Inside Englewood, NJ’s BergenPAC auditorium this Saturday, March 1, 2025 evening, mamas who dance and daddies who rock and roll ready themselves for a live performance by Loggins and Messina singer/songwriter/guitarist/producer Jim Messina.
The lights dim and the members of Messina’s backup band, The Roadrunners — drummer Jack Bruno, wind/percussion player Steve Nieves, keyboardist James Frazier, and bassist Ben King — take the stage.
The crowd cheers as Jim Messina enters and he and the band open tonight’s show with Loggins and Messina’s “Thinking of You.” Accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, Messina sings in his strong country-tinged voice, “Whenever I’m with you/You got me thinking of you.”
Steve Nieves’ soprano sax compliments The Roadrunners’ tight background vocals on this perky number with an easy ’70s groove that gets audience members’ toes tapping.
Surging into Loggins and Messina’s “Watching the River Run,” Messina and Co. present an arrangement that is filled with strong, melodic acoustic guitar picking by Messina.
Steve Nieves’ flute and percussion work, James Frazier’s keyboard accents, and Ben King’s bass also contribute to the overall sweetness of the performance on this appealing folk rocker.
Concertgoers applaud when they recognize the introduction to Loggins and Messina’s “House at Pooh Corner” and happily sing the tune’s well-known “Count all the bees in the hive/Chase all the clouds from the sky” refrain as Messina accompanies them on guitar.
Joking about his increasing age, Messina, 77, says, “Lyrics are a bit of a problem for me, so if I stop singing will you promise to come in?” Music lovers reply in the affirmative as he launches into “Danny’s Song” where he leads the audience in singing the tune’s classic “And even though we ain’t got money/I’m so in love with you honey” chorus.
Following avid applause, Messina introduces “Mexican Minutes,” a country tune he wrote that became a hit by Brooks and Dunn. Frazier’s marimba keyboard sound and Messina’s chordal acoustic guitar solo characterize the ensemble’s appealing tropical rock version of the song.
Switching over to electric guitar, Messina eases into an early hit he wrote for Poco — the lively rocker, “You Better Think Twice” — on a dynamic arrangement that features a patented twangy Jim Messina electric guitar solo.
Following cheers, hands clap on the intro to a medley of two Loggins and Messina tunes. Starting with the upbeat “Listen to a Country Song,” Messina sings, “Just sit back fine and have a really good time/And listen to a country song,” as Nieves accompanies him on washboard.
Checking in to “Holiday Hotel” Messina and keyboardist Frazier harmonize “Don’t you let me catch you stayin’ in a holiday hotel” as music lovers move in their seats to the medley’s catchy rhythm and avidly cheer for Nieves’ energetic sax solo.
Concertgoers react with hoots and hollers when they recognize the opening strains of the crowd-pleasing 1972 Loggins and Messina hit, “Your Mama Don’t Dance,” and they joyfully sing along on the tune’s famous “Your Mama don’t dance and your daddy don’t rock and roll” chorus.
The performers follow up with a pair of Latin-inspired Messina songs including “New and Different Way,” which features Frazier’s Fender Rhodes-style keyboard solo, and “Lovin’ You Every Minute,” with an arrangement that is characterized by three-part background harmonies, a keyboard-produced horn section, and a percussion break.
Next up is the Loggins and Messina trilogy which starts off with the R&B-flavored “Lovin’ Me,” where Messina cries in his country-tinged voice, “Take me in your arms/And let me love you again/I bet you won’t get up and walk it on out the door.”
Segueing into the upbeat sound of “To Make a Woman Feel Wanted,” music lovers sing along on the rhythmic “Tell her she’s the kind of a woman/That can send you home knowing that you really been loved” refrain before Frazier plays a barrelhouse piano solo and Messina solos, bending the strings of his electric guitar on this appealing country rocker.
Messina and Co. complete the trilogy with a dramatic rendition of “Peace of Mind.” Strong vocals take center stage on this gospel-influenced number before Nieves’ alto sax and Messina’s guitar take over. Messina leads the audience in singing a heartfelt rendition of the “Peace/Peace of mind” lyric which elicits cheers and applause from the crowd.
After Messina announces, “Here’s one from the past,” an audience member shouts, “They’re all from the past!” and Messina quips, “Smarty!” Switching over to mandolin for Loggins and Messina’s “Be Free,” Messina and the ensemble create a mystical mood via the use of keyboards, soprano sax, flute, and percussion on this engaging world music selection.
Messina concludes the show by performing Loggins and Messina’s epic 1972 album cut, “Angry Eyes.” Following the iconic electric guitar intro and the tune’s “You and I must start to realize/Blindness binds us in a false disguise” lyric, an extended arrangement plays out which features a dynamic Steve Nieves’ alto sax solo which garners animated cheers from the crowd.
Following a masterful Jim Messina guitar solo and a fluttery and staccato Steve Nieves flute solo, the vocals return for a final chorus and concertgoers rise to their feet as Messina exclaims to the crowd, “Thank you for coming! Good night!”
Messina and the band exit the stage while the crowd continues to stand and applaud for more. Returning for an encore, the performers launch into a funky arrangement of Loggins and Messina’s “You Need a Man.” Fueled by Jack Bruno’s steady percussion and James Frazier’s organ, Steve Nieves renders a wild alto sax solo, and Ben King slaps low and funky on the bass.
Messina is featured on a thoughtful electric guitar solo prior to the arrangement’s dynamic climax which has the crowd hooting, hollering, and cheering on their feet.
Messina responds by saying, “Thanks for being such a great audience!” and he invites music lovers to join him for a question and answer session in lieu of a meet and greet following the show.
During the Q&A, fans present Messina with a series of queries regarding his life and music.
When asked about his earliest musical influences, Messina mentions his dad, a fan of country-swing music, along with artists like The Ventures, The Champs, and Freddie King. He also talks about surf guitarist Dick Dale, whom he remembers seeing live as a youngster, recalling, “I would just stand in front of the amps and watch him,” prior to revealing to the crowd, “I never forgot that feeling, and I try to create that same energy for you because I know that when you really love music and you’re here, there’s that excitement you get from watching it happen live.”
In response to a question about how he’s able to create such iconic guitar solos, Messina confesses, “I don’t really know!” but nevertheless explains that after working with Buffalo Springfield and Poco, he realized that he liked songs “which allow the musicians to jam for an extended period” and, as a result, when producing Loggins and Messina, he decided to “experiment with songs with extended instrumentals” including several he and the band played tonight including “Be Free” and “Angry Eyes.”
A fan asks Messina if it was “crazy” working with Buffalo Springfield and/or Poco, and Messina insists that it wasn’t, recalling, “Steven Stills used to call me ‘Mr. Straight-Ahead’ because I wasn’t into drugs — I would just show up and do what needed to be done as a record producer.” After noting that Springfield’s “Neil Young was very professional” and “Richie Furay wrote great songs like ‘Kind Woman’ and ‘A Child’s Claim to Fame,’” Messina offers a “side note” about songwriter Jimmy Webb, a high school acquaintance who became his brother-in-law, divulging, “Jimmy’s dad was not only a preacher who sold me my first car — a white 1948 Chevy coupe for 75 bucks — but he married me, too,” joking, “so he sold me my first car and my first wife!”
Recalling his career as a recording engineer and producer, Messina relates that he engineered recordings for Dick Clark and Casey Kasem but passed on producing artists including Andy Williams, Olivia Newton-John, and Dan Fogelberg. When asked how he met Kenny Loggins, Messina recalls that while he was producing Poco’s Deliverin’ album, he was asked to listen to Kenny’s music tapes and, as a result, invited him to his home for a taco dinner.
Regarding that initial encounter, Messina recalls, “Here’s this tall skinny guy with lots of hair and braces on his teeth, and I’m thinking, ‘I wanna make a rock and roll record!’ I said, ‘May I hear some of your tapes?’ and he said, ‘I don’t have any tapes,’ so I said, ‘Get your guitar and we’ll record some songs,’ and he said, ‘I don’t own a guitar.’ At this point, I started looking around for cameras thinking this must be a prank, but eventually I said, ‘I have a couple of guitars,’ and he picked one up and played me ‘Danny’s Song,’ ‘House at Pooh Corner,’ and ‘Vahevala,’ and I listened to them, wondering, ‘What am I going to do with these songs? Folk music is done.”
“But I called him a few days later and Kenny told me that he was writing songs for a publisher making $100 a week. He said, ‘If they need a Leon Russell song, I write a Leon Russell song’— and he had Leon Russell’s voice down — and he said, ‘If they need an Elton John song, I write an Elton John song,’ and he started singing exactly like Elton John. And I said, ‘Wow! This guy can make his voice sound like anybody he wants to, so if I can find the right material — gospel, country, R&B, or folk — and get him focused on getting his voice right with all of those genres, we might have a chance to get a hit record,’ so I decided to take this raw talent and help him get along the way and it turned out to be a good choice!”
Lastly, in responding to a fan’s question about the most important thing he’s ever accomplished as a musician, Messina suggests, “For me, it all comes back to being in the moment as a performing artist — taking the material that I’ve written, recorded, arranged, or produced that you enjoy and coming out and delivering it to you. That’s what keeps me moving, keeps me active, keeps me thinking, and keeps me young-hearted. For me, it’s a way of life, and all the other stuff is just capturing it and putting it into a material form — whether that’s engineering or producing, which is just putting all the pieces together — but once those pieces are together, that’s the time for me to go out and appreciate it as a performing artist, and hopefully if I do my job, you’ll appreciate it, too.”
To learn more about Jim Messina, please go to jimmessina.com. For information on great upcoming performances at BergenPAC — including Gloria Gaynor on March 27, What the World Needs Now: The Bacharach Songbook with Todd Rundgren and Rob Shirakbari on April 11, and Friends of the Brothers with special guest Jaimoe on April 19 — please click on bergenpac.org.
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