Huey Lewis and the News dominated the ’80s with iconic rock anthems, but a tragic medical condition ultimately forced the frontman to retire from music.
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In 2018, the “The Power of Love” singer, now 76, canceled his tour dates after Meniere’s disease severely damaged his hearing.
The beloved singer explained that the issue came on suddenly, just before the band’s show in Dallas, two months before his announcement.
“Although I can still hear a little, one on one, and on the phone, I can’t hear music well enough to sing,” he wrote on Twitter (now X) at the time. “The lower frequencies distort violently, making it impossible to find pitch.”
Lewis sought answers at several leading medical centers, including the Mayo Clinic, where specialists confirmed his diagnosis of Meniere’s disease. This complex inner ear disorder triggers severe episodes of vertigo, along with hearing loss and tinnitus (ringing in the ears).
“I’m going to concentrate on getting better, and hope that one day soon I’ll be able to perform again,” he added at the time. However, the medical condition effectively ended Lewis’s musical career.
Lewis Opens Up About Ménière’s Disease: ‘I Can’t Hear Music’
In 2025, Lewis shared his experience of living with Ménière’s disease.
“I’m no spring chicken, so something’s going to happen at some point,” Lewis told PEOPLE last year. “And this is my cross to bear. I have a cochlear implant in my head that now enables me to hear speech much better. I lost bilaterally, my hearing … the intense vertigo — knock on wood — I have kind of outgrown. I’m mildly dizzy all the time, and my hearing just went to zero. And now I have a cochlear implant, so I’m much better that way, but I can’t hear music.”
“The worst part is that means it’s bad enough not to be able to perform and sing and play, but it’s really bad not to even be able to enjoy music,” Lewis added.
Lewis described feeling “disconsolate” after receiving his diagnosis. “I mean, it was a very bad six months,” he recalled. “It pretty much stayed in bed. I contemplated my demise. ‘How am I going to do it?’ Because I thought the world had ended.”
How Huey Lewis Rebounded After Medical Condition Ended His Music Career
However, the veteran performer soon rebounded.
“But of course, you can kind of get used to anything,” he told PEOPLE then. “And the bottom line is I’m still a lucky guy, and there are lots of people out there worse than I am. And it is very hard to remember that sometimes, but my kids help me do that. My son, after a certain point, calls me up and says, ‘Pops, come on, we’re going to go fishing or something.’ And yeah, it’s a reset. You have to rebalance and things, but it doesn’t mean that life is terrible … my life isn’t as good as it used to be, but it’s still a lot better than most.”
Lewis also finds solace in the outdoors.
“I love the outdoors. I’m a fly fishing fanatic, but it’s more, I really feel like it’s connecting with Mother Nature. It’s not necessarily, I try to, my fishing experiences, I try to qualitatively rather than quantitatively assess them. So I love being outside, my connection with nature. And my perfect day would be fishing,” he said.
Lewis first rose to fame in the mid-’70s as a member of Clover, a Northern California band that later backed Elvis Costello on his 1977 debut, My Aim Is True. He achieved global success a few years later with Sports, his third album with the News. Released in 1983, the record became one of the best-selling rock albums of all time. It spawned four Top 10 hits, including “I Want a New Drug,” “The Heart of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” and “If This Is It.”
“Hip to Be Square” became one of Lewis’s most recognizable hits, infamously featured in a memorable scene in American Psycho. “The Power of Love” also became a cultural touchstone, serving as the theme to the beloved 1985 blockbuster Back to the Future.