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Welcome to A Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye.
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Hi. Thanks so much for joining me today. I’m really glad you could make it along. I’ve got a fabulous interview coming up for you this hour, and I know you’re just going to love it. My guest has had such an incredible career that he really is a household name the world over.
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He’s soft rock singer, songwriter, guitarist, pianist and producer Kenny Loggins. He’s had a consistent string of hits through the he’s recently released his autobiography. Kenny Loggins played in several bands in the late 60s, honing his songwriting chops as a staff writer at a music company. He rose to prominence as part of the duo Loggins and Messina with fellow singer and songwriter Jim Messina. Even though we ain’t got money I’m so in love with you honey everything will bring a chain.
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Kenny Loggins has had hit after hit after hit, both as a solo performer and writer, since his time with Jim Messina. His gift for crafting deeply emotional music is unparalleled, and it’s been part of his life for as long as he can remember. In fact, if what I read is correct, he was no more than around seven years old when he wrote his first song. I don’t know about that. That’ll be the urban legend.
00:02:08
That I was interested in rock and roll and songwriting early on was probably because of my two big brothers. I had watched them trying to write a song together and getting nowhere, and I remember thinking, it can’t be that difficult. And I really didn’t start writing till I was probably a junior in high school. Then while I was taking guitar lessons, I just automatically started writing songs. And was it as easy as you thought it was?
00:02:34
It kind of was, because I found that there was some part of me that wrote the song automatically. It was almost like the same thing with poetry when I was in school. And they’d say, we want you guys. Take an hour and write a poem. This thing would just pour out.
00:02:50
I don’t know where this is coming from, but it’s kind of fun and easy. And so I pursued it partly, as they say, part of it is the inspiration, and part of it is, how do you craft a song? How do you craft a lyric? And that took time. So where did you learn that from?
00:03:04
Was that just being thrown in the deep end and working it out as you went? I think, you know, I was a student of Kenny and McCartney and, of course, Bob Dylan. I came through the folk era, but I also was a big fan of rock and roll and R B because I had two big you as you get into it and as you start to work at it. You see what’s working and what isn’t working and you begin to get ideas about how to make what you’re doing sound more like a real song. Yeah.
00:03:34
Well, you scored a job working for a music company as a staff writer there, which must have given you a great boost. But the first big break, as I understand it, came along when Nitty Gritty Dirt Band actually recorded some of your work. That’s right. Christopher Robin and Owl walked along under branches lit up by the moon posing our questions to Owl and the Ore as our days disappeared all too soon. But I wandered much further today than I should and I can’t find my way to the Three Acre wood so help me if you can I’ve got to give back to the house.
00:04:23
If you corner by one, you’d be surprised there’s so much to be done count all the bees in the high chase all the clouds from the sky. Had a job as a songwriter. $65 a month for ABC Wingate. And for that they got House of Poo Corner and a few other standards and some early loggings and Messina stuff. And way I would get my songs heard was I would go to different parties around town.
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And this one particular party that I went to, there were a couple of guys there from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and we were all sort of sitting in a circle trading tunes, and one thing led to another and I showed them House Poo Corner. I showed them half a dozen of my songs. They wanted to record House Poo Corner, and then they turned me onto their manager, John McEwen. And John really loved what I was doing. So they had about four or five of my songs on their Uncle Charlie album, and that was the beginning of getting my stuff heard.
00:05:26
Amazing. You must have thought you were eaten a bit working for that $65 at the time, did you? Well, I considered myself lucky because my rent was $65 a month. I always say it wasn’t 19, nine. It was just a shitty place to live.
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But it all worked out. And Jim tells a story about the two of you meeting, actually, through one of your brothers. Is that right? Right. My brother Dan became an ANR man for Columbia Records years later.
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And when he first was signed on by Clive Davis to go into training for A R, he and his best friend, Don Ellis, who would become the president of RCA Records, they grew up together and they met Jimmy Messina. So they connected me and Jimmy together. And you’d been a fan of Buffalo Springfield, hadn’t you? Oh, yeah, absolutely. One of my big influences was Stephen Stills in Buffalo Springfield.
00:06:23
Yeah. There’s something happening here what it is ain’t exactly clear there’s a man with a gun over there telling me I got to beware I think it’s time we stop children, watch that sound everybody look what’s going down?
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Nobody’s? Right if everybody’s wrong. Young people speaking their minds are getting so much resistance from behind.
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Everybody, look what’s going down.
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So, you and Jim, when you got together, what was the magic between the two of you? Was it the way you harmonized? The way you rose? Can you explain what it was that know? Of course you know, that’s an impossible question to answer because explaining the magic of a combination.
00:07:43
But I heard the Everly Brothers in our voices early on. There was an Everlease quality that we wanted to exploit just as the Beatles did. The Beatles rarely gave the appropriate nod to the Everly Brothers but you can hear it in their early work especially. But there was that kind of Everly’s blend in our voices that caught our attention right away. And we were both very nasal singers so it all kind of blended together and I think there was magic in that.
00:08:12
And also, Jimmy had some great songs that he had not been allowed to sing in Poco. And when he showed them to me, the first one I did we initially thought we were making a Kenny Loggins record produced by Jimmy Messina. I’m sure he told you. And so he gave me his song Peace of Mind to work up for the Kenny Loggins record. And that’s the only song you’ll ever hear, only Jimmy Messina song you will ever hear Kenny Loggins singing.
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And that’s when we realized, oh, this is a duo. Ain’t no use to keep taking on views from a friend who isn’t kind a friend indeed over friend that you need who can help it through the trouble times so reach on out take a hold of my hand let me know that you’re ready to go there ain’t no dues and you can leave yours behind and have a little piece just a little piece of mine give us all peace of mind are time when your friends go blind and the words become diseased bread in your life with the blade of a nap and set you down on your knee. Make no mistake for your very own sake here’s a little work of. Now take off. Shoes let you something and have a little piece just a little piece of mine peace of mind.
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Even at that point, we hadn’t really thought of ourselves as a duo. Band. We thought of ourselves as a one time, one record duo. That’s why he came up with the idea of calling it Sitting In. So you didn’t think that you’d have a future together.
00:10:33
We weren’t thinking of it that way. We figured the first record would be Kenny Loggins with Jimmy Messina sitting in, like a jazz record thing. And then the next record would be Kenny Loggins, produced by Jimmy Messina. But Clive did not like the idea of promoting a band that was going to break up. So he insisted that he would not release sitting in unless we committed to a six year deal.
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Were you reluctant to do that? Well, it caught me by surprise, as you can imagine. But at the same time I thought, there’s definitely a chemistry here. We’re really clicking and we’re having fun. So sure, yeah.
00:11:07
Pay me big time. You’re right.
00:11:18
Now wonder what it is that you see with those angry eyes. Well, I bet you wish you could cut me down with those angry eyes. You wanna believe that I am not the same as you. I can’t see those angry eyes but I bet you wish you could cut me down with those angry eyes what shot you could be if you could shoot at me with those angry eyes close.
00:12:21
You were writing a whole lot of songs yourself at that time and one of my favourites was Danny’s Song. That was a very personal song to you, wasn’t it? Because it was about your brother having his first right. Right. And a lot of it was taken from a letter that he wrote to me after Colin, his son, was born and telling me that they were going to get married and move to and so, you know, he will be like she and me, as free as a dove.
00:12:46
Was sort of a paraphrase of one of the lines from the letter PISCES virgo rising is a very good sign. That was from the letter. People smile and tell me I’m the lucky one and we’ve just begun think I’m gonna have a son.
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He will be like she in the aspir conceived in love. Sun is gonna shine about even though we ain’t got money I’m so in love with honey everything will bring a chain in the morning when I rise you bring a tear of joy to my eyes and tell me everything’s gonna be all right seems as though months ago I was Beta. Kai never got high. Oh was a sorry guy.
00:14:00
But now a smile of face? A girl that shares my name? Now through with the game? This boy will never be the same?
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Even though we ain’t got money I’m so in love with you, honey everything will bring a chain in the morning when I rise bring a tear of joy to my eyes and tell me everything’s gonna be alright what got you. Right into children’s songwriting. I didn’t perceive House of Pro Corner as a children’s song when I wrote it. It was a song of farewell to my childhood from the point of view of being a senior in high school, about to graduate and some part of me knowing that my childhood was over. At least I thought it was.
00:15:01
It comes back when you have kids of your own. But to me that was just I wrote myself into that story in that song. I didn’t realize that I was, what, 1617. I didn’t realize that I’d have to get permission from whoever owned Winnie the Pooh, that would be the Emmett Communications not long after that. But you did manage to get that permission, obviously.
00:15:28
Well, I was dating the daughter of the CEO of the Emmett Communications. That always helps. You got to go to the top. Right. But I didn’t really realize that until I met her and we got into this it wasn’t really a relationship, very casual dating thing.
00:15:44
But she introduced me to her father and I sang the song to her dad and then he called the lawyers. Better than calling the police. Yeah, right. Could have gone that way, I suppose. Were you a bit of a celebrity at school?
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No, not really. No. I was very shy and big ears, buck teeth for quite a while. The shyness and the music was my way of getting around that shy, introverted self. But that took it took a while to develop that part of myself.
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So you were kind of that geeky boy in the corner writing songs and strumming a guitar? Yeah, there but for fortune, I would have been Elvis Presley. Elvis? Not Elvis Presley, Elvis Costello. Just kind of sitting there with my glasses on.
00:16:30
Christopher Robin and Owl walked along under branches lit up by the moon posing our questions to Owl and the Ore as our days disappeared all too soon. But I wandered much further today than I should and I can’t find my way to the Three Acre wood so help me if you can I’ve got to give back to the house. If you corner by one, you’d be surprised there’s so much to be done count all the bees in the high chase all the clouds from the sky back to the days of Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh doesn’t know what to do got a honey jar stuck. On his nose house of Pooh Corner sold millions for Kenny Loggins and unbeknownst to him, he was just getting started. Don’t you go anywhere as this story continues in just a SEC.
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This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kay.
00:18:08
Thanks so much for hanging in. I’m chatting with superstar Kenny Loggins, who’s just admitted that he was a shy, geeky kid who discovered very early on that he had a natural gift for songwriting. Being in the music business required me to get over being shy and put myself out there and just show up. And it’s the showing up that changes you. How was that for you?
00:18:32
That must have been really difficult in the beginning. Yeah, it was. And I wasn’t sure how to go about doing it. And that’s why I think Jimmy was very much a mentor for me in that way. And sometimes there’s good and bad with that know one is that Jimmy was a mentor and a teacher at the same time.
00:18:52
He was a, quote, partner. But we’re both developing solo careers, so there’s a conflict within that partnership of one upsmanship which I think exists in a lot of bands. I think that’s why bands break up so soon, because they’re trying to one up each other. And they’re only 18, 1920 years old, so we barely knew who we were at all. And then all of a sudden, we’re enmeshed in this duo and we’re trying to find our individual personalities while presenting the idea of a solid duo to the world.
00:19:24
If you’ve been thinking you’re all that you got, then don’t feel alone anymore. Because when we’re together, then you got mine. Because I am the river and you are the shore.
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And it goes on and on the boat. Watching the river further and further from things that we’ve done, leaving them one by one and we have just begun watching the river listening and learning and learning to run river.
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There was a lot to learn about how to show up for not only hiring and firing a band, but hiring agents, hiring managers, but creating a tour road managers. The whole infrastructure of putting a business together. And Jimmy had been experienced in that area, so I learned a lot from him on that. The positive was I learned a lot. The negative was I learned his way.
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And then I had to learn, oh, there are other ways to do this. And in pursuit of finding your way was that what led to the breakup of the two of you in 1976? Not really. I would say that what led to the breakup was the actual creation of the duo. We were really two solo artists who really just thought of ourselves as soloists who’d come together for one record.
00:21:01
And then, okay, so we’re thrown together for six records. Let’s make the most of that. Let’s share our material as much as we can. But we were both really ready to break up right from the beginning. So when that six year time period came, I was like, thanks.
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See ya. But you’re still good friends today, aren’t you? Yeah, we’re good. We get along well. Your mama don’t dance and your daddy don’t rock and roll.
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Your mama don’t dance and your daddy don’t rock and roll.
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When even those around and it’s time to go to town where you go to rock and roll. The old folks say that you gotta end your day by ten.
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If you’re out on the day then you bring it on late. It’s just ain’t all the years that know you gotta lose and never win again. You went off then to find your solo career and boy did you find it in in a very big way. The following year, in 77, you wrote that fabulous song for Barbara Streisand to sing in A Star Is Born. Were the hits just pouring out of you already then?
00:22:15
Looking back at it, you could think that I was definitely writing a lot. I was very excited about finally going solo. The metaphor is pulling the arrow back in the bow, right? It was back there for quite a while before we let it go. And I found that my writing in that last year of Loggins and Messina evolved dramatically.
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I was finding new chords and new ways of putting them together, and I had melodic ideas that were just completely different from anything I’d done with Loggins and Messina. I knew I was heading in a sort of an R B direction. Years later, someone would dub it Yacht Rock, but it was really from Celebrate Me Home on that. I started moving in a more R B kind of or R B inflected approach to my music, using more R B type chordal progressions, and really found myself drawn to that style of music that Stevie Wonder was sort of the spearhead of. There have been times in my life I’ve been wondering why still somehow I believe we always survive now I’m not so sure you’re waiting one good reason to try what more can I say?
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What’s left to provide you it you want it to be are you gonna wait for miracle? Stand up and fight this is it make no mistake where you are you’re back to look out now this is it don’t be a fool anymore the waiting is up.
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Was it taking up every waking moment? No. I still had time to get married and things like that, so there’s other waking moments to deal with. But I was very driven. No one had told me that you can’t break out of a successful duo and become a successful solo.
00:24:46
I didn’t know what the ODS were against me, so I kept doing it because I was naive enough to think, well, that this is going to happen, just like the first thing happened. Now this is going to happen. I’ll just keep going. And really, the moment I think that made the biggest difference in my solo career was meeting Stevie Nicks. When I opened for Fleetwood Mac during Rumors and becoming a friend of Stevie’s, we would hang out in clubs after the shows and stuff, and she had quite an entourage of people that would travel with her.
00:25:15
So there was a lot of partying going on and in the process, we became friends as well as Mick. And then she said, well, if you ever need a singer, give me a call. So, of course, she was, by that point, the most popular female singer in the world. So of course I gave her a call. And that duet with Whenever I Call you Friend really broke my solo career.
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Whenever I call you friend, I begin to think I understand you. And I ever I see myself within your eyes and that’s all I need to show everything I do always. Take me home.
00:26:08
Now I know my life. Is given by day we can see in every moment there’s a reason to carry on sweet love shine off of heavenly light I never seen such a beautiful sight on a fever at night I know forever we’ll be doing it sweet. I turn out the heavenly light I never see such a beautiful side.
00:26:52
I know forever we’ll be doing it. Whenever I call you friends I believe I’ve come to understand everywhere we are, you and I were meant to be forever and ever I think about the times to come knowing I will be the lucky one ever I love will last I was gonna call you.
00:27:27
So when your career had that huge boost with whenever I call you friend how did life change for you then? Well, it changed primarily because I could suddenly play bigger venues, and then that led to bigger audiences, which I could then continue to put in new material, and I just kept working it. Did your head run away with you? Did you let all that fame and fortune get to you, or did you manage to stay grounded? Well, it depends on who you talk to.
00:27:54
I’m talking to you. That’s right. I know. I think I managed to stay grounded, but my kids tell me not so much. My oldest son says, dad, you have no idea what real life is like.
00:28:08
Because, remember, I was a so called rock star from the time I was 21 on, so I never even learned how to cook a burger for myself. It’s like when you’ve got enough money to hire somebody to do that, you do it. So you never had to put out the trash, you never had to walk the dog, all the kind of mundane things that we do. Not entirely. My first wife, when I would get home from the road, eva would say, well, you may be hot shit out here, but here you take out the oh, OK.
00:28:41
We’ll call that grounding. Right. Good. I’m glad to hear that. I’m chatting with Kenny Loggins.
00:28:48
The hits just kept on coming for you, Kenny. And there is a fabulous story about how you got together with Michael McDonald, of course, from the Doobie Brothers. Would you mind sharing that with us? Of course. I heard Living on a Fault Line, that Doobie Brothers album when we were beginning Lagers of Messina, and I thought, this guy is amazing.
00:29:08
I’ve got to write with him. And so I put the word out through management, and I found out through the grapevine that he was looking for collaborators. So finally we connected. I got a writing date and headed over to his house. And as I was unpacking my guitar out of the trunk of my car, I could hear music coming from the front door of his home.
00:29:29
His door was a jar, and I could hear piano things going on. And as I’m walking up to the front door, I hear and he’s singing.
00:29:45
And I couldn’t understand the words because he wasn’t actually singing words. But at one point, he stops abruptly and says, to his sister, that’s all I’ve got. And I knock on the door and my imagination had kept going. And when he stopped playing, my imagination heard what would become the B section of that song. So I knock on the door and I say, hey, Mike.
00:30:06
I said, play that thing you were just playing because I think I know how the next section goes. And so I like to say that we were writing together before we ever met. And of course, that song won a Grammy for you both, didn’t it? Yeah. He came from somewhere back in how long ago?
00:30:25
Saddle, don’t she? Trying hard to recreate what had yet to be created. Watching her life, she musters all smile for his nostalgic care, never coming near what he wanted to say. Original realize it never really was. She had a place in his life he never made.
00:31:07
As he rises to her apology, everybody else would surely know it’s. Watching my go believe.
00:31:24
Jesus.
00:31:31
That was your first Grammy? And then the next year we wrote this is It and that won a Grammy. You were just on fire. That still doesn’t stop, because in the ended up with a whole new career being called the king of the movie soundtrack. Yeah, go figure.
00:31:49
What happened was disco. I just happened to get a phone call. Sue, you mentioned when I wrote for Barbara on Star is Born, I believe in love and in the process of doing that song, barbara streisand’s boyfriend at the time was John Peters. And John and I became friends and then he and Barbara split up and he started his own production company and their first project was Caddyshack. So when he was almost done with that movie, he called me and said, would you come check out my movie?
00:32:19
I’d love for you to write something for it. So I stopped by his studio and I watched a rough cut of Caddyshack and I loved it, laughed all the way through it. And I said, I want to write everything for it. What can I do? So we have other writers, but I want you to write at least a couple of songs.
00:32:35
So I think I have four songs in that movie soundtrack. That was the beginning of me writing for movies. My friend Dean Pitchford wrote a screenplay, so I read his screenplay as a favorite of Dean. He and I wrote the title song for his screenplay, which was called Footloose. And the next thing you know, he’s got the biggest movie of the summer.
00:32:57
I punch in my car 8 hours over tell me what I got I’ve got the feeling that comes there’s a hole in me down tear up this time not gotta cut loose louise pull me up in my knee get back from on the weekend lose y’all, lose everybody.
00:33:50
It’S the right place at the right time. So much luck comes into this business. It’s also about who you know, and how talented you are, isn’t it? I think, yeah. Well, it’s all of the above, right?
00:34:00
They say to be ready for the opportunities when they arise is the trick. So it’s one thing to have that door open but it’s another thing to have your chops together where you can ride a footloose. And danger zone. Very similar situation. I was in the studio.
00:34:17
I had chosen to write for the volleyball scene of Top Gun because I knew no one else would. So I wrote, playing with the boys. And while I was in the studio working on that, I got a call from Giorgio Marauder’s office saying giorgio needs you to sing this song that he’s got at the top of the movie because the act we had has fallen out, thanks to the lawyers. So I was down the street, so I said, okay, I’ll be right there. Next day we’re in the studio and I sing the vocal.
00:34:56
Never understand digging your detach and go I went through the hour take it right over danger.
00:35:44
Toto was the band that was supposed to record Danger Zone. Reo speedwagon were approached too. And Brian Adams also declined because he thought the movie was a glorification of war. Stay tuned for more from Lucky Kenny Loggins. This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy K.
00:36:04
It’s a beautiful day. Welcome back. I’m really chuffed to be chatting with one of the most popular soft rock singers of the Kenny Loggins has enjoyed an amazing career having sold more than 25 million records. Kenny, your friendship with the late Michael Jackson also proved to be really fruitful because he was the one who pulled you into We Are the World. Right?
00:36:31
I met him when he was showcasing off the Wall and we became instant friends. And he called me when the Jacksons were doing their reunion tour. And so when We Are The World came around, he called me literally and know I’ve got a project that I’d like you to be in on. You want to do it? Of course, like Michael Jackson.
00:36:53
So I show up and it’s we are the world. And then he really gifted me by putting me on that front line with the other lead singers.
00:37:04
Are the children we are the choice we’re making we’re saving our own life it’s true we make a better day just you and me close what was. It like doing that? It was great fun. It was a rush. Standing next to Springsteen and Steve Perry, who I would write with, and Daryl Hall and then all those people on the ensemble, you know, the Pointer Sisters and everything.
00:37:44
There was coming of age kind of like being a senior in school instead of a freshman. And of course, it was all for such a fabulous cause. And you’ve always been one for a good cause, haven’t you? Because you’re a deeply committed environmentalist. In fact, I know that you wrote.
00:38:00
The song conviction of the heart. And you actually think this one of all the songs that you’ve done is your very best work? I think that the album is my best work because I’d hit a place where by the time we hit Back to Avalon, which was probably the album, before that I had hit records, but they were gradually all getting written by other people and produced by other people. And I was getting further and further away from that connection to my own creativity and my own work. So I decided that the next record would be written by me and produced by me, and I would make a full commitment to making that the record of a lifetime.
00:38:39
And at the same time my marriage was coming apart, I was going through those changes. Then during the making of the record, I would fall in love with a new person and that relationship would start. So I had this whole cycle, life cycle of death and rebirth happening in my life, and Leap of Faith got to chronicle that. And that’s the sort of thing that an artist can wait your whole career to have that moment where everything comes together, your life and your art is one thing. Where all the dreams that we once had, this is the time to bring them back.
00:39:16
What would the promises caught on the tips of our tongues do? We forget? I forgive it’s a whole other life waiting to live. One day we’ll breathe enough to talk with conviction of the heart. It’s interesting you talk about that because it doesn’t matter how famous you are or how much money you have.
00:39:48
Those are the sort of life events that you go through like the rest of us and in exactly the same way, don’t you? So you’re filled with the same emotions, the same problems, and you have to deal with it in the same way. Yeah, except that I get to write about it. My job is to chronicle those emotions, chronicle those changes, and really be willing to look at it and dive deep into it so that I can artistically express what you’re going through. Because we’re all going through it.
00:40:19
That’s what life is. So we get to relate to your words and you use it as a therapy to get through your own situation. Yeah, it is. And I didn’t really perceive it as a therapy. I just saw it as my duty as an artist to use this opportunity to do something with it and something in a way that it moves other people.
00:40:40
Yeah, you moved a lot of people. It even moved the likes of Al Gore, and it became the unofficial anthem of the environmental movement. Is that something that you pursue relentlessly these days, too? Not as actively, but yeah, I’m still involved in one way or another. And I’ve got an organization here in Santa Barbara called Unity which keeps a focus on the footprint.
00:41:01
I’ve been more involved in children’s things, and Unity is very much focused on feeding and clothing those in need. So it’s a closer to home thing. I read something else very interesting about you was that when you’re in concert, fans tend to bring gifts all the time. Kind of sounded like the way they threw the underwear at Tom Jones and the like. And on your website you write, please don’t bring gifts to me.
00:41:27
Donate instead, because it can be much more meaningful. What do they bring? Oh, any number of things, but not underwear. It’s not that kind of thing. I remember about ten years ago, I had an old friend of mine who had come to the show, and he was looking from behind backstage through pulling the curtain aside, and he looked down.
00:41:49
He said, Jeez, man. He said, you used to pull the prettiest girls, meaning the audience was made up of the prettiest girls. He said, Where are they? And I said, that’s them. That’s them today.
00:42:01
But I’m sure you’re appealing to a whole lot of younger generations as well, because you’ve endured. Your work spreads into so many different directions. Why the desire to work with kids? I think that when I work with young people, I see myself in them, and I want to give to them the things I wished someone would have given to me. Whether it’s learning how to craft a song or just giving someone a leg up in their recording career, it’s very gratifying.
00:42:28
The strength as a young person is to invent, to create, to reform what’s there in a new way. There’s a lot of elasticity in the brain. Then as we get older, that brain becomes more crystallized and we become a depository of information. And so we do become masters at our craft, and we can then share that awareness with those young people who have an awareness of the importance of that mastership. I don’t want to compete.
00:42:58
I don’t want to always be running in place trying to keep up with the latest flavor. That’s absurd. I had my turn, and now it’s your turn. Walking on my own absolutely free solitary life only left for me like I say dinner alone independent heart all I’ve ever know all I believe I have no one to lose and nobody but me I rainbow in the night lightning on the sea your eyes never before magic of light happened in my eyes right before my eyes oh, now I believe there’s a God watching over me. Don’T you find, though, that young people are not interested in the wisdom of older adults?
00:44:22
They think they know it all best? Or is your experience different? Well, of course both. The one you just described is my own kids. The other experience of teenagers is those who are really hungry for information and want to know what the craft was and may continually be.
00:44:40
There are threads that run through every generation of music. How do you pass that information across to young people? Well, I found that there are songwriters clinics all around the country, and if I go to teach at a clinic, invariably I end up in a writing situation. I did a clinic recently for a publishing company, and I ended up in a room with a female singer songwriter who was very cute girl and really great voice. And when I started to explore with her what her influences were, she mentioned sade.
00:45:10
And I said, oh, well, if you’re into sade, then we want to build this on a bass line. So we came up with a bass line, and as we’re creating the melody, it’s all just coming together. That’s the sort of thing that I like to do.
00:45:28
Operator, operator, operator did you spend the. Pandemic sitting on your couch riding too? No, we got Ebikes and My Lady and I would go out in the morning and find the perfect Donut. That’s the season I’m in. It’s wonderful to hear how happy you are.
00:45:51
You’ve got twelve platinum albums, pair of Grammys hits on almost all the Billboard charts over several decades. You’re still going. You’ve just released a new book. It’s called still. All right?
00:46:02
It’s the memoir from one Kenny Loggins. I was very reluctant to write a memoir because I thought of it as the last thing you do before you die. And finally I had a publisher talk me into it in interviews. I call it a cross between a deposition and therapy, because trying to remember all the shit that happened over the years is quite challenging. And that was one of the reasons I was reluctant to do it, was I just didn’t remember all the stuff I wanted to.
00:46:28
Yeah, right. I don’t remember anything. How did that process work for you? It took about a year. I have no relationship to time.
00:46:35
When I look back on things, they all seem to merge, except for the birth of my children. I’m really not sure what happened. When we did a lot of interviewing of old friends, road managers, musicians, calling them up and saying, what do you remember about this thing or that thing? One classic example, when I was making Leap of Faith, we’re about two thirds of the way through it, and I was moving my headquarters from Los Angeles up to Santa Barbara, and we loaded a truck up with 232 track Mitsubishi digital recorders, all our amps and guitars, and on the way to Santa Barbara, it got stolen. Oh, dear.
00:47:10
What happened to be in the truck, unbeknownst to me, were all my master tapes from Leap of Faith, so we didn’t know if that was ever coming back. And I had to make a decision as to whether or not to keep recording overdubs or go back and try to recreate my masters. And so I literally took my own Leap of Faith, and in my body I felt like, the tapes are coming back. Don’t waste your time rerecording the material that’s going to come back. So I keep going with my overdubs, believing in my heart that Masters would show up, and that three weeks later, the police find the truck and the master tapes had been moved from the body of the truck to the cab and locked up in the cab.
00:47:48
Everything else was stolen and gone. How amazing. I ended up with five singles off that record. But you didn’t put those master tapes in the cab of the truck, did you? whoever’d stolen the truck had moved them to the cab.
00:48:00
Yes, correct. How insane. I suspect that some engineer or engineers had something to do with it, because whoever did it knew the value of those tapes. I think just some general thief wouldn’t have even recognized what they were. Wow.
00:48:14
What an amazing story. So the moral of that story is. Keep the faith if you wish. That could be your moral. Well, what was yours?
00:48:23
I mean, you kept believing that they’d come back and they turned up. Yeah, it was more like I knew they’d come back. I just knew it. It wasn’t like an exercise in keeping the faith. It just was fate.
00:48:35
Is there a moral to that story? I don’t know. Kenny Loggins, you’ve got the book still. All right. Why the title?
00:48:41
Well, it’s based on the song. I’m all right. We kicked around a lot of other titles, but that was my favorite.
00:48:50
Nobody but about me Why you got to give me a fight? Can’t you just let it be?
00:49:02
Don’t know about a word about me you got give me a fight why don’t you just let me be? Do what you like do it naturally whatever you be there gonna disagree it’s your life isn’t it a mystery?
00:49:31
Everybody came it.
00:49:44
Away everyone you still got those Ebikes? You’re still riding them and searching for the world’s best donut? No, I had to stop doing that. They were showing up too much in my gut. But, yeah, we still have the Ebikes.
00:49:59
We took up pickleball and we play that a lot. We love the game, and that’s great exercise. Yeah, that’s about it. Right now I have special projects when. They come up and still writing new material occasionally.
00:50:12
Yeah. There’s a lady out of New York named Dory Berenstain who’s making a documentary of my life, and in the process she asked me if I would write a title song for it. So I’m in the process of recording. That fabulous. We look forward to watching that, too.
00:50:28
What an absolute pleasure to have the opportunity to chat with you, Kenny Loggins. It’s just been terrific. Congratulations on a fabulous career. Thank you. Bye bye.
00:50:37
I hope you found the chat with Kenny Loggins as interesting as I did. What an incredible career. He’s enjoyed smash hits on Hollywood’s favorite soundtracks, rocking worldwide stages, and finding his way into children’s hearts everywhere. His song Danger Zone was recently featured again in the 2022 movie Top Gun Maverick, earning over a million streams per day at its peak. Rest assured, too, that his memoir, Still All Right, is a fascinating read, as it provides a candid and entertaining perspective on one hell of an interesting life.
00:51:16
Thank you for being here again with me today. And don’t forget, if you have a guest that you’d like to hear from, just send me a message through the website, a breathofreshair.com au, and I’ll do my very best to get that person onto the show. I’ll take my leave of you now and hope you have lots of fun. Until we meet again same time next week. Bye now, just.
00:51:43
You’Ve been listening to A Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye.