Extended Play

Here is more from my interview with Kenny Loggins, who performs Saturday at Lewis Family Playhouse in Rancho Cucamonga. If you’re a fan and haven’t purchased his latest CD “How About Now,” I’d highly recommend it. Go to www.kennyloggins.com for more info.

Q: Did the Nashville songwriters and recording some material in town have a big effect on the CD?

A: I didn’t do a lot of recording there. I didn’t want the Nashville players’ input. To me, there’s not a lot of originality to the studio guitar player approach in Nashville. I wanted to keep it a little edgier, so I worked with a kid that co-produced my son Crosby’s record - Jesse Siebenberg. He’s the son of the drummer of Supertramp, a Berklee graduate and a much edgier kind of player. He also plays good acoustic guitar, mandolin, keyboards, and some drums. So we could be a self-contained group and pretty much build tracks ourselves and bring in players we felt were needed. That’s why I co-produced. He was so actively involved from the ground up – everything from recreating “Love Song” and bringing fresh ideas to that to having creative input on a lot of the material. We recorded most of it in Ojai at his studio…we made a good team. I want to work with [him] again.

Q: On “I’ll Remember Your Name,” you worked with Richard Marx. Had you done anything with him in the past?

A: We have written a few things together, including ‘It’s About Time,’ which was self-released.

Q: Your son Crosby sings background vocals on the tune.

A: I really had to talk him into it because of the nature of the lyric: “you pick me up/you let me fall/you taught me about trust/just let go of it all/how to love a wife and family.” He sang it “how to love a wife or two and raise a family.” It was good to get him on the record with me. It was inspired by a benefit concert I did for Richard Marx’s foundation about music in schools in Chicago. In the process of working with him, I came up with the idea. It’s really a father-son song about that legacy. That’s why I wanted to have Crosby on the tune. It’s amazing in that song how much he sounds like me. At first, I think it’s just me singing softer.

Q: What do think of the derisive music journalists’ term “yacht rock” which cropped up in recent years in reference to soft rock artists?

A: [Laughs] I’ve seen it for a couple years…a friend of mine said Michael McDonald, Hall & Oates and I should get together and do a Yacht Rock tour. My son thinks there’s a whole new level of younger fans showing up who like it. I saw Marc Broussard doing [my song] “Heart to Heart” on YouTube. Some of the younger artists are covering the stuff.

Q: Al Gore once praised your ‘90s tune “Conviction of the Heart.” Are you pleased about the new interest in environmental issues these days?

A: I hope it continues to have an impact and begins to have a political impact. I think we’ve yet to see it show up in American policy. If we get a Democratic president, that will make a big change.

Q: You started doing environmental benefits back in the ‘70s, right?

A: Yeah, I was doing a lot of it back then. But less now, because the demand is less. I see more grass roots stuff happening now, especially on a school level.

Q: What’s ahead for you in 2008?

A: I just started talking to Disney about children’s CDs and an adult CD as well. I’ve done a couple children’s CDs that did real well. ‘Return to Pooh Corner’ is at about 2 million copies now. That’s a possibility and another studio record. I really want to make a swing Christmas record in the Frank Sinatra/Bing Crosby vein. I’d like to do it as a live record with the Duke Ellington Orchestra - big band and strings. It’d be fun, but expensive. I had a couple string arrangements done a few years ago when I was invited to sing with the Army Band in Washington DC. I just had a ball; it was really fun.