Behind the Music Special is Overdue
By Joe Wetzel
HLN Today Co-editor
After 143 Behind the Music shows on other musicians and topics, VH1 finally got around to doing one on Huey Lewis and the News. Even an unbiased critic would have to admit that Huey Lewis and the News should have had a Behind the Music show much earlier than episode #144, except for the fact that the band doesn't have the dramatic overdosing, in-fighting and alcoholism found in many of the other Behind the Music specials.
The rest of this article may spoil the special for you. You may wish to wait and read it after. However, few things in the special are not already on this website.
The show opens with a look at Huey's childhood by describing how his parents raised him. Next the show describes his traveling through Europe before finally getting to the band Clover. Although the show spends a large amount of time describing Clover, it doesn't even mention the band Soundhole which Johnny Colla, Bill Gibson, and Mario Cippolina were members of prior to the News nor does it give background on Chris Hayes. This is the first of two major disappointments regarding the show's content.
After detailing the trials of the unsuccessful first album, the show tells the story of the band needing a hit on Picture This. Huey called friend Mutt Lange (the songwriter of some of AC/DC's and Bryan Adams's hits) asking if Lange had any songs available. Lange gave the band the song "We Both Believe in Love", and Huey changed the hook slightly to "Do You Believe in Love" and the band had its first hit!
But the record label Chrysalis was having financial difficulties according to the special, causing the band to be cautious turning over the master tapes to Sports. Eventually, they did and Crysalis knew they had several top ten singles on the new album.
Sports brought success, and at that point Huey knew, "We're gonna be able to do this for the rest of our lives." According to the show, Huey Lewis and the News were popular on early MTV, being one of the first bands to make available concert footage and by filming humorous, off-beat videos. The show does a short segment on the lawsuit against Ray Parker Jr. and Ivan Reitman regarding the Ghostbusters theme song, which was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.
According to the show, the band wasn't soured on Hollywood however, and they accepted an offer to write 2 songs for Back to the Future. As Stephen Clark from the Back to the Future web site commented, the show missed the fact that three songs were written. The third was "In the Nick of Time" which was later recoded by Patti LaBelle for the Brewster's Millions soundtrack.
The show describes Fore as continuing on the success of Sports, before discussing the band's change in musical direction with Small World.
The transition after discussing Small World is the second major disappointment regarding the show's content. The show just skips over 10 years with the line, "After nearly a decade on the sidelines, Huey Lewis got back in the game in the fall of 2000." For more infomation on what happened in those 10 years, see below.
The Huey Lewis and the News Behind the Music closes by describing Huey's recent successful Duet "Cruisin'" with Gwynneth Paltrow and the plans for the band's new album Plan B.
Overall, we should be glad VH1 has finally done a Behind the Music on the band, but there are some major omissions and probably some minor ones.
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