Kenny Loggins - Still Alright

T HIS STORY DOESNT START with a disappearing truck, but it certainly fucking feels like it.

In 1989, two things happened at once that would deeply impact my career. The first was that I began recording what would become my Leap of Faith album. The second was that Don Ienner became the president of Columbia Records. Id been with Columbia since the very beginning, through eight Loggins & Messina albums and seven solo ones. Id sold millions of records and reached the top of the chartsjust not that much of late. It had been three years since Danger Zone and five years since Footloose. Given that I hadnt had a top-10 album since 1978, company execs were beginning to wonder if I still had it.

Among Ienners first orders of business was to figure out the labels obligations, and when he got around to reviewing my contract, he saw that I was already $500,000 into studio costs (and counting) for Leap of Faith, and not a person on his staff had actually heard the music.

From where I sat, though, that half mil was money well spent. So much music was pouring through me that Leap of Faith had all but written itself, every word and note falling perfectly into place. Melodic ideas scored my dreams so frequently that I kept a tape recorder next to the bed. For the first time in my life, I could imagine complete songs as if they were playing on my stereo. The arc of the album was following the arc of my life, and I was writing it all as it unfolded before me. I innately understood everything I wanted the music to be.

Columbia had recently been acquired by Sony, and the new boss was busy slashing the slumping labels artist roster, ultimately cutting loose a third of the acts. I had already spent a ton of their money on my new record, and it wasnt even finished yet. I grew nervous. Would I be the next to go?

The West Coast head of A&R for Columbia, a guy named Ron Oberman, certainly thought so. He lobbied Ienner to drop me from the label as part of the overall house-cleaning efforts. Luckily for me, my old friend Bobby Colombythe founding drummer of Blood, Sweat & Tearshad recently become the senior VP for creative development, not just for Columbia Records but for all of Sony Music. When Ienner called Bobby to get his take on who he might cut from the label, Bobby convinced him I should stay by promising to personally shepherd my new project.

Apparently, Colomby and Oberman had quite the confrontation over it. The urban legend is that Bobby held Ron out of a second-story window until he reassessed his position. I doubt anything like that actually happened, but Bobbys a native New Yorker and I wouldnt put it past him. At the very least, it illustrates the kind of passionate support he gave me.

Before too long, I received word that Don wanted to hear what Id recorded. He set a meeting for a month out. Trouble was, Leap of Faith was still in bits and pieces at that pointI didnt even have any rough mixes ready to show him, let alone all the overdubs I had planned. None of the songs even sounded like a record yet. I had a lot of work ahead of me to make it right, and it was increasingly clear that Donnies opinion would be the deciding factor when it came to my future with Columbia. Yeah, I was stressed.

As it happened, Ienners message arrived just as I was packing up my operation for a move from LA to Santa Barbara. By that point, the basic tracks were in place and I wanted to do the overdubsmy vocals, a ton of percussion, and lots of secondary instrumentationcloser to home. Into the truck went our amps, guitars, microphones, stands, and speakers, along with two Mitsubishi 32-track digital recorders and the big eighteen-inch reels containing the master tapes. I had thirty days to get everything ready for my big meeting, and I needed every minute of them.

Then it all went sideways.

Its only a ninety-minute drive from LA to Santa Barbara, an easy hop, but after an all-nighter at the studio, the guitar tech driving the van decided to stop at home for a shower and a quick nap. Thats when the truck was stolen.

It was just fucking gone.

Bobby called me at home with the news. I couldnt have cared less about the instruments or the recorders. Those were replaceable. My master tapes, though, were pricelessthe sum of twelve months of steady toil put into the album.

I still had the slave reels, though that was small consolation. In the days before unlimited digital tracking, slaves were mixed down from master recordings to leave as much space as possible for overdubs, which could then be transferred back to the original, high-quality master. Its unfortunate terminology, but it was industry standard back then. The recording quality on the tapes in my possession was unacceptable for an official release, let alone a career-saving preview for Columbias new boss. They were good enough for me to take cues from, and not much else.

This is going to sound weird, but when I heard my tapes were missing, I didnt panic. Not even a little. Theres no logical explanation for it, but despite every upsetting detail, I knew instinctively that things would turn out okay. Really, I had only one decision to make: I could return to LA and rerecord the basic tracks in a hurry, or I could proceed as if nothing had happened and continue to overdub on my slaves, according to the original plan. If the masters failed to emerge, the quality would be far too low for Ienner to approve. Add to that the expense of rerecording everything, and my time with Columbia would almost certainly be over.