Izdavač: Ostalo
Žanr: Bluz, Fank i Soul, Pop, Rok
Poreklo: Strani izvođač

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Studio album by Huey Lewis and the News
Released September 15, 1983
Recorded December 1982–June 1983
Studio
Fantasy (Berkeley, California)
Record Plant (Sausalito, California)
The Automatt (San Francisco)
Genre
Rockpop rock
Length 37:46
Label Chrysalis
Producer Huey Lewis and the News
Huey Lewis and the News chronology
Picture This
(1982) Sports
(1983) Fore!
(1986)

Sports is the third album by American rock band Huey Lewis and the News, released on September 15, 1983, by Chrysalis Records. It reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 on June 30, 1984, and ultimately charted for 160 weeks. Sports was ranked No. 2 on the Billboard year-end album chart for 1984 and spawned four top-ten hits on the Billboard Hot 100, with `Heart and Soul` and `The Heart of Rock & Roll` earning Grammy Award nominations. Sports also did very well internationally, where most of its singles charted in the top 40 in multiple countries. The album has been certified 7× Platinum by the RIAA.

Writing
Back in the day you wanted your albums to have a theme, and Sports` theme was really a collection of singles ... It was really a record for its time. In the 80s, the way radio was programmed, if you didn`t have a hit record you weren`t going to be able to make any more records. That was it, period. So our priority was to come up with hit singles. Every tune we aimed for radio `cause we didn`t know which one was going to be a hit. We just knew we needed a frickin` hit, period. And fortunately we got `em.

—Huey Lewis; Billboard magazine, 2013[1]
`The Heart of Rock & Roll` was developed after the band performed at the Agora Theatre and Ballroom in Cleveland, Ohio in 1980, which they had been told was a `great rock & roll town`.[2] The following day, Lewis told his bandmates that he felt the heart of rock and roll really was in Cleveland and thought the sentiment would make for a good song, but the band convinced him to slightly alter the lyrics to `the heart of rock & roll is still beating`.[2]

`Bad Is Bad` was penned with Lewis` original band, Clover.[3] It was written in the late 1970s while Lewis was working with Thin Lizzy, whose frontman Phil Lynott liked the song so much that he would sing a fast paced version at some of his concerts.[4] Another version of `Bad Is Bad` appeared on Dave Edmunds` album Repeat When Necessary (1979), featuring Lewis on harmonica.[5]

The idea for `I Want a New Drug` came to Lewis during a car ride to his lawyer`s office, and he wrote down the majority of the lyrics upon arriving.[2] After Lewis made an unsuccessful attempt to put the idea to music with bassist Mario Cipollina, guitarist Chris Hayes developed new music for the final song on his own.[2]

`Walking on a Thin Line`, written by Andre Pessis and former Clover member Kevin Wells, was about the poor treatment of veterans who returned home from the Vietnam War.[3] `Finally Found a Home`, inspired by an offhand comment about `ticky-tacky` houses near an airport, later progressed into a song about having a career in the music business.[3] Saxophonist/guitarist Johnny Colla wrote the music for `If This Is It` alone and gave the song to Lewis, who penned the lyrics on a tour bus.[3] `You Crack Me Up`, written by Lewis and Cipollina,[3] was based on various people the band had encountered in the parking lot of Uncle Charlie`s, a bar the band had frequently performed at before they achieved mainstream success.[6][7]

Sports also contains cover versions of `Heart and Soul`, written by the songwriting team of Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn, and `Honky Tonk Blues`, written by Hank Williams.[8]

Production
Sports was self-produced by the band after their manager, Bob Brown, felt the band`s own demos were better than the producers they had been considering.[3] The ethos behind the production of the album was to meld old techniques and instrumentation with modern technology, inspired by hearing the use of an electronic drum machine on Steely Dan`s 1980 song `Hey Nineteen`.[2] The juxtaposition of an old style vocal sound with the modern LinnDrum on `Bad Is Bad` provided guidance for the rest of the album`s production.[3]

Lewis`s idea to record `I Want a New Drug` with a sequenced bass line and drum machine was initially met with displeasure by both bassist Mario Cipollina and drummer Bill Gibson.[9] The first attempt at this was deemed unsatisfactory and the song was re-recorded with the full band, but after the album was mixed, Lewis decided that both `I Want a New Drug` and `The Heart of Rock & Roll` needed to be re-recorded with sequenced bass and drums, adding a slight tempo increase in the process.[9] The band initially used a kick drum to create the simulated heartbeat sound for `The Heart of Rock & Roll` but were unhappy with the results, so engineer Jim Gaines and keyboardist Sean Hopper spent six hours developing a new heartbeat sound using various other means.[8] Lewis later referred to the album`s production style as `cut and paste, put together piece by piece`.[9]

Lewis approached Gaines with the idea to record `Heart and Soul`, which they initially thought was an unreleased song.[8] Gaines later recalled that, while the band was working on the song, an engineer mentioned that it had already been covered by both Exile and the BusBoys.[8] Although the band`s recording was ultimately finished, it was initially shelved.[8] However, Lewis later recalled hearing the BusBoys recording their version in an adjacent studio, and that he`d decided his version with the News `had merit` and was `maybe a little better`.[3] It eventually became the album`s first single.[8] `Honky Tonk Blues` was an attempt to cover the Hank Williams song in the style of Status Quo, and Lewis later stated that Hank Williams Jr. complimented the News on their rendition.[3]

Brown became concerned about Sports being promoted properly when the band`s label, Chrysalis Records, fired much of its production staff. As a result, the band made a decision to withhold the finished record from the label until the issues were resolved.[8]

Packaging
The title of the album was a play on the band`s name.[10] The cover art features a photo of the band at the 2 AM Club, a bar located in Mill Valley, California, where the band had performed during its early days.[11] A bar was chosen for the shoot because the band reasoned that most people watched televised sporting events in bars.[10]

Side one
No. Title Writer(s) Length
1. `The Heart of Rock & Roll`
Johnny CollaHuey Lewis
5:04
2. `Heart and Soul`
Mike ChapmanNicky Chinn
4:13
3. `Bad Is Bad`
Alex CallJohn CiambottiSean HopperLewisJohn McFeeMichael Schriener
3:48
4. `I Want a New Drug`
Chris HayesLewis
4:46
Side two
No. Title Writer(s) Length
1. `Walking on a Thin Line`
Andre PessisKevin Wells
5:11
2. `Finally Found a Home`
Bob BrownHayesLewis
3:43
3. `If This Is It`
CollaLewis
3:54
4. `You Crack Me Up`
Mario CipollinaLewis
3:42
5. `Honky Tonk Blues` Hank Williams 3:26
Personnel
Huey Lewis and the News
Huey Lewis – vocals, harmonica
Mario Cipollina – bass guitar
Johnny Colla – vocals, saxophone, guitar
Bill Gibson – drums, vocals, percussion
Chris Hayes – lead guitar, vocals
Sean Hopper – keyboards, vocals
Additional musician
John McFee – pedal steel guitar (`Honky Tonk Blues`)
Technical
Huey Lewis and the News – producers
Jim Gaines – engineer
Jeffrey (Nik) Norman – additional engineer, assistant engineer (tracks 1–3, 5–9)
Jesse Osborne – assistant engineer (tracks 1–3, 5–9)
Bob Clearmountain – mixing (tracks 1–3, 5–9)
Larry Alexander – mixing (track 4)
Bob Greenberg – assistant engineer (track 4)
Mark Deadman – sound engineer
Ted Jensen – mastering
Bennett Hall – creative director, cover art, handtinted photography, photo montage
Bunny Zaruba – graphic and logo design