An Appalachian Summer Finale Concert featuring
Kenny Loggins
Saturday, July 25 at 7:30 p.m. Sponsored by Blue Ridge Electric |
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Get your ASU Concert Tickets here! |
There are certain welcoming voices in popular music that can be identified as soon as a song starts – they're immediately familiar musical touchstones, inextricably part of our collective pop culture soundtrack. Singer-songwriter Kenny Loggins possesses such a voice, and for over three decades it's been inviting listeners in to experience music that reaches the heart and the senses with disarming candor, authentic emotion and rich lyrical and melodic resonance. From Loggins & Messina classics like "Danny's Song" to signature solo tracks including "Celebrate Me Home" and the GRAMMY®-winning "This Is It," Kenny Loggins' expansive body of work speaks volumes with its warmth and directness.
By any standard, Loggins' commercial impact has been extraordinary; twelve of his albums have gone platinum and beyond. In a world of one hit wonders and fifteen minute sensations, Loggins has enjoyed hit songs in four straight decades -- a remarkable testament to his exceptional craftsmanship and stamina. Yet the true measure of this man cannot be weighed in platinum and gold. Through it all, Kenny Loggins has earned the faith of those who've followed him along the way. To this day, Loggins continues to write and record at the height of his powers as a singer and a songwriter. This is something that Loggins proves every time he takes the stage to sing his soulful songs straight from the heart.
Kenny Loggins was born in Everett, Washington, and moved to the Los Angeles area as a young boy. After a short and, in retrospect, rather surprising stint as a guitarist for The Electric Prunes, Loggins scored a job as a $100-a-week staff songwriter and penned four songs on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's 1970 album Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy, among them the classic "House at Pooh Corner." Around this same time, Loggins caught the attention of former Buffalo Springfield producer and Poco member Jim Messina, then working as staff producer at CBS. Originally, Loggins set out to record his solo debut with Messina behind the boards as his producer. As work progressed, Messina's involvement increased and the album subsequently emerged in 1972 as Kenny Loggins with Jim Messina Sittin' In – a gem that featured Loggins' future standards "Danny's Song" and "House At Pooh Corner" and quickly established this accidental duo as one of significant recording and touring acts of the 70s.
Kenny Loggins has been many things to many people over the past three decades -- "a moving target" as he's put it. In his time, Loggins has been a guitar-slinger with a psychedelic rock band, a hot young songwriter with a publishing deal, half of a legendary country-rock duo, a massively successful and accomplished solo artist, a sonic pioneer in the smooth jazz genre, a reigning soundtrack superstar, a rocker, a seeker, as well as an enduring recording artist and live performer whose most recent works have spoken deeply to both young audiences and decidedly adult and worldly concerns. At the heart of it all, there remains a brilliant singer-songwriter and guitarist with a lifelong passion for exploring the endless power of the song to communicate.
