"Doing It All for My Baby" by Huey Lewis & the News

Top 10 Alert!

Song#:  3201

Date:  07/18/1987
Debut:  63
Peak:  6
Weeks:  16
Genre:  Pop, Rock



Pop Bits:  Four was a good number for Lewis and the band. Their fourth album, titled Fore!, had spawned four Top 10 hits with two of them hitting #1 spending a combined four weeks at the top of the Pop chart. But I guess stopping at four wasn't enough and it was decided to push out this fifth single from the LP. The tune ended up doing very well reaching #2 at AC while hitting #6 at Pop. With that last result, Lewis and the band became only the second group to achieve five Pop Top 10 hits from one album (Genesis was the first earlier in the year). The album would eventually be a triple-platinum seller.

ReduxReview:  This tune drags us back to the retro rock/doo wop style of song that they had previously hit with like "Stuck with You." It's a good little tune, but by this point they had practically beaten this formula to death. Yeah, it was kind of their signature sound, but you can only take it so far before people start to get bored. When this record came out, I was really bored with it. I preferred their rock-leaning tracks or more adventurous fare like "Jacob's Ladder." I still get tired of Lewis' shufflin' old-school tunes, but it is hard to rank this one too low because it actually is a nice song.

ReduxRating:  5/10

Trivia:  This song was written by Mike Duke and Phil Cody. Duke was a struggling musician and songwriter who in 1974 joined up with the Southern rock band Wet Willie. His first album with the band, Keep on Smilin', produced the #10 title-track hit. Later on in 1977, the band would reach #30 with a song Duke co-wrote called "Street Corner Serenade." After Wet Willie faded in the early 80s, Duke started his own band called Mike and the Maximums (which referred to that statures of its members). They sought to get a record deal, but with the advent of MTV, the band was basically deemed not camera-ready and no one would sign them. Luckily, in the meantime a demo of a song Duke wrote made it over to the Huey Lewis camp. Lewis recorded "Hope You Love Me Like You Say You Do" for the band's second album Picture This. It was released as a single and it made the Pop Top 40. Duke then co-wrote this song for the band. They would also record Duke's "Let Her Go and Start Over," which appeared on their 2001 album Plan B. That song would make it to #23 on the AC chart.

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