Record company rejection was Loggins' wake-up call

• Things you may not know about Kenny Loggins

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

Kenny Loggins Where to see him "Emme's Island Moments," 7 p.m. tomorrow, KGMB-9; repeats 3:30 p.m. Sunday New Year's Eve, Coral Ballroom, Hilton Hawaiian Village; tickets: $85-$195, available Dec. 16 at the hotel; call 947-7877 Where to hear him "It's About Time," his latest CD, now in record stores Where to log in On the Web: kennyloggins.com

Then one day you get a pink slip. Like a scratchy long-play album, you're cast aside. A relic. You're told, um, that you're no longer the flavor of the month. Your appeal has gone south.

At 55, Kenny Loggins faced this problem. Abandoned. Slighted. A pop music dinosaur. All because of changing modes and tastes in the recording biz.

But Loggins is a rock 'n' roll survivor who still feels somewhat ageless, because he's continuing to have a great time where it counts — on stage, in front of his devoted audience.

"When you get up on stage, it's Peter Pan time," said Loggins, sipping coffee recently at the Hawai'i Prince Hotel. "I'm 22 again. I'm doing 'Footloose' and 'Danger Zone' and I'm right back there in time. And that's fun."

Loggins, who will appear on "Emme's Island Moments" at 7 p.m. tomorrow on KGMB, will be a New Year's Eve attraction Dec. 31 at Hilton Hawaiian Village.

His sour story of unexpected rejection is sweetened by his new CD, "It's About Time," his first studio album of original pop-rock tunes in 6 1/2 years (he released a children's and a Christmas album in the interim). "With This Ring," one of the tracks he wrote, is getting notice.

"I'm not sure if it's an art or just a blind eye, but I thank God adult audiences are buying tickets," said Loggins, who recently wound up a twoiweek tour with Hall & Oates. "We'd been attracting between 6,000 and 9,000 a night; those are good numbers. There are horror stories about the younger artists and younger acts on the road."

Loggins, formerly of the Loggins & Messina duo of the 1970s, said he had to make a career choice and chart his own course after 30 years with Columbia Records.

He was dumped by the label, despite an enduring and admirable career, initially with partner Jim Messina, but mainly as a solo rocker. He has been a pioneer of pop-rock ("Danny's Song," "Celebrate Me Home," "Heart to Heart"), movie-music magic (notably, "Footloose") and live concerts, but for the MTV generation, he was out of sync.

"Columbia didn't want me to turn in ... (another) record," Loggins said. "They said, 'We don't know what to do with you,' so they cut me loose. After three decades."

Sure, it hurt.

But it also was a wake-up call, helping him emerge from a dark chapter of his otherwise illustrious life as a pop star.

"Was I insulted? Yes and no," Loggins said. "It was more about how I was dismissed than that I was dismissed; had they called me and said business can't support what I was doing, if they said they appreciated what I had done, if we had a party together, anything else would have been appropriately civil. But they don't run business that way."

The nature of the business has dramatically changed and Loggins had to adapt to survive.

"Now they talk about the old model and the new model, and the old model is Columbia and labels like Warners," Loggins said, "where they sign a million acts and one or two has to hit 10 million records to recoup all the losses of the other acts. The new model is to sign selectively, hope to build a career around two or three albums, and don't throw a lot of front money out; they record for $300,000 instead of $3 million, and use $500,000 to promote the record. In the new model, just like the old model, the artist still only makes a buck per record. The difference is, in many cases, the new artist can own their masters — something I was not able to do or get."

Thus, he said, his new deal means he now owns the masters.

"As a musician, my work has always been introspective," he said. "I'm very much relationship-centered."

The new CD boasts a number of personal songs about his relationships with his son ("The One That Got Away") and his wife ("With This Ring").

"Ring" has been tapped as a single, becoming the first break-out tune. "It was written with my wife, Julia, in mind," Loggins said. "It was a song I didn't expect to write — about finally wearing a wedding ring, something I hadn't done for 12 years. I got the intuition to give myself a wedding ring for her birthday; that's when I wrote the song."

He and his wife have an open, honest relationship.

"My biggest fear is that this profession may get in the way between Julie and me; this is a hard row to hoe. We're as honest as we can consciously be; that means, I will do nothing that I can't tell her about, which keeps me pretty clean. That's my promise to myself; that this will be completely above board, that I will be straight up with her. I've done it the other way (before) and it doesn't work. That's what 'With This Ring' really is about. I'm making a promise to myself. People think marriage is about promising good behavior to the other; what I've discovered is that it's really the promises you make to yourself and whether you keep them."

In a depressing time of his life, after getting the boot from Columbia, Loggins said he considered — briefly — retirement.

"I felt, why make records if they are going to throw it away. So I was seriously thinking of retiring, ready to give it all up, till my son said, 'If daddy stopped singing, he'll die,' " Loggins said.

Reach Wayne Harada at 525-8067, fax 525-8055 or wharada@honoluluadvertiser.com.

Things you may not know about Kenny Loggins

Home, sweet homeowner: He owns two homes, one in Santa Barbara, another in North Kohala on the Big Island.

Bestseller: He's earned 12 platinum albums and 14 gold albums, reflecting sales of 20 million albums worldwide.

Author, author: With wife Julia, Loggins has co-authored "The Unimaginable Life: Lessons Learned on the Path of Love," which also is the title of an earlier album.

Hirsute hero: He almost always sports a hairy face — beard, goatee, mustache.

Why he hasn't worn a wedding ring — till recently: "To me, a wedding ring was a symbol of imprisonment and I didn't want to bring that into our marriage." The life-changing decision resulted in his new hit song, "With This Ring."

Family man: Loggins has three older children from his first marriage, two from his current. Crosby, 22, is a singer-composer-guitarist, and Bella, 15, is a drummer-guitarist-singer. So they may be following in dad's footsteps. Cody, 21, is still looking at career choices. Luke, 10, wants to play shortstop for the New York Yankees, and Hana, 5, may become a singer.

A reunion with Jim Messina?: "Not likely. Jimmy and I never were close friends; it was a good relationship but we never really hung out together. We're friendly, but not old buddies."