The #69 Album of All-Time in the Rock Era: "Sports" by Huey Lewis & the News

We are featuring the Top 100 Albums of All-Time in the Rock Era* this summer, revealing one per day.  We are up to #69.

Sports was the third album from Huey Lewis and the News, and the San Francisco group hit it out of the park. Billboard magazine ranked it as the #2 album of 1984 behind only Michael Jackson's Thriller.

 

The album reached #1 for a week and had good staying power. It chalked up 7 weeks at #2 and 42 weeks in the Top 10, an amazing feat for this breakthrough album. Sports remained on the album chart for 158 weeks (over three years). To date, it has sold 7 million copies and has a solid 9.0 Track Rating*.

Huey Lewis and the News won the American Music Award for the Favorite Group Video Artist.  They were nominated for Favorite Group.  "The Heart of Rock & Roll" was nominated for the prestigious Record of the Year while "Heart and Soul" was nominated for Best Song by a Pop Vocal Group at the Grammy Awards.


Sports:
1.  "The Heart of Rock & Roll" (Johnny Colla, Huey Lewis) --5:02
2.  "Heart and Soul" (Mike Chapman, Nicky Chinn) --4:13
3.  "Bad Is Bad" (Alex Call, John Ciambotti, Sean Hopper, Lewis, John McFee, Schriener) --3:48
4.  "I Want a New Drug" (Chris Hayes, Lewis) --4:46
5.  "Walking on a Thin Line" (Andre Pessis, Kevin Wells) --5:11
6.  "Finally Found a Home" (B. Brown, Hayes, Lewis) --3:43
7.  "If This Is It" (Colla, Lewis) --3:54
8.  "You Crack Me Up" (Mario Cipollina, Lewis) --3:42
9.  "Honky Tonk Blues" (Hank Williams) --3:26





Huey Lewis & the News consisted of Huey Lewis on lead vocals and harmonica, lead guitarist Chris Hayes, Johnny Colla, who played guitar and saxophone, Mario Cipollina on bass, keyboardist Sean Hopper and Bill Gibson on drums and percussion.  All members of the band sang backing vocals.  The only other help they got on the album was from John McFee, who played pedal steel guitar on "Honky Tonk Blues".

Huey Lewis & the News produced the album, Jim Gaines, Jeffrey Norman and Jesse Osborne were the engineers, Larry Alexander and Bob Clearmountain mixed the album and Ted Jensen mastered it.  Sam Gay and Lisa Glines handed the art direction.

The album was recorded at two locations--Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, California and The Plant Studios in Sausalito, California.  It was released September 15, 1983 on Chrysalis Records.

A monster album at #69--Sports, by Huey Lewis & the News.