Huey Lewis on the best singer “you’ve never heard”
As the lead singer of Huey Lewis and the News, Huey was a defining voice within the colourful and optimistic excess of the 1980s. Penning some of the most recognisable tracks of the decade, in addition to soundtracking the wildly popular Back to the Future films, Huey himself is a disciple of gospel and soul music, owing to the soul radio stations he grew up with.
Soul music, and its plethora of various subgenres, is awash with obscure artists. Due to the wave in popularity in which many soul record labels operated, the genre is populated by artists who recorded only a handful of tracks for very little money before returning to their normal lives. In the UK, many of these unknown artists were rediscovered during the Northern Soul scene of the 1970s. However, in Huey Lewis’ home nation of the USA, soul music was often a mere background noise that you would only notice if you tuned into specific radio stations and music scenes.
In contrast to the catchy pop songs like the Patrick Bateman favourite ‘Hip to Be Square’, Lewis spent much of his youth tuning into these West Coast soul radio stations. It was during this time, growing up in the Bay area of San Francisco, that the future News frontman was exposed to the incredible talents of Jackie Wilson, Little Johnny Taylor and Wilson Pickett, among countless others. One such artist that became a favourite of Huey’s was the little-known gospel group The Rance Allen Group.
Led by vocalist Bishop Rance Allen, The Rance Allen Group formed in 1970 in Michigan, though they later moved to Ohio. Incorporating influences of soul and rock music into their gospel sound, the group received a smattering of commercial success during the 1970s, though their success was mainly limited to the R&B charts, failing to crossover into the musical mainstream.
Huey Lewis lists the Rance Allen Group track ‘Ain’t No Need Of Crying’ as one of his all-time favourite soul tracks, revealing, “Very few people have ever heard this song, but Rance Allen is the best singer you’ve ever heard, and this could be my favourite song. […] Rance plays keyboards and sings, and he’s incredibly talented. His voice is amazing. He’s got a four-octave range.”
Explaining the history of the gospel group and how the 1980s pop star came across the talented vocals of Rance Allen, Lewis continued, “That song is so good, and it’s funny because it never was a big hit, but where I grew up in the Bay Area we had a soul station called KDIA I used to listen to. […] KDIA played Rance Allen’s ‘Ain’t No Need of Crying’. It was so huge they’d play it back-to-back. It’s just unbelievable. You have to hear it to believe it.”
Signed to the Stax imprint Gospel Truth, the Rance Allen Group were criminally overlooked for their soul-gospel fusion. It may be the case, as Lewis suggests, that the only people who are aware of the track are those curious young kids who bothered to tune into KDIA. Although Huey Lewis did not explicitly incorporate soul into his new wave sound, the lineage is clear.
