The Best: Loggins & Messina Sittin' In Again

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This 1972 self-titled second album by singer/songwriters Kenny Loggins and Jim Messina finds the duo coming into their own as a song-driven hit machine. Loggins (who enjoyed a big solo career in the '80s) and Messina (who was a driving force in both Poco and Buffalo Springfield) each brought specific sounds to the table. Loggins’ funky “Long Tailed Cat” (dig the countrypolitan violin solo) and “Good Friend” (with its oddly appealing minor-key brass break) nicely contrast Messina’s folk-poppy “Golden Ribbons” (with its languid flute) and “Whiskey” (a cockeyed tribute to West Hollywood’s legendary club Whiskey a Go-Go***). The album’s two best songs are the cowrites “Angry Eyes” and “Your Mama Don’t Dance.” (The latter hit the American Top 20 twice, the second time in 1988 with a cover by the pop-metal band Poison.) This is a singer/songwriter album that boasts not one but two good singers and writers. And it’s a beautiful hallmark of the early-’70s California sound.

via Apple Music