Loggins And Messina – Loggins And Messina

As a kid I remember "Your Mamma Don't Dance" as a really cool song, and I always got a kick (and still do) when the song gets to "Outta the car longhair." As for the Poison remake, that goes in the trash alongside the Motley Crue version of "Smokin' in the Boy's Room." Neither band had any idea what to do with the source material other than try and rock it up and suck the life out of the song. Anyway ... it was the original that rings true, and it was the reason I picked up the album when I found a pretty decent copy in the dollar bin a while back.

I always knew they were a successful band, but I really didn't know anything other than the one song. Kenny Loggins to me was always just the guy who managed to carve out a niche as king of the soundtrack singles, starting with "I'm Alright" from Caddyshack, and then again with "Footloose" and "Danger Zone." I mean to say those were huge is an understatement.

As for Jim Messina, he had pedigree, but I mean, aside from being a member of Buffalo Springfield and being in Poco, I didn't know what his contributions were to their sound. As far as Loggins and Messina, the duo was an accident of sorts, as Jim was mentoring a young Ken Loggins and producing what was to be his debut solo album. Over the course of recording the album, it became Sittin' In, which was a nod to Jim Messina's involvement during the sessions.

Regardless of how it started, between 1971 and 1976 they would release six studio albums and one live record and garner four platinum and two gold records.

Pretty cool.

As for their 1972 release, in many ways this was really their debut as a duo, and while the majority of the songs were written individually, they did write a couple together, most notably "Your Mamma Don't Dance" and the album's closer "Angry Eyes." "Angry Eyes" is a killer song, and honestly, to me, is the best song on the album, with both Jim and Ken taking turns singing and countering each other. It's also the longest song on the album at just over six minutes that goes by too fast.

The whole album is really solid. The songs were cohesive, and I attribute this to the musical arrangements and the musicians who played on the record.

I was actually a little surprised at how well Jim and Ken played off each other. Their voices were different, but remarkably similar in tone. It made for a really nice combination. I found myself checking the back of the jackets to see who had written what and assumed who wrote it sang it.

Musically, this was still on that country rock vein, but it was definitely more rock (okay, soft rock) oriented, and the record sounds thick and full. Yeah, one could argue this is dated, but then again, the album is over fifty years old ... so, yeah, duh, it's going to sound dated, but man, it sounds so good.

I honestly just got this because it had one song I recognized, and while it's a killer song, it's the odd duck here. Not out of place, it's just different than the others, and not in a bad way. I don't know what I was expecting, but as I listened to this a couple of times, I found I got a lot more than I expected.

Styx - Paradise Theater

Styx was hands down one of my favourite bands as a kid. They were a strange band, even back then. They were a hard rock band, almost progressive at times, who had a penchant for sucky ballads. I know there's a tendency for people to zero in on "Babe" as the song that killed the band's credibility. The roots go way back to almost the beginning when Styx released "Lady" on their second album. It showed a side to the band that needed to be kept in check, and for the most part the band kept things on a pretty tight leash. The band had been setting a gruelling pace, releasing an album a year (two in 1972) and by the time they released Paradise Theater (if I end up writing theatre later it's because that's how we spell it here) in 1981 they'd dropped ten albums in less than a decade. I snapped this up as soon as I saw it, and it became a fixture on my turntable. Like the band had announced on "Borrowed Time" from 1979's Cornerstone , ...

David Baerwald - Bedtime Stories

The little sticker on the shrinkwrap says, "You may remember David Baerwald from David & David's Boomtown ..." You bet, I remembered David Baerwald. Back in 1986 Boomtown was an album with moments of sheer brilliance. The whole album may not have been as top shelf as the first few tracks, but that didn't matter - it is an excellent album. I waited for a follow-up ... and waited, and then in 1990 it was a solo David, David Baerwald, who dropped Bedtime Stories . I snapped it up. "All For You," the opening cut, is still my favourite song on the album. It was mesmerizing. I'm not sure if the song got any airplay, it may have, but that may have been wishful thinking on my part as it was on a lot of mix tapes at the time and I heard it a lot in the car. The CD had a great booklet with all of the musician credits and lyrics. Oddly, when I found a sealed copy of the record (a great score), it just had a plain paper insert - the picture of David walking wit...

Gary Numan - The Pleasure Principle

"Cars" was really the only song I knew by Gary Numan. I knew the name of the album the song came from. Over the years bits and pieces of trivia are accumulated, but in terms of his music it was still distilled down to one song ... It would be too easy to write Mr. Numan off as a one hit wonder, and I suppose in terms of actual chart hits this was his defining moment as a solo artist. Of course this really means nothing, as Gary Numan would drop an album a year pretty much through to the end of the '80s. He'd then slow down a little but continued to make music. While The Pleasure Principle was Gary Numan's debut solo release in '79, he actually cut his teeth on a couple of albums in a band called Tubeway Army, first with the band's self-titled release in 1978, and then on Replicas that came out in April of '79. By the end of Tubeway Army's run most of the band would follow Gary into his solo career. Paul Gardiner, who had been with Gary from the b...

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