Hugh Anthony Cregg III was born this day in 1950 to Hugh Anthony Cregg, Jr., MD, an Irish American from Boston and his mother, Magda, a Polish refugee while they resided in New York, New York. Raised in Marin County, California, attending Strawberry Point Elementary School (where he skipped second grade) and Edna Maguire Junior High School in Mill Valley. When he was 13, his parents divorced and he attended and later graduated from the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, in 1967, where he achieved a perfect score of 800 on the math portion of the SAT. Lewis applied to and was accepted by Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. In an interview with David Letterman, Lewis talked about hitchhiking across the country to New York and how he learned to play the harmonica while waiting for rides. He talked about hanging out at the airport for three days until he stowed away on a plane to Europe. In future interviews Lewis would reveal other encounters while traveling Europe. He claimed to have slept rough at times. While visiting the Scottish city of Aberdeen with no money and nowhere to sleep Lewis claimed that the locals were very hospitable and would often offer him somewhere to stay. In Madrid, Spain, Lewis became an accomplished blues player and he hitchhiked around and supported himself by busking with his harmonica. He gave his first concerts in Madrid, earning enough money to buy a plane ticket back to the USA. Upon his return, Lewis entered the engineering program at Cornell University. While there he made friends with Lance and Larry Hoppen who later played with Orleans and Eddie Tuleja of King Harvest. Initially an active student and a member of the fraternity Eta Lambda Nu, Lewis soon lost interest in college. He signed up with a band called Slippery Elm and in December 1969, during his junior year, he dropped out of Cornell and moved back to the San Francisco area. His aim was to continue playing music though along the way he also tried other fields of work including landscaping, carpentry, wedding and event planning and natural foods. In 1971 Lewis joined the Bay Area band Clover. Around this time he took the stage name Hughie Louis, the spelling of which he would tinker with for some years after. Other members of the band (at various points) were John McFee, Alex Call, John Ciambotti, Mitch Howie, Sean Hopper, Mickey Shine and Marcus David. Lewis played harmonica and sang lead vocals on a few tunes. In 1976, after playing in the Bay Area with limited success, Clover went to Los Angeles. They had their big break in a club there when their act was caught by Nick Lowe who convinced Clover to travel to Great Britain with him. However, Clover arrived in Britain just as their folk-rock sound, known as pub rock in Britain, was being replaced by punk rock. The two Clover albums produced by Robert John Mutt Lange under the British Phonogram label were not successful. By this point the spelling of Creggs stage name had changed to Huey Louis; it is under this spelling that he is billed on both of Clovers albums for Phonogram. In 1978 the band returned to California, McFee joined the Doobie Brothers, and Clover disbanded. Under the name Huey Harp, Lewis played harmonica on Thin Lizzys 1978 landmark album Live and Dangerous. That same year, Lewis was playing at Uncle Charlies, a club in Corte Madera, California, doing the Monday Night Live spot along with future members of the News. After recording the song Exo-Disco (a disco version of the theme from the film Exodus) as Huey Lewis and the American Express, Huey landed a singles contract from Phonogram Records and Bob Brown became his manager. The band played a few gigs (including an opening for Van Morrison), before adding new guitarist Chris Hayes to the line-up. On Browns advice they changed their name again to Huey Lewis & The News. After a failed self-titled debut in 1980 the band finally broke through to Top 40 success with the gold album Picture This (1982). It rose to No. 13 on the Albums chart thanks to the Mutt Lange-penned Do You Believe in Love (No. 7), the bands first hit. The bands third LP, the No. 1 Sports (1983), is one of the best-selling pop releases of all time. It has sold ten million copies in the US alone. That well received album was followed by Fore! (1986), another No. 1 multi-platinum hit. During a show at the California State Fair on August 21, 2007 Lewis was named Sacramentos Musician of the Year by the fairs General Manager and presented with a gold statue of the California state bear. Happy Birthday Huey, keep on making music---it sure beats.......
Posted on: Sat, 05 Jul 2014 18:22:54 +0000