Long before I knew who Loggins and Messina were, my dad would sing \u201cDanny\u2019s Song\u201d to my mother in a half-pitched voice and a pseudo-country draw. That melody has followed me around since. I find it seeping into my most stressful days, assuring me that tomorrow will be better. I assume that to my parents, who had 3 children and little income at the time, \u201cAnd even though we ain\u2019t got money \/ I\u2019m so in love with ya honey \/ And everything will bring a chain of love\u201d likewise gave them reassurance.<\/p>\n
Loggins and Messina\u2019s Onstage <\/i>starts with Kenny Loggins singing \u201cHouse On Pooh Corner\u201d and \u201cDanny\u2019s Song\u201d while strumming a solo acoustic guitar. Both songs have infectious melodies\u2014the type that pop into memory upon hearing a similar interval during a bird\u2019s whistle or a telephone\u2019s ring. Loggin\u2019s vocals sound strong and confident on these tracks. They convey a powerful sense of urgency. Urgency for what? For enjoying the simple things in life and not letting life\u2019s complications ruin your spirit. When Winnie the Pooh tells Christopher Robin in \u201cHouse On Pooh Corner\u201d that he needs to return home by 1:00 to \u201ccount all the bees in the hive\u201d and \u201cchase all the clouds from the sky,\u201d I thought maybe Loggin\u2019s poetic extraction was the inspiration for Benjamin Hoff\u2019s exegesis on Taoism entitled The Tao of Pooh. <\/i>Regardless, Winnie The Pooh <\/i>author A.A. Milne would be proud. <\/p>\n
The rest of the album never quite matches up to those first two tracks. Recorded over 3 concerts between 1972-1973, the album contains hits and misses, but nothing as exciting or adventurous as Loggins with only his voice and guitar. The Dixie-inspired \u201cLong-Tail Cat\u201d and the backyard country-blues \u201cTo Make A Woman Feel Wanted\u201d are fun, danceable songs, and the ballad \u201cPeace Of Mind\u201d brings the cathartic power of old soul ballads to a country context, with surprisingly good results. Songs such as the slow \u201cGolden Ribbons\u201d and the shoo-bop \u201cYour Mama Don\u2019t Dance\u201d lose their appeal quickly, while the Loggins and Messina hit \u201cAngry Eyes\u201d goes on too long and contains a seemingly endless guitar solo. <\/p>\n
The song I was most concerned with was \u201cVahevala.\u201d Clocking in over 20 minutes in length, I wondered how much I could take of a song I loathed in the first place. I always thought \u201cVahevala\u201d sounded like a rock \u2018n\u2019 roll version of \u201cLa Cucaracha.\u201d I still do. But after the vocals, Loggins, Messina, and band launch into an entrancing jam more reminiscent of Miles Davis\u2019 Bitches Brew <\/i>than anything Kenny Loggins or Jim Messina ever put out commercially. I was also thoroughly impressed with \u201cAnother Road,\u201d an acoustic guitar duet more appropriate for a coffee house than a concert hall. As shown by \u201cAnother Road,\u201d Loggins and Messina sound best in their most simple form: guitar, vocals, shaker and violin.<\/p>\n
Looking back at my parent\u2019s musical influence on me and listening to \u201cDanny\u2019s Song\u201d as a young twenty-something, I cannot help but feel moved. What drew my father so fondly to that song about a young couple starting a family? How did the song inspire him to so unabashedly sing it to my mother? What was he trying to impart to my brothers and me\u2014his \u201cDannys\u201d? I have never asked him, and I do not think I ever will. Still, when I hear Loggins sing \u201cLove the girl who holds the world in a paper cup \/ Drink it up \/ Love her and she\u2019ll bring you luck,\u201d I can not help but think that, with or without money, my father taught me what was truly important in life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":30151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[8495],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-41791","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-loggins-messina","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41791"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41791"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}