Kenny Loggins: Unsung Hero
Editor’s Note: Originally published August 29,2017.
"Highway to the Danger Zone"—as you read these words you hear the song in your head. If you’re of a certain generation you probably visualize F-14s taxiing off the runway, bro high fives, and MiG fighter jets being blasted out of the sky.
The song, written and performed by Everett native Kenny Loggins, helped to catapult the Top Gun soundtrack to platinum status—nine times over.
Kenny Loggins has been called the King of the Movie Soundtrack. And it’s easy to see why. As Hollywood’s go-to composer he wrote songs for a string of 1980s blockbusters: Caddyshack, Caddyshack II, Footloose, Over the Top, and, yes, Top Gun.
Motorcycle sans helmet? Tom Cruise has always been a maverick.
This weekend I heard that famous Loggins song blasting from a white Honda Civic, complete with 80s gated reverb drums and airplane innuendo.
I was like, oh yeah, Kenny Loggins. He's from Everett. I hit up Google to find out more about this hometown hero.
What I discovered surprised me.
As I began to delve into the career of Kenny Loggins I became aware of the scope of his oeuvre. And I started to wonder if we’ve given him the hometown hero credit he’s due.
K-Logg holds a glowing orb in a promo shot for his 1979 yacht rock album Keep the Fire. Notably, Michael Jackson sang backup vocals on the track "Who's Right, Who's Wrong". For my money it's KL's best record.
Loggins started his career by churning out soft, mellow top 40 hits. In the 70s he was a beardy guy who penned and performed the type of AM radio dad rock songs you still hear in Albertsons or on KJR FM. “Danny’s Song”—a tune I knew and falsely attributed for years to James Taylor—is an acoustic hippie ode to fatherhood (sample lyric: “Pisces Virgo rising is a very good sign”). Loggins also wrote the bluesy easy listener “Your Momma Don’t Dance.”
You probably know these songs.
But Loggins really got traction in the '80s when he started writing big pop tunes for the silver screen. Dig his opening lyrics for the title track from Footloose.
Been working so hard
I'm punching my card
Eight hours for what?
Loggins, a craftsman, is no slouch when it comes to the economy of lyricism. In a few seconds, in three lines of mono- and di-syllables he taps into the blue collar class consciousness of 1980s America. Then he drives it home with an anthemic chorus that advocates dancing as a way of coping with workaday anxiety and disillusionment.
Add a hook as fat as shoulder pads in 1984 and you have pop music perfection.
Critics sneered. A review of the movie in the New York magazine posited, “Footloose may be a hit but it’s trash— high powered fodder for the teen market.”
Could be. The album held down the #1 spot on the Billboard charts for two months. The movie grossed 80 million dollars domestically. Guess how many people can sing Footloose today? Guess how many people still read New York magazine?
Kevin Bacon in Footloose. Odds are you know somebody who knows somebody who knows him.
Loggins' career tapered off in the late ‘80s as he became something of a family man.
His popularity resurged in the ‘90s when he released a well-received album of children’s music called Return to Pooh Corner.
It's an interesting album. On the cover Loggins rests near a twilight pool, admiring a reflection of himself as (presumably) his own son. He’s wearing a sarape with an indigenous print— this, plus a half-beard, give him the look of a wistful Clint Eastwood. Two horses and a unicorn gallop in the background.
As far as cover art goes it’s a bold move by any metric.
The album sold over half a million copies and was nominated for a Grammy.
Loggins followed up this popular children’s album with a sequel in 2000 called More Songs From Pooh’s Corner. The cover for that album features astral dolphins (?) and a pegasus. I’ll let you Google it yourself to see what I’m talking about.
Loggins leant his star power to Live Aid benefit shows in 1985. His solo on the song "We Are the World" is sandwiched between Bruce Springsteen and Steve Perry solos, around the 2:20 mark.
Today Loggins lives in California. He still tours, playing county fairs, casinos, and performance halls around the country.
Yes, Loggins has come a long way from his Milltown boyhood.
My question: has he received his due?
Lubbock, Texas has a life-sized statue of Buddy Holly. Seattle has a statue of Jimi Hendrix. Stone Mountain, Georgia had a 7-foot statue of Tupac Shakur (it was stolen).
Where is our homage to our Grammy-nominated hometown hero?
Moreover, has a generation of teens in acid washed jeans and white high tops been given their due? As that generation fades into thinning crew cuts and scuffed Court Classics, five beers in at the county fair— what civic token is left in their wake to commemorate an era when a dancing Kevin Bacon symbolized and embodied the coming-of-age class angst chafing under austere Reaganomics?
Let’s build Loggins a memorial, I say. Loggins circa 1985, looking like Eastwood's kid brother. Put it on the corner of Colby and Hewitt: a tribute to our hometown hero. This is overdue.
Kickstarter campaign forthcoming.
Richard Porter is writer for Live in Everett.