Huey Lewis and The News to play in St. Leonard

Friday, June 20, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo Submitted photo Huey Lewis, front, and The News, one of the most successful bands of the 1980s, will perform in St. Leonard on June 29. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story   Huey Lewis and The News Sound: Rock ‘n’ roll Where: St. Leonard Volunteer Fire Department, 200 Calvert Beach Road, St. Leonard. When: June 29. Gates open at 5:30 p.m. Show begins at 7:30 p.m., with opening act Paul Thorn. Tickets: $45 and $40. Go to the fire department between 10 a.m. and noon on Saturdays. Call 1-800-551-Seat or go to www.ticketmaster.com. Info: www.slvfd.com.

And then ... some friends were visiting his home in California, and he was trying to get their children’s attention.

‘‘”Look at that!” he said, interrupting a telephone interview. ‘‘Wow! That’s a big osprey.”

Lewis grew up in San Francisco. When it was time for high school, his father, a jazz musician, advised him to go to Lawrenceville, a prestigious prep school in New Jersey. From there, Lewis, who had a perfect score on the math section of the SAT, went to Cornell University to study engineering. His father’s next bit of advice was to spend a summer roaming through Europe, a time which incidentally led Lewis to learn how to play harmonica.

‘‘Hold on one second,” he said. ‘‘Hey, kids. Look! That’s a pair of bald eagles!”

Lewis went back to Cornell and joined bands as a harmonica player and backup singer. ‘‘I went to a Cornell for five minutes for a two-year period,” he said.

Lewis dropped out of Cornell and returned to San Francisco in 1969. After a stint with a bluegrass band, he joined the country-rock outfit, Clover, to which he added a little bit of R&B.

On San Francisco in the Sixties: ‘‘Books have been written about it. I don’t know what to tell you ... The message was a familial one. Everyone was in a band. It was more than just music. It was something you did. You joined bands based on someone you knew,” he said.

Shortly after Clover disbanded in the late 1970s, Lewis got a singles contract and formed Huey Lewis and the American Express. After a few gigs the name changed to Huey Lewis and The News.

Huey Lewis and The News became one of the quintessential bands of the 1980s. And yet to classify them as an ‘‘’80s band” is somewhat misleading.

Huey Lewis and The News was not a glam or hair band. They produced pop tunes with a straight-ahead style. Behind all the odd electronic additives and far-out synthesizer riffs one can hear the soul and rockabilly and doo-wop — rock ‘n’ roll.

‘‘We produced on our records and did our own sounds,” Lewis said. ‘‘We learned how to make records. The object is to have a career ... We were a little more esoteric than that.” But careers in the 1980s were founded upon hits, and Huey Lewis and The News, according to Lewis, were ‘‘lucky” enough to strike up more than a few.

‘‘We were trying to write timeless stuff that would endure,” he said. ‘‘The Power of Love,” for one, which was written for the 1985 movie, ‘‘Back to the Future,” was a No. 1 hit and provided the backbone to what might be considered the decade’s most resonant movie soundtrack.

While the band’s commercial success left with the ‘80s, Lewis has continued to tour and occasionally record with a varying lineup. In 1994 The News released ‘‘Four Chords and Several Years Ago,” a tribute to early rock and R&B. These were the songs that inspired Lewis early on, and he said the experience of recording them fundamentally altered his approach to the studio.

Rather than take something rough and shine it up, The News, which is often 9 pieces, now tries to make songs on the stage. ‘‘That’s where it comes together,” Lewis said. In the studio they try to ‘‘capture performances” in a couple takes. ‘‘We fell in love with that style of writing,” he said.

Huey Lewis and The News recently toured in Japan. (If you go to YouTube you can find a video of him playing blues-style harmonica at a Foo Fighters concert while Dave Grohl rips a solo.) Last month he appeared on the ‘‘Tonight Show” with Jay Leno and did a spoof of a Geico commercial with the latest ‘‘American Idol” contestant to be dismissed. There have been rumors of a new album in recent years, and Huey Lewis and the News recently made a song for the Seth Rogan film, ‘‘Pineapple Express,” which is scheduled to be released in August.

Could the movie push the spotlight back on Lewis for a spell?

‘‘Put your shoes on,” he said, calling out to the children. ‘‘We’re going to walk out and look at those bald eagles.”