By Aidin Vaziri, San Francisco Chronicle | Huey Lewis revealed that his hearing loss has changed his life so profoundly that music is no longer part of it. Lewis, 76, revealed on the “Inside of You With Michael Rosenbaum” podcast Tuesday, July 7, that he has been “basically deaf” for nearly nine years after living for decades with Ménière’s disease, an inner-ear disorder that can cause vertigo, tinnitus and hearing loss.
“So eight, eight and a half years, and my life has changed immeasurably,” said Lewis, the Marin-raised rock singer whose band helped define Bay Area pop in the 1980s. “I can’t hear music. Music is not part of my life anymore, which is a hard pill to swallow.”
The comments were among Lewis’ bluntest yet about the condition that forced Huey Lewis and the News off the road after his hearing collapsed in 2018. The band canceled future performances that year, including a scheduled appearance at San Francisco’s Outside Lands music festival in Golden Gate Park, after Lewis said he could no longer hear music clearly enough to sing.
Lewis said he first lost hearing in his right ear roughly 35 years ago and adapted by relying on his left. Then, he said, “My left ear bailed.”
“Now I’m deaf basically without the technology involved,” he said, adding that he uses a cochlear implant on one side and a hearing aid on the other.
The technology helps him understand speech, but music is different, he explained. It comes at him in too many frequencies at once, distorting the sound and making pitch hard to find.
“It just ends up being frustrating for me when I can’t enjoy it,” Lewis said. “I can’t feel the warmth.”
Ménière’s disease affects the inner ear and can cause severe dizziness, ringing in the ears, hearing loss and a feeling of fullness or congestion in the ear, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. The disorder usually affects one ear, though both ears may be affected in 15%-25% of people with the condition.
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