Jim Messina
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Biography:
As a singer, writer, guitarist, producer and engineer, Jim Messina made major contributions to music in the 1960's and 1970's, as a key contributor to the Buffalo Springfield at the tail-end of their history, a co-founder of the country-rock band Poco, and as one half of Loggins && Messina.
Born in Texas in 1947, Jim Messina's life was divided between his mother's home in Texas and his father's home in California. His father was a semi-professional guitarist and greatly influenced his son's musical career. Messina began playing the guitar at the age of five. As time progressed, he became interested in the guitar parts on Elvis Presley and Ricky Nelson records, and later acquired an interest in surf music, a natural outgrowth of living in California. He was heavily influenced by the hits of such outfits as Dick Dale and the Deltones and the Champs. During his late teens, he organized a group of his own called Jim Messina && The Jesters, their sound heavily indebted to that of the Champs, and their were good enough to win a string of local band competitions. They managed to grab the last vestiges of the surf music craze and got an album out entitled The Dragsters in 1966, on the Audio Fidelity label. The release of an album was an impressive achievement for a teenager, but not much came of that record at the time, the surf music boom having pretty much ended by the time of its release.
Messina stepped back from performing, and decided to learn more about music from the technological end, working with a local deejay he had met and learning how to produce and engineer sound recordings. He got a job at Sunset Sound, a major Los Angeles studio, and became the second engineer -- among the acts whose records he worked on were the Doors, Herb Alpert && The Tijuana Brass, and Lee Michaels. But the project that caused a major detour in his life, back into performing, had to be among the least promising that he'd been assigned -- the final album by the Buffalo Springfield. Since the early 1970's, with the fame achieved by co-founders Stephen Stills and Neil Young, the Springfield have been treated as legends, but in late 1968 they were perceived as one of the more hard-luck bands on the Los Angeles music scene -- from a promising beginning with a lead-off hit, they'd squandered opportunities (or had opportunities squandered for them) across three tumultuous years, owing to personnel difficulties, management problems, and a general inability to run with the chances they were given (such as playing the Monterey Pop Festival when they were decidedly below full-strength, with co-founder Neil Young absent from the lineup; doing one major television appearance with a roadie substituting for an absent bassist; and a first album filled with great songs that mostly lay there flat because their managers insisted on producing it themselves, rather than bring in an experienced hand). With Messina's help, their final album, Last Time Around, was nothing like that -- it sang, all the way through, and it was livelier and fresher than any record by an otherwise disintegrating group had a right to sound. And part of the reason was that Messina ended up playing on the record as well as producing.
So successful were the sessions, that Richie Furay -- the key member of the band still on hand when the key was turned on the Springfield -- offered Messina a chance to form a new group in partnership, and the result was Poco. Although their personnel situation wasn't much more stable than the Springfield's -- their original bassist, Rusty Young, left before the first album was even finished, and Messina ended up playing a lot of the bass parts on the record -- they did assemble a fine body of work across the next couple of years. By the third album, however, Messina was ready to leave, and following the recording of Deliverin', in late 1970, he was back working as a producer, this time at Columbia Records.
His first producing job was a six-album contract with Columbia Records to produce the albums of singer Kenny Loggins. Messina produced Loggins' debut album, Sittin' In, and also played on it and sang backup vocals. The results pleased both of them so much, that they agreed to keep working together, including concerts -- and suddenly Messina was back performing again. Loggins && Messina released nine albums in seven years with a sales figure of more than two million copies. Their style embracing folk, country-rock, jazz and classical, with hit songs like &"Watching the River Run", &"Travelin' Blues", &"Your Mama Don't Dance" and &"Pathway to Glory". Their voices and playing, coupled with Messina's production and arrangements, made their work among the most finely produced (and popular) soft rock of the mid-1970's. Indeed, their success was sufficient to result in the reissue of Messina's long-ago surf album, credited to Jim Messina && The Jesters, on the Thimble label.
They split the partnership in 1976, following the release of Native Sons and the accompanying tour. With a few years off for rest and relaxation, Jim Messina re-entered the music industry, this time concentrating on a solo singing career. During the '80s, he released three solo albums, Bustin' Surfboards, Superjammin' and Pop Classic of the 7'0s. His revival included singing and touring again with Poco on their 1989 reunion release, Legacy. Messina tours and performs new songs on a regular basis; the recent album River North is all new material but still features Messina's signature country-rock sound. In 2005, Messina and Kenny Loggins embarked on their first tour together in 29 years, which resulted in a new album and a revival of interest and a fresh round of CD reissues and upgrades of their 70's catalog. Kim Summers && Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
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