Kenny has always been one of those guys I wondered about in their ’80s period—meaning was he completely blown out on cocaine? Turns out, just a little. He also talks about poor fashion choices and a disastrous opening slot for Curtis Mayfield.
Thank you for making me dredge up these memories, many of which I’ve successfully repressed. The first story that comes to mind was back when I was in college. I got an offer to go on tour with a rock band called the Electric Prunes. My friend Jeremy Stuart was the music director and keyboardist, so he brought me in as a singing guitar player. At that point, I’d already written “Danny’s Song” and “House at Pooh Corner.” Those were the songs that always worked for me, and Jeremy figured he’d restructure the Electric Prunes show to do a break in the middle for my songs. The Prunes were a psychedelic rock act from the mid- to late ’60s. I was definitely not a psychedelic rock person, although I did like some of it.
I was more of an acoustic guy, like Dylan, Donovan, and Tim Hardin. Those were my idols at the time. So, I hit the road with the Prunes, and I had never been on a tour before. I was only eighteen and pretty nervous. We instituted that break in the show, where I would sing “Danny’s Song” and “House at Pooh Corner.” Up to that point, I had never experienced what it was like to truly fail or bomb on stage. People were walking out of the show during my songs because they weren’t there for that. They wanted a trippy, psychedelic experience, and here I was doing these quiet, acoustic songs. It was a very important lesson for me to learn, albeit very difficult.
When Loggins and Messina started up when I was twenty-two, I would wake up with cold sweats during the night, reliving those Electric Prunes failures. It was truly traumatic for me, and I was developing a bit of stage fright. I learned that I had to be smart about my audience. When I was in high school, I would enter talent shows, but I never won. One time I lost to a guy who imitated Bob Dylan. Then I lost to a group of high school girls in black light hula skirts who did a hula dance, and the judges went wild. A black light dance was the height of entertainment in the 1960s. Let’s just say I had a very rocky entrance into show business. I never took into account the “show” aspect of show business. Presentation matters!
I began to realize that things like wardrobe mattered, but Messina and I had as much wardrobe as the Eagles. It wasn’t much, but we would wear the local football or hockey jerseys of the touring cities. That was about as snazzy as we got, and you can see us on the cover of Rolling Stone with shirts that are way too tight and pants that are too short. You might say I’ve been wardrobe challenged my entire career. I did a lot of research on lighting and sound companies, so I was a lot better at the visual and aural presentation.
Fashion is a weird thing, and my biggest offense was the Keep the Fire album cover. It was based on a Halloween costume I’d had previous to that shoot. I enjoyed the idea of playing Gandalf, and that was really where I was going with that fashion choice. I don’t think the photography quite captured what I was going for. I’ve taken a lot of teasing for that cover, but lately, my younger audience thinks that it’s really cool. They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I’ve had a number of fashion faux pas that I’ve committed over the years. It really all adds up to nothing in the long run.
When Loggins and Messina first went out on the road, it was as an opening act for Delaney & Bonnie and Billy Preston. We did a winter tour, and back east somewhere there was a blizzard. The promotor hadn’t put up the deposit, so none of us were going on. Our road managers were huddled in the back room with the promotors, and some kids who were waiting for the show threw rocks through the dressing room window. We panicked and thought there was going to be a riot. I said to Messina, “I think they’re going to fucking rip us to shreds,” so we ran onstage and started playing. That settled everyone down, but I had never seen an audience so hostile.
One time in Boston years ago with Messina, it was raining like crazy, and the promoter was fighting with our road manager about whether it was safe to play. We thought it was too wet and too dangerous to go on stage, but the promoter kept insisting it wasn’t. He went on stage to announce that the show was happening rain or shine and that the audience shouldn’t be afraid of a little rain. At that exact moment, he got struck by lightning and had to be transported to the hospital. It was really a bad day for that guy. The kicker was that it didn’t rain enough to the point where he could collect insurance. He was majorly fucked. I’ve butted heads with a lot of promoters over the years, but the only artist I’ve never gotten along with is Glenn Frey. There’s a lot of horror stories about those boys, but Glenn tops my list. It’s too soon since his passing to get really into it, but someday somebody should write a book about the guy. He was just a really unhappy guy.
One of my most embarrassing moments was with Loggins and Messina when we played the Troubadour in LA, opening for Curtis Mayfield. It was a ridiculous double-bill, but Clive Davis made it happen. In those days, we would start the shows with me going on stage alone to do “Danny’s Song” and some acoustic stuff. Then Jimmy [Messina] would come out with the band. I was doing the opening solo thing at the Troubadour, and the audience was 90 percent black. There were two really beautiful black women in the front row because at the Troubadour in those days, the audience would sit right in front of the stage. I was singing my songs, and they were looking at me, yelling “Get down! Get down!”
I thought I was doing really good and that they were yelling it like, “Get down! Get funky!” I just thought it was the best gig ever and that I had completely won over the crowd. Finally, Jimmy comes on stage and whispered, “Man, I don’t know how you did that. Those girls were telling you to get down off the stage the whole time.” My face turned bright red, and I could barely look at the audience for the rest of the set.
I had a short dance with cocaine in the ’80s, but it was not my drug and didn’t last very long. Thankfully, I didn’t lose my brain or my voice to drugs or alcohol. I’ve never smoked cigarettes, but I did smoke marijuana in the early days. I found that it was difficult to perform high because I kept forgetting where I was in the song. I would mix up the verses, and then I’d get really paranoid so I stopped doing that. As for the paranoia thing, I never knew when I’d slip from having a great time on stage to thinking someone in the crowd was heckling me, to the point where “Get down” becomes “No. Get down!”
I still love playing for a real audience that has paid good money to see me. It’s more difficult with the corporate audiences. They didn’t buy a ticket and, quite often, they don’t even know who they’re going to see that night. The company president made the decision because he or she is a fan. It’s usually a good audience but not great. Usually, they yell, “Danger Zone” at me. It used to be “Footloose,” but because of the show Archer and a few other high-profile things, it’s usually “Danger Zone.” Truthfully, while I do not always want to play them, I’m lucky and glad that those songs have lasted all these years.