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worry. We handling some of our favorite

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just for you. We'll be back with brand

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new episodes next week. In the meantime,

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enjoyed today's episode.

0:20

I got part a Browny Award

0:22

brand musician. A new album is called

0:25

jpeg Wall. Please welcome Gary

0:27

Clark Junior. Gary,

0:43

So you know how much I

0:45

love your music and

0:47

what you do. I've heard you,

0:49

have heard I bother Gary, actually

0:52

quite frequently because I'm such a

0:54

fan of yours and because I love music. But this

0:56

album, Jay Pegrell is, I

0:58

just feel like is a masterpiece. Thank

1:00

you you killed it, dude.

1:03

It's so good.

1:04

O you. I kind

1:06

of felt that way, but it's good to hear somebody say it out

1:08

loud.

1:09

When you are because it is a not

1:12

solitary process. But you don't have people

1:14

really responding live or

1:17

anything. You're you're writing, I guess in a

1:19

environment without an audience.

1:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is

1:24

kind of terrifying because in

1:26

my own world I think it's the best thing ever.

1:29

But you never know.

1:30

Until album drop days and people can be like, nah,

1:32

we don't want it, but it's been good so

1:34

far.

1:34

You could always if you needed reinforcement

1:37

or any kind of comment.

1:40

Obviously you have my number, yeah,

1:42

yeah, and you're more

1:44

than welcome to use

1:47

it.

1:50

Well.

1:50

Also, you know you're bet you doing

1:53

this drumming thing, so.

1:54

I'm killing it. If you need a backup, all maybe

1:57

you cannot have a van if we need to travel

1:59

to do stuff.

2:00

Absolutely, that's about you.

2:02

The band that I'm in. First of all, I'm not

2:04

the youngest or oldest person in it, and second

2:06

of all, I'm not even the best drummer in it.

2:08

That's okay, you think, So, that's okay, you'll

2:10

be fine, all right.

2:12

I'm very appreciative of that. I'm so glad

2:14

that you've offered for us to open up for you on this. We

2:21

just try to write music. I'm telling you though,

2:23

Man, what I love about this album too

2:25

is like you know, there's

2:27

the Gary Clark Junior thing like that

2:29

destroyed a hard drive. This

2:32

album is every generation

2:35

of every decade of Americana music

2:38

is in it. Man, Like was that

2:40

intentional? I mean you croon on this the

2:42

falsetto, like there's glam

2:44

rock, Like it's you're banging

2:47

it.

2:47

Yeah, well we did this.

2:48

This this record

2:50

mostly was written during the pandemic. So

2:53

I was by myself in a very smoky

2:56

room doing whatever

2:58

I wanted.

2:58

Oh so the room is on fine, sure,

3:01

okay, yeah, yeah, you

3:05

were just letting yourself go to every

3:08

place musically artistically that you want to go.

3:10

Well, I decided during that time,

3:13

Well, there was no one saying Gary Clark

3:15

Junior the guitar player, any of that stuff.

3:17

I've kind of been pushed into being

3:19

this guy who's like the savior

3:21

of the blues, and the blues is gonna be fine. It's the music

3:24

that is will stand the test the time. It's everything's

3:26

cood true, right, I.

3:28

Will say this, people

3:31

will always be sad. But

3:35

the other stuff, Man, you hit a falsetto and I

3:37

was like, I didn't even know you had that.

3:39

Well, when I was a kid, I had

3:41

an R and B group it's called Young

3:43

Soul with the buddy of mine, Robbie Sublett, and we

3:45

used to sing like R and B songs,

3:48

So we would sing boys to men as

3:50

yet all for one mista, and

3:53

so Robbie was like this good

3:55

looking kid superstar. All the girlers loved him,

3:57

and I was like his backup singer, right basically,

3:59

but we were a group.

4:00

And yeah, you're not any of those things.

4:06

I thought I was going to be an R and B singer,

4:09

right, And then he ended up moving to France

4:11

and my friend Eve had a guitar down the street

4:13

and she was like, come hang out with

4:15

us, and I just I grew

4:18

up as a kid listening to R and B

4:20

music, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder,

4:22

Marvin Gaye, all that kind of stuff.

4:24

So what was it like when Stevie Wonder so Stevie Wonders on

4:26

this record, yes, which is

4:28

been honest?

4:30

What was it when?

4:32

Now? Did you did you reach

4:34

out to Stevie Wonder and say, hey man, I've been a fan

4:36

since I was a kid. Any chance

4:38

you might want to jump in or no?

4:40

He actually called me, yeah,

4:42

Stevie Wonder. Stevie Wonder facetimed

4:45

me.

4:46

Yeah, wait,

4:49

Stevie Wonder did.

4:49

What Stevie Wonder facetimeed me.

4:51

He facetimed here.

4:52

It was pretty cool.

4:57

I'm just gonna avoid that for

5:01

what was the impetus? Did he just say like, hey man,

5:03

I've heard yourself.

5:04

I love it?

5:05

Like what was the impetus.

5:06

Well, yeah, well he had called me to do a

5:08

song on his record. It was Where's

5:11

Our Love Song? On a record he released in twenty

5:13

twenty, And then soon after that, everything was kind of

5:15

going crazy, and I was frustrated. There was no outlet.

5:17

I wasn't out seeing people. I was just in my phone.

5:20

And then I got to recording the video of me

5:23

kind of going, what the hell's going on?

5:25

You know, in the world, in the world, It's like,

5:28

yeah, what are we gonna do?

5:29

You know?

5:29

I was frustrated.

5:30

I was a little angry, as concerned, but always

5:32

with a sense of hope.

5:33

So he facetimes me and he always

5:35

says, my name really weird. It's funny.

5:37

He goes, geah rah,

5:42

I don't know where that comes from.

5:45

So that's my name now.

5:46

Yeah.

5:47

But so he called me and said, I

5:49

heard I heard what you were saying. I see you.

5:53

Let's make a song about it, he said, as a matter

5:55

of fact, I have an idea. It's a song

5:57

called what about the Children. He's like, I'm

5:59

going to send you a it's memo you want to collab, But I'm

6:01

like, what am I gonna say?

6:02

No?

6:03

Right?

6:04

So he sends me the demo and I

6:07

get to working on the record with my band

6:09

in the studio. We go back and forth and

6:13

I said, well, will you sing on it now? And

6:15

not only does he sing on it, he plays beautiful

6:17

harmonica, he plays clavinet.

6:19

He hadn't played clive And I think thirty something

6:21

years really classic Stevie. But

6:24

like in the future, it's amazing. He's eighty

6:26

something years old and.

6:27

Is he really?

6:28

And I thought that I was working hard in the studio

6:30

and if you ever see, if

6:32

you ever think you're doing too much, watch

6:34

Stevie Wonder work really.

6:36

Yeah, it's incredible and.

6:37

It's still just joyful. I mean, the one thing about Stevie

6:39

Wonder is when he plays boy, do you

6:41

you feel the joy? You see the joy? It

6:43

just emanates off of him.

6:45

Absolutely, He's he's tapped into something

6:47

that I don't think that many people

6:49

are are able to tap into.

6:51

You, right, what did joy to be

6:53

able to work with that? And then you got George Clinton. We had George

6:55

Clinton come on. This supposed to have been ten or eleven

6:57

years ago, and I just remember that day being like, it's

7:00

sure yet like George

7:02

Clinton news. So he's like he's like, I think

7:04

he's in a van coming up the turnpike. But it

7:06

was one of those like a dude named Shaky

7:09

was driving him and like nobody really knew what was happening.

7:11

Dude named Shaky though, was always the most solid you can

7:13

do.

7:14

That's probably the truth. Uh.

7:16

The song habits, Yeah, what's that?

7:20

It's a song about struggles.

7:23

Yeah, you know, just really uh

7:25

struggles, my personal struggles. It's

7:28

something that I've always kind of been shy about,

7:30

uh expressing. You know, in

7:33

this world it's like the flex and everything's

7:35

cool and everything's rah rah and you know,

7:37

post the trophies and the great times

7:40

in golf tournament.

7:40

If you win a golf tournament, you put that, put

7:43

that right out there.

7:44

Congratulate saw it's amazing.

7:46

Yeah, that's amazing.

7:47

Yeah yeah yeah, how do you win that?

7:49

Yeah? Yeah, So don't worry about anything else

7:51

is going on. I want the same twice.

7:54

Yeah. So it's it was you know, I've

7:56

had my struggles over the years.

7:57

I got into the business as a young as a young

7:59

person fourteen, right, and

8:02

older folks with they taught me how to drink,

8:05

they taught me how to smoke and you

8:07

know, I've had my battles ever since, and you

8:10

know, I've had some losses in my life and just

8:12

being really honest about it, so I've got habits.

8:14

That I just can't break. When I think.

8:15

It's a beautiful.

8:17

Song, it's it's real and it's and it's raw,

8:19

and I hate to like make everybody sad,

8:21

but I think it's cool.

8:24

It's it's fantastic and it's you

8:26

know, there's also a certain courage and just saying like, hey

8:28

man, and this song is nine minutes and it's

8:30

worth every minute, it's worth every second.

8:32

Think it's beautiful.

8:33

Thank you. Well, we actually chopped off a two

8:35

minute intro.

8:36

So I felt it was lacking something. Yeah,

8:38

you know, I felt that in the beginning. It's more No,

8:41

it's it's fantastic. It's always such

8:43

a pleasure to see you, Mata quest.

8:44

Thanks, it's such a good man.

8:46

Quite wrong, it's available now, we'll

8:49

we went back over there.

8:54

I guess tonight is a grabby award. But the

8:57

artist who sold over thirty million

8:59

records. His songs inspired the new Broadway

9:02

musical The Heart of Rock and Roll. Please

9:04

welcome Huey lewis wonderful

9:16

I know that helps helps with the hearing.

9:18

How do I sound, Huey, Yeah, that helps my hearing

9:20

wonderful.

9:21

Thanks to Starky Hearing Institute

9:23

for that.

9:23

The Starky Hearing Institute, yep, thank you very

9:25

much.

9:26

You know what they did exactly.

9:28

They brought together Huey Lewis

9:30

and the fake news finally.

9:32

Together together

9:35

at once.

9:35

It is an honor to have you here.

9:36

In New York. Thank you. I hate tell you my news

9:39

is kind of fake too, So.

9:42

Don't break my heart.

9:43

Huey. You're here.

9:45

You got a big Broadway musical opening

9:47

tomorrow. The preview start tomorrow,

9:49

right, and I'm sure you thirty

9:51

million records sold, twelve

9:54

top ten hits. How do you start to narrow

9:56

down what makes it into the heart of

9:59

rock and roll?

10:00

Which songs make it into them? Yeah, well,

10:02

it's a

10:05

It came about because a producer

10:08

called Tyler Mitchell, who's my neighbor's friend,

10:11

was a big fan of ours. And

10:13

I was over at my neighbor's house for

10:15

my birthday and he was there,

10:18

and my neighbor's a big musical theater buff

10:20

and said, you know, suggested to his

10:23

son in law, Tyler, you should do a musical.

10:25

We started talking about Mama Mia and how much we love

10:27

Mama Mia, and he says, you should do a musical

10:29

with Hughey's music. And so he said,

10:31

what do you think. I said, sure, give it

10:34

a try, and he went off with his pal John

10:36

Abras came back with a very nice idea.

10:38

Yeah, you're saying, that's all it take. If I ran

10:40

into you like.

10:41

A decade ago and said your music,

10:43

your music is great, it's known worldwide,

10:46

people love it.

10:47

You should do more of it publicly, like.

10:49

I could be working with you right now.

10:50

Yeah, well shit,

10:54

Actually you know it

10:56

took nine years. So and

10:59

what they did, Tyler and John did was

11:01

they printed out all of our lyrics right and

11:04

put them up on the wall and then just

11:06

lived with them. And I guess there's some jogging

11:08

involved and listening to lyrics,

11:11

and this story emerged that

11:13

it's rhyth rock, you know, pretty compelling.

11:15

I was going to say, now, in creating

11:17

a musical, you have to create a narrative,

11:20

but these songs are written singularly.

11:23

Do you.

11:25

How does that look?

11:26

To take a step back, do you feel like there was a sense

11:28

of narrative to those songs? To begin with,

11:30

or is it sort of a reinvention of what was

11:33

there?

11:33

Yeah, it's reimagining

11:35

the tunes really, and you know, they

11:38

worked in a certain way anyway, but

11:40

we had to tweak them a little bit in order to push

11:42

the story forward, because the

11:45

songs have to push the story forward, you know. But

11:48

by the same token, you don't want to

11:50

lose the integrity of the song. So that's

11:52

the little balancing act, you know.

11:54

So now the musical is set in the eighties.

11:55

Correct, It's just set in the eighties. And

11:57

we had a lot of fun with that. We had a lot of fun with that. I'm

11:59

sure.

12:00

I'm sure it's so interesting because

12:03

I will I will admit the first cassette

12:05

I ever bought The Small World by Huey Lewis

12:07

and the News.

12:08

Wow.

12:08

Yes, And I used to dance around

12:10

the house to sports with my family.

12:13

You better that's a little too much information.

12:15

Sorry, my

12:17

child was conceived.

12:19

Do you want more?

12:20

Do you want more?

12:22

Rock and roll is still beating.

12:23

I gotta tell you it works. You you weren't say

12:29

dumb, dumb, dumb, thumb dumb dumb

12:32

really.

12:32

Sense them food. What

12:34

I will say is, as a fan,

12:37

it was.

12:37

It's fun to go back and look at some of the videos

12:39

from the eighties because you look at

12:41

the music videos in the eighties and you were sort

12:43

of on the forefront of a new art form. The

12:45

music video is on MTV, and I

12:48

when I'm reapproaching watching some of them, what's so

12:50

interesting is I feel like your music

12:52

video is, unlike many of the ones at the time, had

12:55

a real comedic sensibility that you're not

12:57

only presenting the

12:59

songs, you found a way to inject humor

13:01

into it. And so you're sort of at this.

13:03

New art form.

13:03

You're you're you're pushing this forward, this

13:06

this art and this music beyond, but you're also

13:08

finding your way sort of as a comedic

13:10

character and a comedian, right. Did you feel yourself

13:12

doing that at the time.

13:13

I think I should get some kind of an award for that.

13:18

You well, you

13:20

know, do you like Fiji water Ship?

13:23

Did Joey Lewis an award?

13:25

For God's sakes?

13:26

I mean, honestly, MTV of the videos

13:29

were a necessary evil. You know. We

13:31

we started off as an audio band and

13:33

and you write this song which tells this story,

13:36

and now, oh my gosh, you got to make a video,

13:38

so and so what we

13:41

decided we were going to do them ourselves.

13:43

We had a very Hollywood

13:45

producer of the record company, got him to do our

13:48

very first video, This is do You Believe

13:50

in Love? Where we're all in bed and

13:52

we're we're pointing at the girl. There's

13:54

sex of us in bed pointing at the girl singing,

13:57

and and he did we shut

13:59

this video wall day and then

14:02

and I remember we went to see the rough cut

14:04

and oh my gosh, there was the

14:06

record company was there and the video

14:10

company and all of it. They're probably twenty people.

14:13

And he announced that this was going

14:15

to see the run through. It hadn't been colorized

14:17

yet. It's going to be amazing when it's colorized.

14:20

But here we go and he plays this video and

14:22

turns the lights off, and my heart sank.

14:24

I thought it was the worst thing I'd ever seen, just

14:27

horrible. And when it ended, everybody

14:30

stood up and gave us a standing ovation. So

14:32

I remember thinking to myself, clearly, clearly,

14:34

there's no really nobody knows anything about

14:37

this. We're

14:39

writing our own songs, and we're producing our own

14:41

music. We should be doing our own videos.

14:43

And that's what we did, and we you

14:46

know, through the song in the dumper, as

14:48

it were. Don't retell

14:50

the story. Just goof

14:52

around and have fun and be funny.

14:55

I think, Danny, you

15:00

said that a little better than I did.

15:02

Actually, I want

15:05

to give you credit.

15:05

I would give you a ward.

15:06

I feel like you perfected the

15:09

comical take over the fancy

15:11

sunglasses.

15:13

It was a big one for me though.

15:14

It was a big one, right, did you practice that in

15:16

the mirror?

15:16

That Varney Varney sunglasses?

15:18

By the way, at the.

15:19

Time, are you trying to get a sponsorship?

15:21

Here?

15:21

Is this heue

15:23

always always moving to sharky Varney

15:26

Okay, Fiji water, we get it, Hewingie,

15:30

it's not Huey Lewis blues in the plugs all

15:32

right. There

15:35

was a wonderful documentary that came out recently

15:38

that looked at the behind the scenes of We Are the World,

15:41

and you talk about your experiences

15:43

in that amazing, wild night of pop

15:45

music. I think

15:47

I was so fascinating about watching that documentary

15:50

is when I was I was

15:52

wondering, on a night like that, are

15:55

people aware of the cameras there? There's no cell

15:57

phones, people don't have assistance in that room.

16:00

And I was shocked by how

16:02

sober everybody was, except

16:05

for Algio Algiou.

16:08

But it's surprising.

16:09

I don't know if you could do something like that day were people

16:11

as sober as well?

16:13

I mean, you know there was check your ego at

16:15

the door. Well, clearly nobody's

16:17

going to pull an ego trip on this group, right, Yeah,

16:19

And so I think we all were a little nervous,

16:22

except Stevie Wonder, who was not nervous. No,

16:25

no, not at all. And I don't

16:27

think Stevie's ever nervous, to be honest.

16:30

And so was there again

16:32

something like that had never happened before. I think with

16:35

the presence of cameras there, did that add

16:37

attention in that room.

16:38

Well, actually, there weren't that many cameras, and

16:41

we were so focused on the I

16:43

think it was pretty pretty transparent,

16:45

actually, I mean what was interesting is that I

16:48

think we all realized, I certainly

16:50

did, that this was going to be the career

16:52

event of my life. You

16:54

know, I was I was barely thirty years old,

16:56

and I'm thinking, what could

16:59

be more amazing than this? And I

17:01

think a lot of us kind of felt that way. There's

17:03

still a kind of a bond between all the

17:06

people who were on that night, and it

17:08

was it was just an amazing evening.

17:10

Obviously, there's a moment in there where Stevie Wonder

17:13

throws out the idea of singing in Swahili, which

17:15

seemed to really.

17:16

Split the room.

17:17

Yeah.

17:17

Waylon Jennings, I believe walked out.

17:20

Yeah, and actually what happened, and

17:22

I don't think it's in the documentary, but yeah,

17:25

whalee walked out. But and it

17:27

clearly wasn't going to happen. And as

17:29

we were kind of getting involved there, and it was late,

17:31

it was like three or four in the morning at this point,

17:33

and Ray Charles is in the front row and he goes

17:36

ring the bell. Quincy rang the bell.

17:40

It's time to move on, Like let's go.

17:42

Yeah, somebody

17:44

brought a fact up there were like you're nineteen

17:46

eighty four Sports was number one album. They

17:48

were only it was on the charts for quite some time.

17:50

In fact, that year there are only four other albums

17:53

that were the number one album that year.

17:54

That was Thanks for pointing that out.

17:57

Yeah, I want to humble you

17:59

here a little bit.

18:00

Okay, see if you can turn this in a way to get some sponsorship.

18:02

Okay, Thriller

18:04

was a number one album, Footloose, Bored

18:07

in the USA, and Purple Rain.

18:09

That's a good year for music.

18:12

It was a good year.

18:13

If you had to marry or kill.

18:22

Footloose, Bored

18:24

in the USA, Purple.

18:26

Rain, or Thriller.

18:29

What do you do if you have to do? What? Now?

18:31

Now?

18:31

Okay, what do I have to do?

18:34

Think back to the harder rock and roll of what happened

18:36

back in my bedroom back in the day. You have to you

18:39

have to mark one of these albums, So

18:42

make love to the album one

18:44

of those, the hypothetical, the metaphorical

18:46

idea of the album. Okay, make

18:50

love to the album. You have to marry the

18:52

album, like, engage in matrimony

18:54

with the album, a real commitment

18:57

with the album. Okay, or kill be done

18:59

with one of the albums.

19:00

Okay.

19:00

Out of those four albums.

19:02

You have to make love to one.

19:04

You have to commit yourself mary to

19:06

the other, and you have to execute

19:08

one.

19:08

Wow. Wow,

19:12

that that's tough.

19:13

Tough.

19:14

I'm gonna I'm gonna execute Footloose because

19:16

Kenny Loggins won't mind. He's he's a good guy.

19:18

Okay, I'm

19:22

gonnabody.

19:24

Uh uh, I'm gonna

19:26

I'm gonna make love to Born in the USA,

19:29

and I'm gonna fall in love with Thriller.

19:31

Yeah, you gotta fall in love with Thriller.

19:33

I actually I actually will.

19:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

19:42

I actually like. I

19:44

like Off the Walls Out Michael's album

19:46

a little better actually than Thriller even really,

19:49

if I don't mind me saying that, you like.

19:50

A little bit of that disco dance vibe to it all?

19:52

Oh yeah, rock with you.

19:54

I gotta listen to that over and I

19:56

think dangerous, dangerous an underrated album.

19:58

There you go, look at this.

20:00

We can do this forever. I could pitch you on a musical,

20:02

like, hey, why don't you use your own songs

20:05

as a great hits? We can

20:07

make some money off this year before.

20:09

I let you go.

20:11

It's so interesting. You are a

20:13

beloved musician. It's so funny.

20:15

I was talking to you a little bit backstage when

20:18

I told the folks, or when we were told that Huey

20:20

Lewis was coming on the Daily Show. People of

20:22

all ages who work on this show, they

20:24

love you and they're so excited that you hear you bring such

20:26

goodwill to people. And I

20:30

heard the story that back to the Future.

20:32

Robert Tamchis told you that Marty McFly

20:35

his favorite the fictional character Marty

20:37

McFly his favorite band would be Huey Lewis in the

20:39

News. Then in American

20:41

Psycho, Patrick Bateman's favorite

20:46

band to kill J Jared leto Too is

20:49

Huey.

20:49

Lewis in the News.

20:50

And so in a fictional universe, you appeal

20:53

both to a person who is a time traveler

20:55

and a person who is a psycho killer.

20:57

You are that universe.

21:00

You know what that is? Fresh

21:02

material for a musical Reviews

21:09

for the hung.

21:10

A locket roll weget Tomorrow, Mark

21:12

Tunny Night at the James All Got

21:14

Data.

21:16

Very Love.

21:17

Explore more shows from The Daily Show podcast

21:19

universe by searching The Daily Show wherever

21:22

you get your podcasts.

21:24

Watch The Daily Show weeknights at eleven.

21:25

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21:28

full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus.

21:35

This has been a Comedy Central podcast