Huey Lewis admits “music is not part of my life anymore” amid hearing loss
Huey Lewis has shared an unfortunate update on his severe hearing loss and has admitted that he can no longer “hear music”.
The 76-year-old Grammy-winning artist has updated fans on his experience with Ménière’s disease, sharing that he is now “basically deaf”.
Speaking to Michael Rosenbaum on the Inside of You, Lewis made the painful admission that “music is not part of my life anymore, which is a hard pill to swallow”.
Lewis was diagnosed with Ménière’s in the mid-1990s, but only publicly revealed the diagnosis in 2021. The disease that attacks the inner ear. It can cause severe dizziness and hearing loss; there is not yet a cure.
The ‘Power of Love’ singer admitted that he has not been able to hear properly for over eight years; his cochlear implant and hearing aid help him understand speech, but in doing so, they distort musical pitch.
In the face of adversity, the Huey Lewis and the News frontman said he tries to “divorce” his inability to hear music from his mind, but he often struggles.
Things are especially hard when he hears about his pals playing and enjoying music: “I got to say, ‘God, I wish, I’d like to do that, you know. It was a lot of fun’.”
He added, “There are pangs and I can’t enjoy music, like when I cook or I have people over for dinner, I always used to play them music and I have a great collection of old big band stuff and old New Orleans jazz and I can’t. I don’t play it at all anymore.”
He continued, “Sometimes I still play it because I know it so well. It’s weird. And I can hear the beat. … So, I know what’s going on, but I can’t, can’t enjoy it,” he added.
Naturally, Lewis can no longer go on tour, so he finds solace in nature and in fishing instead. He shared, “The thing that’s nice about it is, if I had hearing, I’d still be on the road, probably 75 to 100 shows. And I don’t miss that. I miss the camaraderie of the fellas and the circus-like thing that it is.”
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