventually work my back to the States. So they're hitchhiking
<v Speaker 2>and they get picked up by this Dutch guy who
<v Speaker 2>likes to drink a lot. So he's like, the guy's
<v Speaker 2>willing to give me a ride, and it was a
<v Speaker 2>Chevy and he was like, man an American taking a
<v Speaker 2>ride into Chevy. He's like, I was so thankful, he said.
<v Speaker 2>But this guy stopped every bar along the way. So
<v Speaker 2>by the like the seventh bar, he's really drunk, right,
<v Speaker 2>and he crashes into this like pond, like ramps over
<v Speaker 2>a levee and goes into the water, and so like
<v Speaker 2>there's water like up.
<v Speaker 1>To their chev the levee.
<v Speaker 2>Drove a Chevy to the levee, but it wasn't dry right,
<v Speaker 2>so the guy gets out, they push it out or
<v Speaker 2>whatever he says. He he squirts a fire extinguisher on
<v Speaker 2>the distributor to dry it out. I guess I don't
<v Speaker 2>really know. So they continue on. They get to the
<v Speaker 2>Portugal border and Hue realizes I've lost my passport. What
<v Speaker 2>had happened was when they hit the water, it floated
<v Speaker 2>out of his knapsack, so his buddy says, sorry, dude,
<v Speaker 2>see ya. So he leaves. Even so, he's got a
<v Speaker 2>hitchhike back into Seville and he hears rock and roll
<v Speaker 2>music playing and he's like, what am I gonna do.
<v Speaker 2>I've got no passport. I don't speak the language.
<v Speaker 1>I speak rock and roll.
<v Speaker 2>Right, So he goes and he knocks on the door
<v Speaker 2>and he's like, hey, I like rock and roll. You
<v Speaker 2>like rock and roll. Let me show you how to
<v Speaker 2>play some songs. I've got a harmonica. And he finally
<v Speaker 2>tells them basically I've lost my passport. And he's like,
<v Speaker 2>I need a ride to the embassy. So they said,
<v Speaker 2>no problem, will help you. So they take him to
<v Speaker 2>the embassy like it's like Friday like ride. At closing time,
<v Speaker 2>he's like, I lost my passport. They're like, do you
<v Speaker 2>have twenty bucks? No I don't, so they slammed the
<v Speaker 2>door in his face say come back on Monday.
<v Speaker 1>With twenty bucks, and he's like, oh crap.
<v Speaker 2>So we've got a hitchhike back to town and he tells
<v Speaker 2>his friends. He's like, I don't have twenty bucks. I
<v Speaker 2>got to have twenty bucks to make a passport. And
<v Speaker 2>they're like, no problem, will throw you a concert.
<v Speaker 1>It's great.
<v Speaker 2>So they tell all their friends. They put up all
<v Speaker 2>these posters. They say, whatever it is in Spanish, you
<v Speaker 2>know Huey and the Blues.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, so come and listen.
<v Speaker 2>He said, there's twelve hundred people.
<v Speaker 1>There's packed.
<v Speaker 2>He said. When he gets out there, he's performing, and
<v Speaker 2>he said, it's like pin drop silent, and the whole
<v Speaker 2>time he's playing his harmonica, he's like, man, we are dying.
<v Speaker 2>We are dying here. And he said, once we finished
<v Speaker 2>that first song, the place erupted in applause, and he said,
<v Speaker 2>this is what I.
<v Speaker 1>Want to do. That's awesome. That is awesome.
<v Speaker 2>There you go. Now we're going back to the States.
<v Speaker 1>So he gets his passport, makes it back to the
<v Speaker 1>States and starts college. Yes, and an engineering major. Well,
<v Speaker 1>the prep school that he was at was so good
<v Speaker 1>that he was just like, they're doing the same stuff
<v Speaker 1>we were doing. I don't really have to go to class,
<v Speaker 1>and so he didn't go to class. He started a
<v Speaker 1>band called Slippery Elm and he would play, go take
<v Speaker 1>the tests, and then go play. Is what you got
<v Speaker 1>to do, right, if you can manage it, I guess
<v Speaker 1>and they've got the band was actually doing pretty well.
<v Speaker 1>They but everybody was saying, hey, you could be a success,
<v Speaker 1>except for your bass player. He sucks.
<v Speaker 2>Right.
<v Speaker 1>His bass player was named Bill Benson, right, And so
<v Speaker 1>Hughey is kind of the leader of the band. It
<v Speaker 1>falls to him to tell Benson he's no longer in
<v Speaker 1>the band, and so he he's like, hey, buddy, come on,
<v Speaker 1>we need to go for a ride. So you get
<v Speaker 1>in the car snowy day. He's driving along and he says, listen, man,
<v Speaker 1>I'm sorry, but he can't be in the band anymore.
<v Speaker 1>What he does know is that Bill took some acid
<v Speaker 1>about thirty minutes before the car, and so he turns
<v Speaker 1>sheet white and he says, can you pull over? So
<v Speaker 1>Hue like pulls over and he starts yacking his belts
<v Speaker 1>out all over the snow, and he was like, this
<v Speaker 1>is the worst experience I've ever had in my life.
<v Speaker 1>This is important for later on. This set sets the
<v Speaker 1>stage for later on experience.
<v Speaker 2>He did make the comment that when they hired a
<v Speaker 2>new bass player, it wasn't any different. It wasn't that
<v Speaker 2>dude's fault.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it was just he just had somebody.
<v Speaker 2>He was the skateboat right.
<v Speaker 1>Right. So after the first year, the second year is
<v Speaker 1>a little bit harder and he has to go to
<v Speaker 1>class for the second year, and he forged out, you
<v Speaker 1>know what, I don't like this. I don't like engineering,
<v Speaker 1>despite the fact that he's a math savant, right, I
<v Speaker 1>just want to play, and so we quit quits college.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>He goes back to San Francisco and he meets up
<v Speaker 1>with some friends that he had from junior high with
<v Speaker 1>this band called Clover Yeah, Clover Yeah. He sang a
<v Speaker 1>little bit, but he is an R and B guy
<v Speaker 1>and he has a gravelly, deeper voice, which is not
<v Speaker 1>right for a seventies hairband. Right. One of his junior
<v Speaker 1>high friends did have a super smooth voice, and his
<v Speaker 1>name was Alex Call. You know Alex Collins. I'm going
<v Speaker 1>to say seven numbers and you're gonna know who he is.
<v Speaker 1>Eight six, seven three nine.
<v Speaker 2>He's Tony two tone.
<v Speaker 1>Well he's not. He's the guy who wrote the song
<v Speaker 1>for Tommy two tone, Okay, which, by the way, there
<v Speaker 1>are all kinds of stories about that song out there
<v Speaker 1>and the real girl Jenny in the bathroom wall and
<v Speaker 1>all that, and Alex calls that's all he said, I
<v Speaker 1>wrote that song in my backyard. He said, I had
<v Speaker 1>the name, I had the number. I didn't really know
<v Speaker 1>what they meant. I just knew that that was a
<v Speaker 1>good way. That the numbers sounded good with the name,
<v Speaker 1>and that's what I went with. And the guy from
<v Speaker 1>Tommy Tutone, who's a friend of mine, showed up and
<v Speaker 1>he's like, it's got to be a phone number, and
<v Speaker 1>that was how the song was born. Okay, awesome. Huey's
<v Speaker 1>other friend was guitarist John McPhee. He would later end
<v Speaker 1>up with The Doobie Brothers and his third friend, Sean Hopper,
<v Speaker 1>who eventually makes his way to the News Exactly. They
<v Speaker 1>play the club circuit over there, and they're kind of interesting,
<v Speaker 1>like they're a hippie country band like Clover's First. They
<v Speaker 1>had a couple albums before hue joins up with them,
<v Speaker 1>and one of them has a picture of one of
<v Speaker 1>them in like overalls with no shirt standing next to
<v Speaker 1>this gigantic marijuana plant. So they were kind of an
<v Speaker 1>interesting mix of music that you can't really define. But
<v Speaker 1>they played the clubs over there in San Francisco in
<v Speaker 1>the Bay Area, and there's another band that they run
<v Speaker 1>in who quite frequently. They're both kind of the bands
<v Speaker 1>of the Bay Area at the time, and it's a
<v Speaker 1>band with a very unfortunate name, Soundhole.
<v Speaker 2>Sometimes my dog makes no noise from the sound Hole.
<v Speaker 1>So a couple of the guys who are members of
<v Speaker 1>Soundhole saxophonist and guitarist Johnny Cola and bassist Mario Sippolina.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, yeah, So Clover's.
<v Speaker 1>Playing the Bay Area. And in nineteen seventy six, a
<v Speaker 1>CBS Records convention is held in San Francisco, and the
<v Speaker 1>industry's hot shots are all coming in from all over
<v Speaker 1>the world. And one of the bands that is playing
<v Speaker 1>at the convention is this British band named Doctor Feel Good. Okay.
<v Speaker 1>They have a manager who is kind of known for
<v Speaker 1>being a little bit of a crazy guy. His name
<v Speaker 1>is Jake Riviera, and he's with them, and they have
<v Speaker 1>a guitarist, Rody, who really is just like they just
<v Speaker 1>like him, and so they're like, you know, come with
<v Speaker 1>us and you can play guitar when you need to
<v Speaker 1>and help us with the equipment. His name is Nicolo.
<v Speaker 1>He comes up later to Nick Lo. Okaylo, So Jake
<v Speaker 1>Rivia Nike Lo. It turns out that Nick's band was
<v Speaker 1>actually fan of Clover. He was in another band called
<v Speaker 1>Brinsley Schwartz that was like a Clover copy band. They
<v Speaker 1>even had a lyric in one of their songs that said,
<v Speaker 1>We're going to saddle up right away back to the
<v Speaker 1>hills where Clover plays. So nice. It's kind of neat
<v Speaker 1>that they are not a well known band, but they've
<v Speaker 1>already got like this following of other bands. And so
<v Speaker 1>the record label sees Clover and thinks, hey, country rock
<v Speaker 1>is the next big thing. We're going to fly these
<v Speaker 1>guys out to London where they call it pub rock
<v Speaker 1>instead of country rock. Okay, we're going to fly them
<v Speaker 1>out to London and they are going to be the
<v Speaker 1>inspiration for all of the big pub bands to come.
<v Speaker 1>So the plane just happens to land in London on
<v Speaker 1>the same day that Johnny Rotten spits in the face
<v Speaker 1>of an enemy reporter and the punk movement takes flight.
<v Speaker 2>Wow, Yeah, what incredibly bad timing.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, very bad timing. So they are a pub rock
<v Speaker 1>country rock band in the world of punk, and so
<v Speaker 1>they're just getting booted off the stage.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I heard him talk about this. He said, we
<v Speaker 2>thought it was a success if we made it through
<v Speaker 2>our set and didn't get booed off like booze would happen.
<v Speaker 2>But did we get booed off? No, we made a
<v Speaker 2>good job, guys.
<v Speaker 1>Right. They learned to play their songs fast enough, sequentially,
<v Speaker 1>not leaving any spaces for silence. That was the key. Okay.
<v Speaker 1>So I'm coming up on a story that I think
<v Speaker 1>is maybe the best pivot, head fake fadeaway shot in
<v Speaker 1>music history, and I'm excited about it. But okay, I'm
<v Speaker 1>just laying the foundation. Okay, it's starting now. Okay, So
<v Speaker 1>they're miserable, right, the record label sticks with them, but
<v Speaker 1>they're out there doing their best but really getting booed.
<v Speaker 1>But the record label says, hey, we're still going to
<v Speaker 1>produce your album, don't worry. But they Dickham with this
<v Speaker 1>still wet behind the ears. Staff producer at Phonogram's name
<v Speaker 1>Mutt langat.
<v Speaker 2>Get Out YEP, Mutt freaking Lang, Mutt Lang before Mutt
<v Speaker 2>Lang is Mutt Lang, Like he's He's done a few albums,
<v Speaker 2>but nothing of any notoriety.
<v Speaker 1>Right, this is seventy six, seventy seven, So he's just
<v Speaker 1>a guy. He's a guy who works at the studio.
<v Speaker 1>That's it.
<v Speaker 2>For those of you who are not familiar with Robert
<v Speaker 2>mutt Lang, he produced Back in Black, he produced Pyromania,
<v Speaker 2>he produced Hysteria, He produced Shania Twain and all of
<v Speaker 2>her big stuff. Yep, he's a mega producer. That blows
<v Speaker 2>me away.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Hughey said that even at that time seventy seven,
<v Speaker 1>he had an incredible work ethic, but no hits in
<v Speaker 1>nineteen seventy eight. So two years later, record deal is over,
<v Speaker 1>Clover has gone nowhere. They go back to San Francisco
<v Speaker 1>and John McPhee says, guys, I'm leaving the band. I've
<v Speaker 1>got an offer from the brothers and I can't do
<v Speaker 1>it anymore. And without him there is no Clover.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so Clover dies.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. So this is heartbreak. This is like we think
<v Speaker 1>we've made it and we don't, and we've been doing
<v Speaker 1>this eleven years and now the band's breaking up. Huey
<v Speaker 1>Lewis wept yeah at this. Yeah. So it's seventy eight.
<v Speaker 1>Record deal is over, the band is broken up. Hue
<v Speaker 1>is stuck in England and he's thinking, here, I am
<v Speaker 1>a harmonica player. So he ends up going back to
<v Speaker 1>San Francisco and he opens up a health food store.
<v Speaker 1>What yeah, natural Foods Express, and he's just thinking about,
<v Speaker 1>you know, what is his future going to be. He's
<v Speaker 1>twenty eight years old, he has no money, no band,
<v Speaker 1>and he plays the harmonica. What do you do?
<v Speaker 2>That sounds like a man who's on the fast track
<v Speaker 2>to nowhere?
<v Speaker 1>Right, So he thinks, you know what, I'm gonna do
<v Speaker 1>this a different way. I don't need to be world famous.
<v Speaker 1>I can make money as a club band guy. And
<v Speaker 1>so he hits up his friends that had been a
<v Speaker 1>part of Soundhole. He's got Sean Hopper with him over
<v Speaker 1>there to help him out on the keyboards, and he says,
<v Speaker 1>we're going to get a job as a club band.
<v Speaker 1>He decides they're going to be a club band. They're
<v Speaker 1>gonna play every week and that's how they're going to
<v Speaker 1>make their living and it'll be great. And they recruit
<v Speaker 1>Chris Hayes, who's a guitar player, who says, and I
<v Speaker 1>thought at the time, hey, it'd be an extra one
<v Speaker 1>hundred and fifty bucks a month.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, sure, right, I'll throw in with these guys and
<v Speaker 2>make a couple of you know, a couple extra dollars.
<v Speaker 1>So they go to this club called Uncle Charlie's to
<v Speaker 1>become the house band, right, and they say, we'll take
<v Speaker 1>Monday Nights and they develop their show. They have lots
<v Speaker 1>of fun they do. They put on little dance moves
<v Speaker 1>and eventually it becomes called Monday Night Live and they've
<v Speaker 1>got comedians coming in and doing bits and they put
<v Speaker 1>on a crazy show that everybody loves. And they've got
<v Speaker 1>this time, they've only got about three original songs. And
<v Speaker 1>also in their silliness, you know the movie Exodus, the
<v Speaker 1>theme from Exodus. Yeah, so they do a disco version
<v Speaker 1>of that song. Right, It's just it's just playing goofy and.
<v Speaker 2>So wait, wait, wait, yeah we got to hear that.
<v Speaker 1>Let's put it on. Okay, so you hear that, so
<v Speaker 1>that there's a reason that we're listening to that right now. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>it is because a studio came by saw them and said,
<v Speaker 1>you guys are awesome. How'd you like a free day
<v Speaker 1>at the studio? Yeah. They're like, heck, yeah, this is great.
<v Speaker 1>And so they get Pee Wee Ellis from James Brown's
<v Speaker 1>band to come in and play horns on Xodisco. And
<v Speaker 1>so then a few months go by, he gets a
<v Speaker 1>call from Nikolo. Nicholo says to him, I just wrote
<v Speaker 1>the song and I think I stole it from h
<v Speaker 1>He's like what. He's like, yeah, I'm pretty sure I
<v Speaker 1>saw it. He's like, what's called. He's like, it's called
<v Speaker 1>what looks Best on You is Me? And he's like, man,
<v Speaker 1>that was just a joke. You know. That's I told
<v Speaker 1>you a joke. That's not you. That's you did not
<v Speaker 1>steal that from me. He's like, I really feel like
<v Speaker 1>I owe you something. And he's like, you know, I
<v Speaker 1>just feel like this is kind of your song. He's like,
<v Speaker 1>you know, want to tell you what? Give me a
<v Speaker 1>ticket out to London. I'd love to come see you.
<v Speaker 1>We can have some fun, okay. So it's like, let
<v Speaker 1>me see what I can do, and so he calls
<v Speaker 1>him back a little while. He's like, you're gonna play
<v Speaker 1>harmonica on some songs over here, so you're gonna get
<v Speaker 1>to fly over here to London, and so yes, so
<v Speaker 1>he gets to fly over there. He plays on Nicklow's
<v Speaker 1>album called Labor of Lust and it's the songs called
<v Speaker 1>Born Fighter and he wrote a song. Huey Lewis wrote
<v Speaker 1>a song that he gave to Dave Edmonds and it's
<v Speaker 1>on his album Repeat when Necessary, and Huey Lewis plays
<v Speaker 1>the harmonica on that one as well. You know what
<v Speaker 1>the name of that song is?
<v Speaker 2>I do because you told me otherwise I wouldn't have
<v Speaker 2>that song. Is bad is bad?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, let's listen to the Dave Edmunds version here real quick,
<v Speaker 1>cool man, your son is bad? Time is bad? Okay,
<v Speaker 1>So you can tell it's the same song, but it
<v Speaker 1>is a completely.
<v Speaker 2>That sounds blasphemous to my ears.
<v Speaker 1>The harmonica is fan but this it's definitely different style.
<v Speaker 1>It's definitely a different style. Yes. So they get done
<v Speaker 1>recording these two songs. It's three o'clock in the afternoon
<v Speaker 1>and the record label comes in. The executives are listening.
<v Speaker 1>They're like this sounds great. I'm really you know, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>nice to meet you, Huey, Yeah, yeah yeah. And then
<v Speaker 1>there's kind of this lull and hue says, hey, you
<v Speaker 1>want to hear something funny and they's like sure, and
<v Speaker 1>he puts in exodisco. He's got the tape. He puts
<v Speaker 1>in exodisco and lets him listen to it and they
<v Speaker 1>love it. They love it, and they're like, we would
<v Speaker 1>love to put this on record. Can we do this?
<v Speaker 1>And he's like, I don't know. Let me and they're like,
<v Speaker 1>you think about it. We're gonna go put some paperwork
<v Speaker 1>together and come back and you tell us what you
<v Speaker 1>want to do. Okay. So he leaves. Jake is there
<v Speaker 1>still the manager from Doctor Feel Good, and Jake is like,
<v Speaker 1>ask for thirteen points and three thousand pounds up front.
<v Speaker 1>He's like, what, ask for three thousand pounds up front
<v Speaker 1>and do not do it unless they give you the
<v Speaker 1>money up front. And he's like okay, Yeah. The guys
<v Speaker 1>come back. He makes the pitch. They said, sure, sounds good.
<v Speaker 1>Pay for whatever recording studio time you need, but we
<v Speaker 1>want you to put some more vocals on it. There's
<v Speaker 1>just we feel like it needs more vocals. He says,
<v Speaker 1>no problem, right, So here's where the pivot fake happens.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, I'm ready for this. I thought the pivot fake
<v Speaker 2>was mut Lane. We keep going now.
<v Speaker 1>So he goes back to the studio. The engineers at
<v Speaker 1>the studio end up erasing thirty seconds of the demo
<v Speaker 1>that they had already recorded of Exodisco. They just mess
<v Speaker 1>it up. So he calls the record label and He's like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>these guys just erased thirty seconds of this. I got
<v Speaker 1>to have more studio time because I got to re
<v Speaker 1>record that part. They say, no problem, we will pay
<v Speaker 1>for your studio time. How much do you need. He's
<v Speaker 1>like five days okay, and they say sure, five days,
<v Speaker 1>no problem, You've got it. Okay. He re records Exodisco
<v Speaker 1>in four hours and uses the other the other four
<v Speaker 1>and a half days to record the three original songs
<v Speaker 1>that they have, which then he uses as a demo
<v Speaker 1>tape that he sends out, which gets him a manager,
<v Speaker 1>Bob Brown coming to see him play, ultimately lands him
<v Speaker 1>the record deal. Fade Away, Shoot and it's good.
<v Speaker 2>He shoots the scores. Hey that's brilliant.
<v Speaker 1>I love what a hustle is that?
<v Speaker 2>Seriously savvy businessman?
<v Speaker 1>I love it. I love it so so yeah, so
<v Speaker 1>he he sends out. He ends up sending out this
<v Speaker 1>demo tape. Bob Brown hears it and is like, this
<v Speaker 1>is interesting. He goes to listen to him play loves
<v Speaker 1>how the band plays. He meets Huiye after the show
<v Speaker 1>and he's like, I love your voice, and Hui Luis says,
<v Speaker 1>you are the first person who has ever said that to.
<v Speaker 2>Me, that's tragic because Huey Lewis has a great voice.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I tried to think earlier. I was like, what
<v Speaker 1>do we call this comparison? Right, it's the comparison of
<v Speaker 1>the not metal, gravelly voiced have a sacks a phone
<v Speaker 1>in their songs band. I don't know what passionate rasping
<v Speaker 1>two guys who had number one hits in the middle
<v Speaker 1>of nineteen eighty four. I don't know it's but it's
<v Speaker 1>it's interesting because they were not the singers that you
<v Speaker 1>would expect mid eighties, right, right, but one of only
<v Speaker 1>two guys, two blue eyed guys, to have hits that year,
<v Speaker 1>that's right. The other part of the story is they
<v Speaker 1>have this company called Video West out in California who
<v Speaker 1>calls them and says, hey, we're shooting things on videotape.
<v Speaker 1>It's this new medium. We would love to shoot a
<v Speaker 1>video for your songs for free if you'll just let
<v Speaker 1>us play it on our videotape station. And he's like, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>it sounds like a deal to me. So yeah, so
<v Speaker 1>you get demo tape, you get manager who really fought
<v Speaker 1>for him. He's by the way, he's the guy in
<v Speaker 1>the part of rock and roll video who's playing a
<v Speaker 1>crossword puzzle while beating one of the guys at are wrestling.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, that's Bob Brown. He's in the I Want
<v Speaker 2>a New Drug video. When Hughey takes the stage, he's
<v Speaker 2>like running late. He runs up and the guy pulls
<v Speaker 2>the sunglasses out.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, yeah, that's right. So Brown scores them a record
<v Speaker 1>deal and they produced their first album, which is just
<v Speaker 1>called you Listening Listen to the News.
<v Speaker 2>Making a brand you want them on time. Before we
<v Speaker 2>dive into their second album, Picture This, I did want
<v Speaker 2>to mention one thing. They were originally called Huey Lewis
<v Speaker 2>and the American Express and Bob Brown. Their managers like, hey, guys,
<v Speaker 2>the name's okay, but I don't want to get sued, right,
<v Speaker 2>so let's change it to something. And so they come
<v Speaker 2>up with this great name, which I think is really cool.
<v Speaker 2>He listened the News, and that's the one that sticks.
<v Speaker 2>And if you'll notice, sports is you know, sort of
<v Speaker 2>TV station related, and their latest album Weather, you know,
<v Speaker 2>it's kind of a play on the news. All right.
<v Speaker 2>So their second album is called Picture This after their
<v Speaker 2>first album really didn't do anything. They needed a hit, right,
<v Speaker 2>And keep in mind.
<v Speaker 1>They're still figuring out who they are, right, Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>This is the time in life in the early eighties
<v Speaker 2>when radio is everything, right, MTV is new. Yeah, it's
<v Speaker 2>up and coming. They haven't quite hit their stride yet.
<v Speaker 1>Just a bit before this, you've got push button radio
<v Speaker 1>for the first time, like where you could pick your
<v Speaker 1>favorite stations, hit a button and who, and the radio
<v Speaker 1>would automatically go there. Right. You didn't have to use
<v Speaker 1>the little dial to try to find it, which was
<v Speaker 1>a total pain. Well, what a result of that was
<v Speaker 1>is if they didn't enjoy the song they were hearing, right,
<v Speaker 1>then they're changing the station. Yeah. And so what somebody
<v Speaker 1>figured out is, well, then we just need to play
<v Speaker 1>the most popular songs. We'll pick forty of them, and
<v Speaker 1>top forty is born. Yeah, and so that is really
<v Speaker 1>what was the programming method at the time that these
<v Speaker 1>guys are starting their rise. If you weren't top forty,
<v Speaker 1>you weren't going to be making any money.
<v Speaker 2>So they decided, look, this second album, we need a hit.
<v Speaker 1>Uh huh.
<v Speaker 2>So here he calls his old buddy met Lang, Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and he says, listen, dude, I gotta have a hit man,
<v Speaker 2>Can you help me something?
<v Speaker 1>And this time Muttlang has become Mut Lang.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean back in black. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I was gonna say he's got the he's got the
<v Speaker 1>ac DC albums under his belt at this point, yes, yes,
<v Speaker 1>So Matt Lang says, well, I've got this song that
<v Speaker 1>I think is pretty good and it's called We Both
<v Speaker 1>Believe in Love?
<v Speaker 2>Huh right? Yeah, And so here he listens to it.
<v Speaker 2>He's like, ah, this sounds like a hit. I mean
<v Speaker 2>it sounds good, you know, right.
<v Speaker 1>Do you know the lyrics to the to the original?
<v Speaker 2>No?
<v Speaker 3>No, no, tell me Okay, So here's Mutt Lang's lyrics. Okay,
<v Speaker 3>we both believe in love, we both believe it's ours.
<v Speaker 3>You really give enough? Yeah, you make me really see
<v Speaker 3>the stars.
<v Speaker 1>Swing in a spell.
<v Speaker 2>Well, you know what though, he takes it and he says,
<v Speaker 2>I think we could work with this. Yeah, that song
<v Speaker 2>we Both Believe in Love becomes do You Believe in Love?
<v Speaker 1>Yes?
<v Speaker 2>Down on One Way Street, and that's what they needed
<v Speaker 2>and they had this successful video. It has a funny
<v Speaker 2>scene where he's like serenading his girlfriend while she's asleep
<v Speaker 2>in bed, and all everyone in the news is like
<v Speaker 2>in bed singing you know.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's kind of funny. I got a story on
<v Speaker 1>the video. Okay, So they hadn't had a professionally done
<v Speaker 1>video before they get this video director that's supposed to
<v Speaker 1>be really well known, really renowned, and he makes this
<v Speaker 1>video and when they walk in and they watch the video,
<v Speaker 1>they're like, this sucks. They've all got way too much
<v Speaker 1>makeup on. Yeah, he says the whole time. The video
<v Speaker 1>is just kind of like mirroring what you have in
<v Speaker 1>the lyrics and you know this like they had, they
<v Speaker 1>had producers produced their records initially, but after a little
<v Speaker 1>bit they're like, hey, we've been doing this long enough,
<v Speaker 1>we're going to produce our own record, right And after
<v Speaker 1>they saw the video, they said, you know what, we
<v Speaker 1>can do this, We'll direct our own videos, which again
<v Speaker 1>Top forty MTV modeled what it was playing right off
<v Speaker 1>of what radio was playing. So that's why you have
<v Speaker 1>all of these videos that are horrible because they these
<v Speaker 1>music artists new music, but they didn't know videos. Huey
<v Speaker 1>Lewis is like, we're going to make our own videos
<v Speaker 1>and from now on, if the song zigs the videos act,
<v Speaker 1>we are not going to have the videos related to
<v Speaker 1>the songs as much as we can help it.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, Okay, And you make an interesting point there. They
<v Speaker 2>produced their own albums, starting with Picture This. They also
<v Speaker 2>produced Sports, which is their third album. Yes, are we
<v Speaker 2>ready to dive into that a little bit?
<v Speaker 1>Yes, let's start talking about the production of Sports.
<v Speaker 2>Okay. So I've got this great story that I want
<v Speaker 2>to tell you.
<v Speaker 1>Okay.
<v Speaker 2>So their their record label is Chrysalis. So they finished
<v Speaker 2>the album that eventually they're going to name Sports, and
<v Speaker 2>they've got the master tape, and Bob Brown, their manager,
<v Speaker 2>goes to call the office at Chrysalis, and when he does,
<v Speaker 2>he doesn't get an answer. Unusual, right, He gets one
<v Speaker 2>of those this line's been disconnected messages.
<v Speaker 1>You used to get into.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's not like nobody answered, right, Like the secretary
<v Speaker 2>is not in the bathroom.
<v Speaker 1>Right.
<v Speaker 2>So he calls Huey Lewis later and he says, hey,
<v Speaker 2>I think we might have a problem. He's like, I
<v Speaker 2>called the office and nobody. He goes, I got that
<v Speaker 2>disconnected message and Huey Lewis says the one in Los
<v Speaker 2>Angeles and Bob Brown says, the one in Los Angeles,
<v Speaker 2>New York.
<v Speaker 1>And London oh, oh gosh.
<v Speaker 2>So they are like, holy crap, Chrysalis is about to
<v Speaker 2>go under. They are going out of business. They didn't
<v Speaker 2>pay their phone bill. How in the world are they
<v Speaker 2>going to support a band. So what they say is,
<v Speaker 2>we can't give them this record.
<v Speaker 1>Right, Yeah. The Chrysalis guys eventually get a hold of
<v Speaker 1>them and they're like, hey, we're ready to have those recordings,
<v Speaker 1>and they're like are you are you sure?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, no, we really you need to turn in your record. No,
<v Speaker 2>we're not going to do it.
<v Speaker 1>Right. So, what was going on at this time is
<v Speaker 1>that Chrysalis had basically eliminated its distribution the part of
<v Speaker 1>the company, Chris Liss became just a name and CBS
<v Speaker 1>handled everything else. But obviously that Hugh Lewis in the
<v Speaker 1>news didn't know that was going on.
<v Speaker 2>So it took some convincing, right, And so Bob Brown's like, look,
<v Speaker 2>we need money, number one, we need to make a living.
<v Speaker 2>Number two, we have this album that's ready to go.
<v Speaker 2>And so Huey Lewis said he kept the masters for
<v Speaker 2>this for Sports under his bed and like they carried
<v Speaker 2>it around because he was too afraid, like the house
<v Speaker 2>might burn down and stuff. So he carried it around
<v Speaker 2>with him. He's so scared, but he couldn't turn it in.
<v Speaker 2>He had nowhere to go.
<v Speaker 1>But he knew the value of what they had because
<v Speaker 1>when they started this album, we talked about top forty
<v Speaker 1>and we've talked about it before when we've talked about
<v Speaker 1>Mutt Lang and Quincy Jones. Right, we want to make
<v Speaker 1>an album where any one of the songs could be
<v Speaker 1>a top single. That was their objective with this album.
<v Speaker 2>A bellti fastball right down Main Street for everyone. Yes,
<v Speaker 2>and they did it. Obviously they did it. They did it.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, yes, they didn't. They just wanted one. They were like,
<v Speaker 1>as long as one of these is the top forty hit,
<v Speaker 1>we got it. They did not expect six.
<v Speaker 2>Right, right, So this is interesting. So they have an
<v Speaker 2>album that's complete, they think it's great. They don't feel
<v Speaker 2>comfortable giving it to the record company, so it cannot
<v Speaker 2>be sold, right, So they're like, well, what do we do? Well,
<v Speaker 2>we got on the road. Got to go on the road,
<v Speaker 2>gotta go travel. So they the tour I think is
<v Speaker 2>called the working for a Living tour. They are playing
<v Speaker 2>the songs on sports out there, Yeah, to crowd a
<v Speaker 2>little bit, a little bit.
<v Speaker 1>Well, they've they've got it reserved. So I know this.
<v Speaker 1>The reason I know this is because my brother told
<v Speaker 1>me a story. In addition, you know, when we're talking
<v Speaker 1>on the phone, in our conversation about U Lewis, He's like, so,
<v Speaker 1>when I went to high school, there was a kid
<v Speaker 1>who was a year older than me. His name is Denny.
<v Speaker 1>If that you know, Hey Denny, if you're listening out
<v Speaker 1>there and you're reporter for the Greenwood, Arkansas High School paper,
<v Speaker 1>I've heard a story about you. So Denny for the
<v Speaker 1>high school paper got a press pass and so on
<v Speaker 1>the Working for a Living tour, Huey Lewis was matched
<v Speaker 1>up with Joan Jet and he was the opening band
<v Speaker 1>and she was the main attraction. Yes, right, yes, And
<v Speaker 1>so I looked it up and sure enough, Fayetteville saw
<v Speaker 1>barn Hill Arena April of nineteen eighty three. There it is.
<v Speaker 1>It lists their set list and everything, and it's mostly
<v Speaker 1>picture this songs that they're playing. Okay, but Denny with
<v Speaker 1>his press pass goes in and interviews Huey Lewis from
<v Speaker 1>Huey Lewis and the news. I just I'm just like,
<v Speaker 1>give credit to this guy for realizing Hey, I'm you know, sixteen,
<v Speaker 1>but I've got a press pass.
<v Speaker 2>My name is Denny.
<v Speaker 1>And so he said that Huey Lewis was kind of
<v Speaker 1>pissed off because he thought that they should be the
<v Speaker 1>main band and that Joan Jet should be the opening band.
<v Speaker 2>Wow.
<v Speaker 1>I mean that's that's imperson, and I couldn't. I had
<v Speaker 1>to think, I'm like, Okay, in eighty two, she's coming
<v Speaker 1>off of I Love Roca, which is huge.
<v Speaker 2>I Love rock and Roll is huge, and Crimson and
<v Speaker 2>Clover was big, you know, and she was in Runaways.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, but that was like in this even Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>But Huey Lewis had a couple of songs.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, you know, you're working for a living and
<v Speaker 1>do you believe love? Sorry? I was like, we both
<v Speaker 1>believe him. Good for him for having confidence. I don't
<v Speaker 1>think he was a jerk about it. I think he
<v Speaker 1>just felt like that they they were special and probably
<v Speaker 1>a pretty good band. I don't know how good Jone
<v Speaker 1>Jet was as a live performance. Right, So say all
<v Speaker 1>that to say, this is mid eighty three and they
<v Speaker 1>are all crammed in one bus, but the lids about
<v Speaker 1>to come off, right, Beendorsbox.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, so sports. Eventually they feel confident enough to turn
<v Speaker 2>it over to Chris List. They produced the album, they
<v Speaker 2>distribute it, they support it. It's released September fifteenth of
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighty three. It goes on to become the number
<v Speaker 2>two overall selling album of nineteen eighty four. It's a
<v Speaker 2>smash hit, yes, and like you said, it's one of
<v Speaker 2>only five albums in nineteen eighty four to reach the
<v Speaker 2>number one spot and one of the most competitive music
<v Speaker 2>years of all time.
<v Speaker 1>So they become obviously world famous within just a short
<v Speaker 1>amount of time. Yeah. They have a guy who's their
<v Speaker 1>tour manager called Loel Halsey, and he's got this real
<v Speaker 1>Cockney accent. He's like, we go through all these special things,
<v Speaker 1>get the band back into the hotel, bring them in
<v Speaker 1>through the back door, get them in the back and
<v Speaker 1>then hughe go down to the bar and have a
<v Speaker 1>beer with all.
<v Speaker 2>The fans and Jim Jurry.
<v Speaker 1>So hughe is not you know, he's not a guy
<v Speaker 1>who's afraid to just hang out. He's such just a
<v Speaker 1>regular guy kind of guy.
<v Speaker 2>It's so great. That's what his mass appeal is. You know,
<v Speaker 2>I don't know if this is the best place to
<v Speaker 2>tell the story. But it after sports kind of been
<v Speaker 2>mid nineteen eighty five, think back to the future time period, right,
<v Speaker 2>Michael Jackson had pepsi commercials, right, and he was the
<v Speaker 2>choice of a new generation whatever. Well, Coke came knocking
<v Speaker 2>on Huey Lewis's door and they had this scale that
<v Speaker 2>basically combined popularity and how likable you are, and Huey
<v Speaker 2>Lewis basically was the highest you could possibly be on
<v Speaker 2>both charts. Oh wow, And Coke said, basically, we have
<v Speaker 2>a scale that we measure cokeness and so your top
<v Speaker 2>of the list cokenus wise, and they threw millions of
<v Speaker 2>dollars on him and he said, nah, no thanks.
<v Speaker 1>So before we jump full on into the album, Yes,
<v Speaker 1>a couple of things that I want to just say
<v Speaker 1>that happened after the album, but I want to say
<v Speaker 1>them now. Okay, okay, Yes. Number one, Huey Lewis was
<v Speaker 1>one of the artists on We Are the World. I
<v Speaker 1>know it's your favorite song, and I know you're talking,
<v Speaker 1>but I've got a little bit of information that I
<v Speaker 1>thought was that priceless. He's one of the solos, he's
<v Speaker 1>one of the singing by himself, and you've got all
<v Speaker 1>kinds of people there singing, like the Pointer sisters didn't
<v Speaker 1>have any solos. Dan akroy didn't have any solos.
<v Speaker 2>Dan ackroyd how in the world did dan Akro get
<v Speaker 2>invited to this party?
<v Speaker 1>And so I heard him talking and he's like, They're like,
<v Speaker 1>how did you get the solo in there? And he's like,
<v Speaker 1>I got Prince's part? Oh? Is that right? Right? So
<v Speaker 1>the part that Huey lewi Us sings was written for Prince.
<v Speaker 1>The Prince didn't come, and it's higher, it's a higher
<v Speaker 1>you listen to it, it's a little higher register for
<v Speaker 1>ye Okay, he sings right, think about it. He sings
<v Speaker 1>to write after Michael Jackson sings, Wow, it's with Cindy
<v Speaker 1>Lapper yep, and.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
<v Speaker 1>It's great. But yeah, he got Prince's part of it.
<v Speaker 2>Interesting. Interesting, Any word on why Princeton.
<v Speaker 1>Show Probably because Michael Jackson was Probably because Michael Jackson
<v Speaker 1>is too competitive.
<v Speaker 2>Yea.
<v Speaker 1>I will find out the answer to that. I will
<v Speaker 1>find out the answer as to why Prince didn't sing
<v Speaker 1>on We of the World. But you're gonna have to
<v Speaker 1>wait until our Purple Rain episode. To find out.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, great, that's awesome.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, So nineteen eighty four, mind you, this is where
<v Speaker 1>we are is when they're filming Back to the Future.
<v Speaker 2>Huge longest movie of the nineteen eighties.
<v Speaker 1>Right, And so Hue gets a call from this guy
<v Speaker 1>named Bob Zamechas who really hasn't done much other than
<v Speaker 1>the movie called Romancing the Stone at this point. Sure,
<v Speaker 1>and he goes He's like, we would love for you
<v Speaker 1>to be a part of this movie. We think that
<v Speaker 1>Marty McFly, our main character, that his favorite band is
<v Speaker 1>Huey lewis in the news, and somehow, with his hustle
<v Speaker 1>pivot fake fade away, he lands himself a part of
<v Speaker 1>the movie.
<v Speaker 2>This guy's awesome.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. What he says to him at the time, though,
<v Speaker 1>is I don't really want to write a song called
<v Speaker 1>back in the Future, right, And he's like, I don't
<v Speaker 1>want you to write a song called back in the Future.
<v Speaker 1>I want you to write one of your songs and
<v Speaker 1>we're just going to use it.
<v Speaker 2>That song is called Power of Love. Yes, And that
<v Speaker 2>video was filmed at Uncle Charlie's, which was where he
<v Speaker 2>got his start as the stage.
<v Speaker 1>Band exactly, and as it turned out. They released that
<v Speaker 1>song before the movie came out, and it was topping
<v Speaker 1>the charts right when the movie was released. And so
<v Speaker 1>when you as a theater goer, imagine this, Yes, Marty says, damn,
<v Speaker 1>I'm late for school and it hits. Yeah, everybody knew.
<v Speaker 2>That song playing the number one song in the country.
<v Speaker 1>It's perfect. And he did a movie. Hue Lewis did
<v Speaker 1>a movie later on with Quyneth Paltrow, Yes, which also
<v Speaker 1>had a fantastic song on it, but it didn't get
<v Speaker 1>released until after the movie and the movie didn't do
<v Speaker 1>so well. And he said, I think if they'd released
<v Speaker 1>the song before they released the movie, the movie would
<v Speaker 1>have done a lot better.
<v Speaker 2>And I'll tell you what. We've got a story about
<v Speaker 2>another movie that Huge Lewis was involved with against his will,
<v Speaker 2>and there is money that there's some suits involved in.
<v Speaker 2>It was very unpleasant situation. Next week, so.
<v Speaker 1>We're ready to jump in track by track.
<v Speaker 2>We are ready to jump in track by track next week.
<v Speaker 1>Next week, and that's when you'll hear the story of
<v Speaker 1>the mysterious movie that stole he would lose his song
<v Speaker 1>as though anybody
<v Speaker 2>Doesn't know, right, they totally slammed him on this thinge
<v Speaker 2>oh yeah,