“MaryKarr [the author of The Liars’ Club href=“https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143035746?tag=paradedigital-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1”] wrote a great book on writing autobiographically, The Art of Memoir. She talks about being as honest as possible and that’s what we strove for,” says Loggins, who clearly did his homework, interviewing people in his life and career to get their perspective on how things happened. Loggins, 74, might feel once burned, twice shy since his open-hearted approach to songwriting and life has sometimes been belittled by others. KurtLoder of MTV once went on air to tear up The Unimaginable Life, a book Loggins and his then-wife Julia wrote together, much to the embarrassment of his son. But it’s too late for that. “I said something about [worrying over] revealing myself,” Loggins says. “Lisa, my girlfriend of four years now, said, ‘Honey, you did that a long time ago.’” In the beginning, it took other people to prod him into singing his own songs. As a newcomer to the music business, Loggins’ own insecurity about singing in front of a band soon evaporated. But even after the hits started in 1971 (and kept coming for more than 30 years), life was…complicated. He and JimMessina became one of the biggest duos of the ’70s and worked great together—as long as Messina was in charge. Going solo, Loggins enjoyed immediate success, along with two intense marriages, an addiction to pills, a flukish but highly enjoyable stint as the “King of Soundtracks” in the 1980s and so much more. It was also risky. “I lost a lot of the Loggins & Messina audience,” Loggins says. “And then when I started doing rock ’n’ roll, where I was leaning more toward the Footloose era, I had a guy [in the crowd] yell out, ‘Kenny, you’re not LedZeppelin.’” Yet he never stopped taking risks. A kids’ album rejected by his label becoming the best-selling solo album of his career? Check. Celebrating a rock-solid marriage built on complete honesty in book and song, only to get divorced? Check. Turning that into another career peak with the 2007 break-up album How About Now? Check. Unintentionally creating the “yacht rock” genre alongside his enduring musical collaborator and friend MichaelMcDonald? Loggins has done it all. And he really is all right, seeming at peace, happy to think deeply about what he’s asked and even dig into nerdy questions about everything from a quirky songwriting detail in the hit song “I’m Alright” (from Caddyshack) to the risk-taking on his 1991 masterpiece Leap of Faith. He’s also seen the world catch up to many of the values that powered him, like embracing meditation, a concern for the environment and even that old rock star standby, the open marriage. (In his book, Loggins said he and his first wife, EvaEin, had an understanding that he would do his thing while on the road.) Learn more from the chart-topping crooner below. What books were you reading while preparing to write your own? I read my friend RichardMarx’s book Stories to Tell. I listened to RogerDaltrey’s [of the Who], who is a great reader [Thanks a Lot Mr. Kibblewhite]. He has a lot of expression in his voice. Peter Frampton’s book [Do You Feel Like I Do?] has some cool early pages about the early days, as does Graham Nash’s [Wild Tales]. I love the early days and the memories of forming Crosby, Stills & Nash and everything like that. Oh, and I was listening to Elton John’s book [Me] this morning. That’s really good. It’s a very funny book. Still Alright talks honestly about every stage of your life, from your addiction to pills to two divorces. Did you ever hesitate? That’s a good question, because that was a constant over my head. How far do I go with this? My relationship with both of my ex-wives is good. And the kids [he has five in all] benefit from that. I didn’t want to poison the well. I showed the chapters to Eva of the stuff I wrote about my first marriage, and she changed a few things that were minor—not to her, but minor to the story. With Julia [Cooper, his second wife], she made some suggestions about things she was hurt by and I changed the wording and even in some cases dropped that element from the story. Because it’s not necessary to dredge up the old pain and rekindle the resentments that created the divorce in the first place. It’s been years now and we’ve gained a lot of ground. At some point, did that on-the-road rock ’n’ roll lifestyle that affected your first marriage stop being fun? It stops because there’s nothing there. There’s no substance to it. In the book, I take the rap for the dissolution of my marriage. There are two sides to that story, but I just felt like my portion of it was plenty to destroy. I realized after that the way I was living was not conducive to a successful marriage. So when I was with Julia, I didn’t fool around at all. And because my heart was so taken with her, I didn’t feel like I was depriving myself of anything. I had what I wanted at home. So when she asked for a divorce, that caught me completely by surprise. You’re always ready to have a laugh and try new things. You’ve happily repeated the story about how you were not the first or second or even third choice to sing the vocals on “Danger Zone.” [And, yes, the song is heard in Top Gun: Maverick.] You’ve successfully tackled so many genres from country rock to pop and even kids’ songs. And every step of the way, you were advised against it. For me, my career, my music has been, ‘Go where the fun is.’ That will be on my tombstone. It’s worked. Next, You’ll Go Wild For Kenny Loggins’ Footloose Children’s Book
