KENNY LOGGINS IS STILL ALRIGHT

biography suggests

KENNY LOGGINS IS STILL ALRIGHT

says Norman Warwick

You know Kenny Loggins for his megahit soundtrack themes andchart-topping collaborations. Now you can know him through the intimate stories behind his five-decade career as a legendary songwriter and pop icon.

photo 1 In a remarkable career, Kenny Loggins has rocked stages worldwide, released ten platinum albums, and landed hits all over the Billboard charts. His place in music history is marked by a unique gift for collaboration combined with the vision to evolve, adapt, and persevere in an industry that loves to eat its own. Loggins served as a pivotal figure in the folk-rock movement of the early ’70s when he paired with former Buffalo Springfield member Jim Messina, recruited Stevie Nicks for the classic duet “Whenever I Call You ‘Friend, ‘” then pivoted to smooth rock in teaming up with Michael McDonald on their back-to-back Grammy-winning hits “What a Fool Believes” and “This Is It” (a seminal moment in the history of what would come to be known as yacht rock). In the ’80s, Loggins became the king of soundtracks with hit recordings for Caddyshack, Footloose, and Top Gun; and a bona fide global superstar singing alongside Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson on “We Are The World.”

For a long time he was a King of my play-list archives. It seemed back then that every 90 minute cassette I collated, and there were more than 300 of them, carried at leasdt one track by Kenny and 7 or his mate Jim.

I thought of jim as a part of the songwriter scene of John Stewart, Guy Clark and Townesd Van Zandt but Loggins much more obviously loved to rock out. There was some of the exuberence of Fleetwood Mac and the gravitas of Poco.

In Still Alright, Kenny Loggins gives fans a candid and entertaining perspective on his life and career as one of the most noteworthy musicians of the 1970s and ’80s. He provides an abundance of compelling, insightful, and terrifically amusing behind-the-scenes tales. Loggins draws readers back to the musical eras they’ve loved, as well as addressing the challenges and obstacles of his life and work–including two marriages that ended in divorce, a difficult but motivating relationship with the older brother for which “Danny’s Song” is named, struggles with his addiction to benzodiazepines, and the revelations of turning seventy and looking back at everything that has shaped his music–and coming to terms with his rock-star persona and his u self.

Title                     Still Alrigt

Author                 Kenny Loggins

Price                    30.00  $27.90

Publisher             Hachette Books

Publish Date        June 14, 2022

Pages                  304

Dimensions          6.2 X 9.1 X 1.3 inches | 1.15 pounds

Language             English

Type                    Hardcover

EAN/UPC            9780306925368

Kenny Loggins emerged with Loggins & Messina, one of the bestselling musical duos of the 1970s, with their six releases between 1971 and 1976 (plus three live albums and four compilations), counting for 16 million units sold.

editor´s note. It isn´t always that I find myself in accord with Wiki, but the following brief bio certainly rang true to me;

Loggins and Messina was an American rock-pop duo consisting of Kenny Loggins and Jim Messina, who achieved their success in the early to mid-1970s. Among their well-known songs are “Danny’s Song”, “House at Pooh Corner”, and “Your Mama Don’t Dance”

Until the raging rivers of 2015 around Rochdale carried all my books and albums out of my brother´s lock up,   I had a Loggins And Messina  album (left)in my collection For the life of me now I cannot remember who or what sent me in search of it, but it is certainly true that the three songs mentioned above often reappear on my newly created playlists. Really good musicianship and gorgeous harmonies, and good time music. What´s not to like?

“Danny’s Song” is a song written by American singer-songwriter Kenny Loggins, as a gift for his brother Danny for the birth of his son, Colin. It first appeared on an album by Gator Creek and a year later on the album Sittin’ In, the debut album by Loggins and Messina.

House At Pooh Corner is a song written by Kenny Loggins, based on the children’s book of the same name. It was first performed by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on their excellent 1970 album Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy and then recorded by Loggins and Messina on their 1971 album Sittin’ In. Now I come to think of it, I was probably chasing the Loggins and Messina album, after hearing the recording on the NGDB album. They were a seminal band in my move towards Americana. The song´s narrative is told from the perspective of both Winnie-the-Pooh and Christopher Robin, and serves as an allegory for loss of innocence and nostalgia for childhood. Loggins was a 17-year-old senior in high school when he wrote the song. It has since become one of Loggins’ most popular and beloved compositions, and it remains a staple of his live performances.

Your Mama Won´t Dance gives collaborative writing credits to Loggins and Messina. The refrain and first verse is done in a blues format, deals with the 1950s and 1960s lifestyle concerning the generation gap, where the parents oppose the Rock and Roll Revolution of the younger generation, which includes the rebelliousness against the old society that monitors curfews on dating; as well as being arrested for making love with a girl in the back seat of a car during a drive-in movie, which happens during the bridge section of the song.

When released as a single, it became the duo’s biggest hit as well as their only Gold single.

“Your Mama Don’t Dance” was covered in 1973 by Australian band the Bootleg Family Band, which made the top 5 in Australia. It was also covered in 1985 by the rock band Y&T.

Elvis Presley included the song in a medley of rock n’ roll songs on his 1974 album Elvis Recorded Live on Stage in Memphis.

Messina said of the song that “My stepfather…from Arkansas…was not much of a mover or…groover. [But] my mom…loved music. She loved Elvis Presley & Ricky Nelson. She loved [R&B] music. My stepfather was more of an Ernest Tubbs, Hank Snow, Johnny Cash kind of guy. There was not a whole lot of connection or understanding with me wanting to do music, other than from my mom.

So…the line: ‘Your mama don’t dance & your daddy don’t rock & roll’, came from me thinking about how my mother wasn’t really doing what she loves to do [because] my stepfather was not into rock & roll. He thought the Beatles were just…screaming, long-haired idiots…So I grew up having to put up with that [but] it was [just] a fun lyric [with no intended] social significance whatsoever other than my own experience of a kinda funky household.”

Loggins has released 14 solo records since then with more than 25 million albums sold, charted five top-10 singles, and won two Grammy Awards for “What A Fool Believes” and “This Is it,” and received one Academy Award nomination for “Footloose.” Loggins’ song “Conviction of the Heart” was hailed as the “unofficial anthem of the environmental movement” by Vice President Al Gore, and his environmental television special for the Disney Channel, This Island Earth, won Emmy Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Writing and for the title track.

Loggins has also cut two live albums, two greatest-hits compilations, and three children’s records including Return to Pooh Corner, which remains the bestselling children’s album of the last two decades. He recently donated use of his single “The Great Adventure” to the San Diego Zoo for their Kids TV network which airs in children’s hospitals and Ronald McDonald Houses around the world, supporting his belief that “every child should experience the  healing power of music.”

That Kenny Loggins is, indeed, Still Alright is evidenced by the fact that he is still known as “The Soundtrack King,” and enjoys millions of followers and listeners across social and streaming platforms and continues to sell out live shows both domestically and internationally.

In constructing Still Alright, Loggins was assisted by Jason Turbow  who is also the author of the bestselling The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls, as well as Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic, about the Swingin’ A’s of the 1970s, and They Bled Blue, about the 1981 Los Angeles Dodgers. He has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Wired, among many publications.