[3][2] The group's first two albums were well-received, with Huey Lewis's personal charisma as a frontman gaining notice from publications such as The Washington Post,[3] but they struggled to find a wide audience.

[7][8][6] In 1972, singer/harmonica player Huey Lewis and keyboardist Sean Hopper joined the Bay Area jazz-funk band Clover.

Clover had recorded several albums in the 1970s, and in the middle of the decade transplanted themselves to Britain to become part of the UK pub rock scene.

Lewis also worked with Irish band Thin Lizzy, contributing harmonica to the song "Baby Drives Me Crazy", recorded onstage for the Live and Dangerous album.

The album turned gold, fueled by the breakout success of the hit single "Do You Believe in Love", written by former Clover producer "Mutt" Lange.

However, Sports slowly became a number-one hit in 1984, and went multi-platinum in 1985, thanks to the band's frequent touring and a series of videos that received heavy MTV airplay.

At the beginning of 1985, the band participated in the all-star USA for Africa charity single "We Are the World", with Lewis taking a solo vocal.

As an inside joke, the piece the band plays is an instrumental hard rock version of "The Power of Love" (Lewis's response: "Hold it, fellas ...

Following the success of "The Power of Love" and Back to the Future, Huey Lewis and the News released their fourth studio album, Fore!, in 1986.

The album spawned the number-one singles, "Stuck with You" and "Jacob's Ladder", as well as the mainstream rock hit "Hip to Be Square".

The band once again changed labels, this time signing with Elektra Records, releasing a cover album in 1994 called Four Chords & Several Years Ago, featuring doo-wop and rock songs from the 1950s and 1960s.

Horn players Marvin McFadden, Ron Stallings and Rob Sudduth joined the group in their place as "The Sports Section".

[7][8] On November 1, 2023, a new musical comedy inspired by the hits of Huey Lewis and the News was announced, The Heart of Rock and Roll.

Later that year, Huey Lewis and the News sued Parker, citing the similarities between the "Ghostbusters" song and their earlier hit "I Want a New Drug".

"The offensive part was not so much that Ray Parker Jr. had ripped this song off," says Lewis, who goes on to blame the arrogance of music industry execs who thought they could simply pay him off for stealing his melody.

"[22]Premiere magazine in 2004 featured an anniversary article about the movie Ghostbusters in which the filmmakers at Columbia Pictures admitted to using the song "I Want a New Drug" as temporary background music in many scenes.

Lewis, in the 2001 Behind the Music special, said the band had declined the filmmakers' offer because an upcoming concert tour to promote their hugely successful Sports album left no time to write a main theme for a movie.

During the scene in the film where the main protagonist, Patrick Bateman, kills his colleague, Paul Allen, with an axe, Bateman plays the song "Hip to Be Square" and waxes lyrical about the band: "Hip to Be Square" was initially intended to be on the soundtrack album, but was removed from the album due to lack of publishing rights.

Koch Records president Bob Frank said, "As a result of the violent nature of the film, Huey Lewis's management decided not to give the soundtrack clearance.

"[24] In April 2013, to mark the 30th anniversary of the band's album Sports, comedy video website Funny or Die created a parody of the axe murder scene featuring Huey Lewis as Patrick Bateman and "Weird Al" Yankovic (who parodied "I Want a New Drug" as "I Want a New Duck" years before) as Paul Allen.