Singer-songwriter and guitarist Crosby Loggins has been around music his entire life, and has been making it almost as long. His songs flow in a wave of soulful vocals and seamless musicianship and always hit their emotional mark. This authenticity, combined with his innate sense of when to let the music be graceful and spare and when to propel it powerfully forward, is Loggins’ artistic signature.
The name has a ring of familiarity, pointing to his legacy as the eldest son of GRAMMY®-winning pop/rock/soundtrack legend Kenny Loggins. Growing up in Santa Barbara, Crosby had the opportunity to first experience music through an extraordinary circle of artists that included Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, Michael McDonald and Glen Phillips (Toad The Wet Sprocket), among others. “I always loved being around them,” says Crosby, “but dad was just dad. It was the other musicians who were a huge deal to me. I respected and admired them so much, even though I had no real concept of their celebrity at that age.”
We All Go Home, the debut album from Crosby Loggins and The Light, is an eloquent statement of Loggins’ emerging vision. Featuring Crosby on lead vocals and acoustic guitar, the disc’s 12 songs also spotlight a stellar group of musicians he met through the creatively rich music scenes in Ojai and Ventura, California. Their musical and vocal synergy inspires his work, creating a timeless appeal and a genre-skipping sensibility that intersect effortlessly.
Crosby co-produced We All Go Home with multi-instrumentalist Jesse Siebenberg, who is featured on electric and acoustic guitars, lap steel, dobro, percussion and more. Something of a prodigy, Jesse has played stadium shows with Supertramp (his father is the group’s drummer, Bob Siebenberg) since he was 16. In the more intimate atmosphere of Loggins’ music his talents shine. Paul Cartwright’s virtuoso string playing expands the music’s boundaries. His roots in Bakersfield, California led Loggins to drummer Jared Pope, bassist Forest Williams and keyboardist Dennis Hamm, who anchored Bakersfield’s funk-fusion phenomenon Mother Funk Conspiracy. They round out The Light’s line-up.
Stand-out tracks include the searching album opener “Good Enough,” which Crosby originally penned alone and later reinvigorated with the help of Siebenberg and Hamm and the infectiously hooked “Always Catching Up,” a favorite of Crosby’s written with his sister, Bella. ”Angel of Mercy” is layered with the hushed soul and confessional narrative of an early Jackson Browne song.
Other highlights include the title track, a number whose soulful lyrics and lilting, gospel-inflected melody make it hard to believe Crosby wrote it when he was 18. On other ranges of the spectrum, the dense, rhythmic “Wanna Be You” puts the Mother Funk alums front and center and “March On, America” lends an activist voice and quiet patriotism to Loggins’ thoughtful body of work. The Siebenberg penned “Here She Comes” bears a resemblance to the buoyant pop flow of Marshall Crenshaw. The album closer, “Same Old Song (La, La, La)” is a testament to Loggins’ naturally elegant less-is-more inclinations.
In late 2007 / early 2008 Crosby Loggins performed over 100 shows throughout the North American and Europe, performing with noteworthy musicians such as Joe Bonamassa, Sam Bush, and Monte Montgomery. In 2008 he will begin touring as a headliner.
|
|