Jim Messina

Few musical artists résumés list membership in a band inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame; fewer still can lay claim to being a founding member of the seminal band credited with creating Country Rock; and only one artist can include all the above in addition to being one half of the most successful duo of the 1970s. When chronicling the current commercial and critical success of artists like Keith Urban, Brooks & Dunn, and the pairing of Alison Krauss & Robert Plant for 2009’s Album Of The… Show more Year Raising Sand, it is not overstating things to say a direct line can be drawn back to Jim Messina’s legacy with Buffalo Springfield, Poco and Loggins & Messina.

Do these songs strike a chord in your memory stick, “Your Mama Don’t Dance” “Thinking of You” “You Better Think Twice” “Listen to a Country Song” “Angry Eyes” “Watching the River Run” all charted or hit singles.

A supremely talented guitarist, Jim Messina began working with the legendary band Buffalo Springfield in 1966 as a recording engineer on their second album Buffalo Springfield Again. In 1967, at the request of the group and Atlantic Records founder and president Ahmet Ertegun, Messina was asked to produce the band’s third and final album. Shortly thereafter, he replaced Bruce Palmer, the bass player, touring and recording with the band up until completion and release of their album Last Time Around.

In November of 1970, Messina opened up his living room to record a number of compositions for a promising young songwriter named Kenny Loggins. With the songs Loggins presented leaning more toward folk (a style Messina felt could resign Loggins to the “past”), Messina suggested to Columbia Records president.

In the next few years, a series of albums would follow in rapid order – 1972’s Loggins & Messina, 1973’s Full Sail, 1974’s double-live On Stage, the same year’s Mother Lode, 1975’s cover song set So Fine and 1976’s Native Sons. The Best of Friends greatest hits collection followed later that year and in 1977 another live album fittingly called Finale. When the dust had settled, Loggins & sixteen million albums, become one of rock’s biggest live draws, and cemented their legacy as one of the most successful recording duos ever.

Show less