Huey

Have you heard The News? The sweet pop/rock/soul sound of San Francisco's Huey Lewis & The News has sadly gone silent in recent years, thanks to its one-of-a-kind frontman's battle with Ménière's disease, which causes intermittent hearing loss. But a surprise new reissue campaign courtesy of Universal Music Group's Japanese division promises the most comprehensive look at the band's blockbuster catalogue of the '80s and early '90s.

Baby Huey - The Baby Huey Story: The Living Legend (1971) {2014 Warner Music Japan WPCR-27720}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 286 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 97 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 20 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1971, 2014 Curtom / Warner Music Japan | WPCR-27720
Psychedelic Soul / Funk / Soul / R&B / Chicago Soul

Reissue with the latest 2013 digital remastering. Comes with a description and lyrics. Baby Huey's only album, released after his untimely death, is titled The Living Legend with good reason. He was legendary in his appearance, a 400-pound man with a penchant for flamboyant clothing and crowned by a woolly Afro, a look that is best illustrated by one of several rare photos included in the Water Records edition that shows our man in a wide-lapeled polka-dot shirt with a lime-green jacket. Beyond his unusual appearance, though, he was graced with a stunning, fierce voice on par with Otis Redding and Howard Tate, wailing and howling one moment and oddly tender and sentimental the next.

Clocking in at 26 minutes, Weather feels more like an EP than an LP, but there's a reason for the brevity. While Huey Lewis & the News were completing their first album of original material in nearly 20 years, Lewis was diagnosed with Meniere's disease, an affliction that effects hearing. Meniere's meant Huey could no longer hear notes clearly, which meant that he had to retire from performing, which in turn meant that the music the News completed for their new album would in effect be their final album. Since Huey Lewis & the News wrote and recorded Weather without planning it as a goodbye, the album has a light, breezy tone, and that amiability is actually a fitting farewell for a group who always were a hard-working rock & soul combo.

There have been many Huey Lewis & the News hits compilations released overseas, but 2006's simply named Greatest Hits is only the second U.S. comp, following Time Flies, which appeared a decade earlier. At a generous 21 tracks, Greatest Hits is not only five songs longer than Time Flies, but it's a better-chosen collection, too. It may be missing "Bad Is Bad," but it has a stronger selection of early songs, like the wonderful "Hope You Love Me Like You Say You Do," plus a better selection of latter-day songs, including Huey's duet with Gwyneth Paltrow on Smokey Robinson's "Cruisin'." That doesn't mean the disc is perfect, however – although this does have a stronger representation of their earlier material, it could use just a little bit more, and the non-chronological sequencing is a bit of a headache. That said, this has all the hits and no weak songs, making it the best Huey Lewis & the News compilation yet.