Long hair aside, it’s as though nothing has changed – that is until they’re offstage.
Nearly 30 years after their split, Kenny Loggins and Jim Messina are together again, playing the same ’70s pop songs that drew fans in droves decades ago.
Only now most of those fans are in their 50s, and a much matured Loggins and Messina are reminiscing on the path that finds them reunited for a tour that will pass through Snowmass Village at the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day Festival this weekend.
The five-day festival includes performances by Widespread Panic, Joan Osborne, Willie Nelson and John Fogerty.
“This is a period of time when I’m just cruising,” said Loggins. “I’m discovering what parts of me I can bring back as a person at 57 years old and what I can do that I’ve always wanted to do, but never gave myself permission to do.”
Loggins confesses that it was a challenge relearning how to share the stage – figuring out “when to step forward and when to step back.” Yet sharing the limelight has been much easier, now that Loggins and Messina no longer feel the competitiveness of their youth.
“Now we’ve come together as mature men who’ve led our own lives, and we can be who we are without having to compete – to kind of honor each other,” Loggins said.
Still, the pair admits that they remain very different people who can butt heads from time to time.
“He’s still Kenny,” said Messina with a laugh, “which I find sometimes humorous and frustrating like he probably does with me.”
Much has changed since the paths of Loggins and Messina first crossed. It was 1972 and Loggins, an aspiring 20-something musician from Everett, Wash., had just scored a recording contract with Columbia Records. Messina was slated to produce the newcomer’s first album, but ended up getting so involved that the album was dubbed “Kenny Loggins With Jim Messina Sittin’ In,” thus igniting a very successful and lucrative musical partnership of folk-flavored rock songs.
But after two platinum and several gold albums, as well as a top-five single in “Your Mama Don’t Dance,” the pair grew weary of one another.
“When I met Jimmy, he was my mentor,” Loggins said. “So I gave him a parental role, and that worked for a while, but you can only be a student for so long.”
The two parted in 1976, and while Messina’s career stagnated, Loggins reaped startling success as a solo artist with multiple platinum albums and top 10 hits such as “Whenever I Call You Friend,” a duet with Stevie Nicks, and “Footloose,” the title track of the 1984 Kevin Bacon film.
The rift between the former duo widened when Loggins married his second wife in 1992. Messina never got along with Julia Loggins, and for many years, the artists hardly spoke to each other. It would take a few decades, Loggins’ divorce and a chance meeting to bring them back together again.
After Loggins’ marriage ended last year, he and Messina both happened to be playing benefit concerts on the same evening in Messina’s hometown of Santa Barbara, Calif. Messina, concerned that simultaneous concerts could have a negative effect on the charities, contacted Loggins about sitting in with him. The two ended up sharing the stage under circumstances as coincidental as those that had brought them together in the first place.
“I think that really inspired Kenny, because he was going through a divorce, and life wasn’t treating him very well,” said Messina. “He heard our voices singing, and he had never been able to capture that with any other person.”
A month and a half later, Messina contacted Loggins to see if he would be interested in another concert.
“What was supposed to be a two-hour evening turned into a four-hour evening,” said Messina of that show. It made me realize the magic and the miracle aspect of what these songs do for people when we’re together.”
It wasn’t long before they decided to give their duo another try, and set off on a 4 1/2-month tour.
“I’m not doing this for the glory,” Messina said. “I’ve had enough glory to last for three lifetimes. But to see the music have the effect that it did – I was inspired.”
Despite the good times they’ve had touring together, Loggins and Messina say they have no plans to record anything new, although they haven’t ruled out the ideaout completely.
In the meantime, they’re having a good time, rekindling their friendship and reconnecting with fans who never thought they would see their favorite duo back together.
“(Performing) now is totally different from coming out to a group of screaming young 20-something fans,” said Messina. “You could never tell if they were just doing that because that’s what everybody else is doing, as opposed to a bunch of 40- and 50-year-olds screaming. Now that’s real.”
Megan Wordis a reporter for the Aspen Daily News.
Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day Festival
The Labor Day music fest, which is much more rock and pop than jazz, starts today. All performances are at Snowmass Town Park in Snowmass Village. Here are the details:
TODAY|2 p.m., Jerry Joseph & Friends; 3 p.m., Johnny Clegg; 6 p.m., Widespread Panic
FRIDAY|2 p.m., deSol; 3:30 p.m., Galactic; 6 p.m., Widespread Panic
SATURDAY|2 p.m., Terence Blanchard; 4:15 p.m., Joan Osborne; 6:30 p.m., Loggins and Messina
SUNDAY|2 p.m., Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe; 4:15 p.m., Willie Nelson; 6:30 p.m., John Fogerty
MONDAY|noon, The Motet; 2 p.m., Alpha Blondy; 4 p.m., Maxi Priest
TICKETS|1-9 p.m. today-Sunday, and 11 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Monday; $30-$55 at 866-527-8499, jazzaspen.org or at the door
