Jim Messina Brings Accomplished Resume to The Suffolk

For many artists, the key to success is finding the right producer or musical guide to help polish their sound and bring out their full potential. For 22-year-old Kenny Loggins in 1970, this person was Jim Messina.

Messina is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter and producer who has shared his talents with multiple groups. After starting out as a producer and recording engineer, he was a member of the folk rock band Buffalo Springfield in the late 1960s before being a founding member of Poco, a trailblazing country rock group. His greatest commercial success came with the duo Loggins and Messina in the 1970s before he staked out a solo career.

After nearly 60 years making music, Messina is still going strong; he will bring his talents to The Suffolk in Riverhead on Friday, November 14, at 8 p.m. with his current backing band, The Road Runners.

Messina’s earliest musical inspiration was his dad, who was also a guitarist. He recalled his father helping him as a youngster put his fingers on the strings as he learned his way around the instrument, as well as introducing him to country artists like Chet Atkins and Merle Travis. He cited his dad’s encouragement as something that “gave me the comfort to continue to do what I was doing,” which has stuck with him throughout his career.

“When he would come to my shows he was very proud, I could see that in his face,” said Messina in a recent phone interview. “It made me feel that I had fulfilled something for him.”

Messina started playing in bands when he was 13 and got his first job in the music industry working for Ibis Records in Los Angeles. He also tried his hand at being a session musician, though it was a competitive scene to break into with guitarists like Glen Campbell and other members of the fabled Wrecking Crew dominating the scene. He was soon taken under the wing of audio engineer Mike Dorrough, where he learned the ins and outs of sound engineering and editing.

One of his earliest and most impactful recording sessions was with David Crosby, who Messina was unfamiliar with at the time, and he wondered, “Is that Bing Crosby’s son?”

Messina was struck by Crosby’s voice and his songwriting, noting that “the songs were full of images” compared to other rock ’n’ roll songs about cars, girls and the beach that dominated the airwaves in the 1960s. The session went so well that Crosby recommended him to Neil Young, leading to Messina working with Buffalo Springfield on the group’s second album, 1967’s “Buffalo Springfield Again.”

During the recording of the group’s next album, bassist Bruce Palmer was arrested on drug charges, leaving an open spot. Messina, who had picked up tips on bass from Wrecking Crew member Joe Osborn, mentioned to the band that he wanted to audition, to which the band members were surprised.

“The guys didn’t know I was a musician, and I never told them because it’s not really my job to sit there and brag about what I can do,” he said.

At the audition in January 1968, Messina was the last of 13 people to go. During the first song, Stephen Stills turned around and looked at Messina, clearly impressed at how well he knew the material from working with him, making it an easy choice of who the band’s next bassist would be.

Messina’s tenure in the group was short, as Buffalo Springfield disbanded in May of that year. Near the end of the band’s tenure, he talked with bandmate Richie Furay about wanting to continue working with him. Messina suggested the idea of moving away from Springfield’s folk rock sound and more toward country rock, as Furay’s songs like “Kind Woman” and “Carefree Country Day” had country elements to them.

After the two started recording songs in New York, they knew that something was missing from their sound. Messina suggested bringing in a pedal steel guitar player, and they were soon joined by Colorado-based Rusty Young, who proved to be the missing link of the newly formed Poco.

Messina appeared on Poco’s first two albums before leaving the band in 1970 to focus on producing. After joining Columbia Records as a producer, talent scout Don Ellis told him about a new singer named Kenny Loggins.

On the first night the two met, Messina was taken aback when Loggins said he didn’t have any demo tapes or even own a guitar. That night, Loggins recorded a few songs with one of Messina’s guitars, including “Danny’s Song” and “House at Pooh Corner.” Messina was immediately impressed with Loggins’s voice, as well as his willingness to sing or write in any style.

“At that moment, I realized in my mind that this is somebody who really wants to make a record,” he said. “This is someone who can sing and is someone who has an interest in being able to be diverse in [different] types of music.”

Messina got to work organizing a group of musicians to bring Loggins’s songs to life. During the sessions, Messina also contributed some of his own songs and suggested that the record be called “Kenny Loggins with Jim Messina Sittin’ In” to help Loggins get more airtime and give Messina the flexibility to move on after the album. When the record became a success, Columbia Records asked them about staying together as a duo. Messina agreed, though he insisted that they be called “Loggins and Messina” instead of “Messina and Loggins” as Columbia originally requested since he viewed that first record as Loggins’s album.

The two went on to record five more albums and released successful singles such as “Your Mama Don’t Dance” and “Thinking of You.” But by 1976, after 10 years of nonstop work, Messina needed a break from the stress of the industry, saying that “I just got to the point where I couldn’t acclimate any longer to being out and away from home and I needed to stop.” He also wanted to give Loggins a chance to pursue a solo career as his partner had originally intended.

Messina had no immediate plans to pursue a solo career, particularly as he saw how cocaine had become so prevalent in the industry. But by 1978, he got into salsa music and Latin jazz, which inspired the sound of his first solo release, 1979’s “Oasis.”

When Messina presented the album to Ellis, who was now the head of artists and repertoire at Columbia, Ellis didn’t like it. His reasoning? It didn’t sound like Loggins and Messina. Messina found out years later that Loggins had the same experience with Ellis when he started his solo career.

Since then, Messina has continued to record, produce and tour consistently, still finding motivation in “the joy and feeling of the accomplishment when something is complete.” Over the last two years, he’s toured with his backing band The Road Runners, where he has enjoyed a strong bond with his bandmates both on and off the stage.

Jim Messina performs in concert at The Suffolk on Friday, November 14, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $50 to $100 at thesuffolk.org. The Suffolk is at 118 East Main Street in Riverhead.