Huey Lewis And The News reached the commercial peak of their 1980s run with Fore!, the 1986 album that produced five Top 10 Billboard Hot 100 singles, including the No. 1 hits “Stuck With You” and “Jacob’s Ladder”.
by Paul Cashmere
Huey Lewis And The News’ Fore! turns 40 on August 20, marking four decades since the San Francisco band followed their blockbuster Sports album with another chart-topping collection. Released in 1986, Fore! reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200, topped album charts in Canada, Japan and New Zealand, and ultimately earned three-times-platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America.
The album was recorded during 1985 and 1986 at studios in the San Francisco Bay Area, including Studio D Recording and The Plant in Sausalito and Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. It followed Sports, the 1983 album that established Huey Lewis And The News as one of the defining American hitmaking bands of the decade. Sports had already delivered “Heart And Soul”, “I Want A New Drug”, “The Heart Of Rock And Roll” and “If This Is It”, setting an unusually high commercial benchmark for its successor.
Fore! met that challenge with a sequence of singles that kept the band at the centre of mainstream radio. “Stuck With You”, released in July 1986, became the album’s first single and reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. “Hip To Be Square” followed, before “Jacob’s Ladder” reached the summit in 1987. “I Know What I Like” and “Doing It All For My Baby” also reached the Billboard Hot 100 Top 10, giving the album five Top 10 singles.
One of Fore!’s most interesting stories concerns “Jacob’s Ladder”. The song was written by Bruce Hornsby and his brother John Hornsby and had originally been intended for a Hornsby project. Huey Lewis was producing the material, but Hornsby was dissatisfied with the arrangement and suggested Lewis record the song with The News instead. The result became the band’s second No. 1 single from Fore!.
“Doing It All For My Baby” also took an unusual route into the album. Songwriter Mike Duke initially recorded a version with himself on vocals, backed by the band, with the intention of securing a solo recording deal. When that plan did not eventuate, Lewis recorded the song with his own vocal for Fore!.
“Hip To Be Square” has proved particularly durable in popular culture. Lewis originally wrote the lyric in the third person before changing it to first person because he felt the joke worked better that way. He described the song as being about the transformation of people from the 1960s who adopted more conventional lifestyles while retaining elements of their bohemian tastes. The song was later given another life through the film American Psycho, in which Patrick Bateman delivers an extended and deliberately over-serious assessment of Huey Lewis And The News before the film’s violent sequence.
The album also contains “Forest For The Trees”, which Lewis described as an uplifting song for young people dealing with difficult circumstances. He drew inspiration from letters he received from younger fans who told him how much the band’s music meant to them.
Fore! also sits at an important point in the group’s catalogue. Sports had made Huey Lewis And The News major international stars, while Fore! confirmed that their success was not confined to a single album cycle. The band followed it in 1988 with Small World, which produced the singles “Perfect World” and “Small World”. The earlier soundtrack hit “The Power Of Love”, recorded for the 1985 film Back To The Future, was added as a bonus track to international editions of Fore!. It had already become the band’s first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1.
The title Fore! carries a double meaning, referencing both golf and the fact that it was the band’s fourth studio album. The group’s interest in golf was well established, making the title an appropriate piece of wordplay. Another visual curiosity is the album cover, photographed against a wall at Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, California, a school attended by members Bill Gibson, Sean Hopper and Mario Cipollina.
The album’s personnel also reflected the band’s collaborative approach. Lewis handled lead vocals and harmonica, with Johnny Colla on saxophone and guitar, Chris Hayes on lead guitar, Mario Cipollina on bass, Bill Gibson on drums and percussion, and Sean Hopper on keyboards. The Tower Of Power Horns contributed to several tracks, while a group of notable American football players, including Joe Montana, Ronnie Lott and Dwight Clark, participated in backing vocals associated with the album sessions.
Fore! remains one of the clearest documents of Huey Lewis And The News at their commercial height. Its five Top 10 singles, No. 1 album position and enduring presence in popular culture placed the band among the most successful American rock-pop acts of the 1980s. Forty years later, the album’s significance is measured not only by its sales and chart performance, but by how completely it captured the sound and ambitions of its era.
Tracklisting
“Jacob’s Ladder”
“Stuck With You”
“Whole Lotta Lovin’”
“Doing It All For My Baby”
“Hip To Be Square”
“I Know What I Like”
“I Never Walk Alone”
“Forest For The Trees”
“Naturally”
“Simple As That”
International editions included “The Power Of Love” as a bonus track, inserted as track three on side two.
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