Still hip to be square: Huey Lewis and the News to perform at Luhrs Center

It's been 30 years since Huey Lewis and the News asked if we believed in love.

Today, the band continues to show that the heart of rock 'n' roll is still beating by playing their blend of old-tme rock 'n' roll, mixed in with a good taste of blues and soul.

And on Thursday, Oct. 25, the band will transport its audience "Back in Time" during its show at H. Ric Luhrs Performing Arts Center at Shippensburg University, 1871 Old Main Drive, Shippensburg, Pa.

"We're excited playing these PACs (performing arts centers)," Huey Lewis said during a telephone interview from New York City. He had just returned from Europe the day before and was next heading for a gig in Las Vegas. "We used to be a beer and hot dog band, and now hanging with the wine and cheese set. We're better musicians and better players. It's nicer to play in these intimate places."

Lewis, 62, fronts the News, which is made up of a mixture of longtime friends and newer members — Johnny Colla on guitar and saxophone; Bill Gibson on percussion; Sean Hopper, keys; John Pierce on bass; Stef Burns on guitar; Johnnie Bamont on baritone and tenor saxophone; Marvin McFadden on trumpet and Rob Suduth on tenor saxophone.

And to what does Lewis attribute the band staying together for three decades?

"We pay well," Lewis deadpans. "No, we're friends first and colleagues second. It's not easy. And we also don't work as much as we used to, so we do 80 to 85 shows a year. Then we love music. We're actually a better band now than we ever, ever have been."

Formed originally in 1978 as Huey Lewis & The American Express, they eventually changed their name to Huey Lewis and the News in 1980. That same year they put out a self-titled album that seemed to stall.

In 1982, they released "Picture This" and hit the charts with "Do You Believe in Love," "Workin' for a Living'" and "Hope You Love Me Like You Say You Do."

But it was the band's 1983 "Sports" album that qualified the band as a hitmaking machine. It included "Heart and Soul," "I Want a New Drug," "The Heart of Rock & Roll" and "This Is It," to name just a few. The album reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts in June of 1984.

The band's music featured prominently in "Back to The Future" in 1985, and they followed up their success with 1986's "Fore!" featuring "Hip to Be Square" and "I Know What I Like."

The group continued to crank out albums through the late 1980s and early '90s, with hit songs such as 1988's "Perfect World." In 2010, the band produced "Soulsville," a collection of covers of lesser-known soul songs.

And through it all, it's been Lewis' distinctive gravelly voice and his fiery harmonica playing that has led the group. He said he picked up playing the mouth organ during his prepubescent years.

"My mother had a boarder named Billy Roberts," he said. "He was a folk singer and he wrote ‘Hey, Joe.'"

"He used to play harmonicas in a little cradle around his neck, like Bob Dylan," Lewis said. "And he had a bunch of harmonicas and he gave me his old ones."

And that was it. The harmonica has been part of Lewis' sound ever since.

"Then I graduated high school at age 16, and I hitchhiked across the country," he said. "I stowed away on a plane to Europe."

He spent the next year bumming around Europe and North Africa in Casablanca and Marrakech. "And I played harmonica the whole time, just constantly," he said. "That's how I earned my living. I would go into the square, have a hat and play harmonica."

He found that he could actually make money playing music.