A beloved 1980s music icon recently opened up about stepping away from music after becoming “basically deaf.”
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“My life has changed immeasurably. I can’t hear music. Music is not part of my life anymore,” Huey Lewis revealed on a recent episode of the Inside of You podcast.
“I’m basically deaf,” the 76-year-old told host Michael Rosenbaum.
The former lead singer of Huey Lewis and the News revealed that while he uses a cochlear implant to understand speech, he is unable to distinguish pitch due to the way the device works.
“My cochlear implant, it breaks everything down into digital bits so I can understand,” the “Hip to Be Square” singer said. “Speech is easier to listen to than music. Music occurs in all frequencies, with overtones and harmonics and everything. It comes at you in a lot of different frequencies, so it distorts for me … It makes pitch impossible to hear.”
As a result, Lewis can no longer enjoy music.
“When I cook or I have people over for dinner, I always used to play them music,” he explained. “I have a great collection of old big band stuff and old New Orleans jazz, and I don’t play it at all anymore. … It’s weird. I can hear the beat, I know what’s going on. But I can’t enjoy it.”
“Music used to be so much fun,” he continued. But “it just ends up being frustrating for me when I can’t enjoy it. I can’t feel the warmth.”
The Medical Condition That Left ’80s Icon Huey Lewis ‘Bascially Deaf’
In 2018, the “Power of Love” singer canceled his tour after Meniere’s disease severely damaged his hearing.
“Although I can still hear a little, one on one, and on the phone, I can’t hear music well enough to sing,” Lewis wrote on Twitter (now X) at the time. “The lower frequencies distort violently, making it impossible to find pitch.”
“I’m going to concentrate on getting better, and hope that one day soon I’ll be able to perform again,” he said at the time. Unfortunately, the condition ultimately ended his music career.
In 2025, Lewis admitted to PEOPLE feeling “disconsolate” after receiving his diagnosis. “I mean, it was a very bad six months,” he told the outlet. “It pretty much stayed in bed. I contemplated my demise. ‘How am I going to do it?’ Because I thought the world had ended.”
“But of course, you can kind of get used to anything,” he added about getting past the setback. “And the bottom line is I’m still a lucky guy, and there are lots of people out there worse than I am.”
While Lewis clearly misses making music, he’s finding a silver lining… no more grueling touring means plenty of time for other passions.
“I fish a lot,” Lewis revealed on Inside of You. “I love to fly fish, and I love Mother Nature. Out there by myself in a stream, I’m conducting nature with my fly rod, and it’s just a wonderful thing.
He added, “I love to do it… and hearing is not required.”