This entry is lifted from my “Celebration Rock” WordPress blog, writings I began when I first retired. A couple of people have asked about this episode in my “radio daze” so I promised I’d lodge one of my Kenny Loggins radio programs here. [This audio would be more apporpriately added to my other blog, but it’s this “Peace, Grace, and Jazz” blog that allows media, not the previous one. It is what it is.]
Interviews with the musicians who make our music can help us understand the nature of creativity, the joy of entertaining, and the hard work that is behind every so-called star. And those interviews don’t come easy for small-time producers in small-to-medium markets. Most of the big names don’t have time for us. And after that ill-fated interview with two members of the band Lynyrd Skynrd, I wasn’t too keen to stay up all night to interview just another hit maker.
But the Columbia Records rep asked if I’d be interested in interviewing Kenny Loggins when he came to Richmond for a concert and that was an easy call for me. Loggins was on his own now after several years (and multiple hits) teamed with Jim Messina. His album “Celebrate Me Home” was doing well, and I had already played several tracks from it on “Celebration Rock” before Loggins was scheduled to appear in Richmond. (Since his solo act was still something of an unknown quantity, he was booked to play the intimate Empire Theater downtown on Broad Street.) Randy Allen told me I could talk with Loggins in the afternoon of the concert day. Just stop by the Holiday Inn on Broad Street (it was across the street from WLEE), and the desk clerk would ring his room. Sounded too easy to me; I hadn’t had great luck with these connections before.
At the appointed time, around 2 or 3 that afternoon, the desk clerk gave me the phone number for Loggins room. The phone rang several times and Loggins himself answered. He was taking a nap, he explained. He’d been up all night the night before, recording with Phoebe Snow. Ah! “And how is she these days,” I asked. Last time we talked she was on her “Poetry Man” tour with Jackson Browne, I told him. (Made Phoebe and I sound like old friends, huh? This is called building a relationship of trust and credibility by implying something that is only half true…the whole truth was that I had interviewed Phoebe Snow… once.) “She’s incredible, isn’t she?” Loggins replied. “Listen, I’d love to do this interview later, OK? I have to get some rest. How about tonight, during the intermission. Just come back stage!”
So, here’s the familiar refrain: I didn’t have a ticket to the concert, so that night after the show had begun at the Empire, I did find someone in the ticket booth and announced myself. Jeff Kellam, “Celebration Rock.” Randy Allen with Columbia set this up. Backstage interview during intermission. The guy in the booth said something like, “You can’t come in here without a ticket.” Straightforward enough. “Maybe you can try getting in the stage door in the back alley.”
Oh, great. So, I cautiously skulk through the dark alley and find the only thing that resembles a stage door, and I hear the Loggins concert going on inside. I try the door. Foolish. They don’t leave those doors open for alley skulkers.
I thought about knocking, but then I thought, if I can hear Loggins inside on the stage, if I pound loud enough on the stage door, maybe everyone who bought a ticket will hear me knocking! I imagined Kenny Loggins stopping in the middle of “Danny’s Song” and walking to the back of the stage to let me in. I thought better of it. And I drove to the hotel.
I waited in the lobby and when the singer and his Columbia Records entourage and various hangers-on returned from the concert, I caught Randy Allen’s eye and told him about both the afternoon and evening situations. No problem, Randy said. He was apologetic. “We’ve got a little party here for Kenny in the ballroom. Can you wait a little longer? We’ll set something up before too long tonight.” So, I did wait. For quite a while.
Around 2 a.m., Randy and Kenny and a few others emerged from the party and as they walked by the pathetic radio guy with his Uher Report-L reel-to-reel recorder, Randy saw me and was genuinely chagrined! “Jeff! My gosh; you’re still here!” He turned to Kenny and said, “That’s Jeff Kellam and he’s been waiting for an interview with you for twelve hours! Are you up for a short conversation with him?”
Loggins might have said, “Oh, yeah…Phoebe Snow’s pal.” But instead he said, “Are you the one who woke me up from my nap this afternoon?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You are one patient man! Yes, let’s do this thing!” Instead of using my equipment, WLEE’s Ken Curtis invited us to use the WLEE production studio across the street. Curtis made some tea, and Loggins and I sat down for what turned out to be one of the best interviews I’ve ever done. Kenny Loggins was laid back, friendly, honest, open, and in no hurry to leave.
More about that night…or morning…in the next post.
[Here’s the link to the first of two Kenny Loggins “Celebration Rock” specials.]
Peace, Grace, and Jazz! 