Loggins, Messina & Friends

Lessons

• Lesson 1: Good Time Charlie’s Got The Blues - Danny O’Keefe - Guitar Lesson

  Danny O’Keefe is unfortunately mostly remembered as a one-hit-wonder but he wrote some great songs that were covered by artists as diverse as Jackson Browne, Elvis Presley, Leon Russell, Judy Collins, Willie Nelson, and even Mark-Almond.
  
  Of course, Good Time Charlie’s Got The Blues is his most well known and could even be considered a standard today.
  
  It consists of a very cool fingerpicked vamp that might be a bit challenging but well worth mastering. This lesson mostly goes over the way he plays it live and solo.

• Lesson 2: Please Come To Boston

  Please Come To Boston was a big hit for Dave Loggins in 1974. He wrote the song after his first big tour, with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, which hit the three cities mentioned. The girl waiting at home was fictional but made for a great story.

  The guitar accompaniment was generic fingerpicking and the lesson presents quite a few different patterns and approaches, in the interest of creating your own version and varying it every time. There is a detailed look at two guitar parts that were played as the introduction, with the main one being in Dropped D Tuning. It is played with a capo at the second fret, as Loggins did when playing it live.

• Lesson 3: Danny’s Song Guitar Lesson - Loggins & Messina

  Our first entry in the great songs of Loggins & Messina, Danny's Song is one you can fingerpick anyway you like, or use a standard Travis pick all the way through. It is in the key of D and includes a common descending bass line similar to Mr. Bojangles. This lesson is done with the Campfire approach as all you need to do is play the chords and sing the song.

• Lesson 4: House At Pooh Corner Guitar Lesson - Loggins & Messina

  House At Pooh Corner is one of our most requested songs. This Campfire Lesson includes some quick-changing barre chords and talks about transposing it to another key to suite your vocal range.

• Lesson 5: Your Mama Don’t Dance - Loggins & Messina - Guitar Lesson

  Loggins & Messina created a bunch of fun songs and Your Mama Don’t Dance is probably their best known. It follows a classic 12-bar blues formula with a memorable riff and some great licks and rhythm patterns.
  
  This lesson covers playing it with your fingers or a pick, or even both using the hidden pick trick, as well as rhythm patterns with different feels- rock, shuffle, swing, and even boogie.
  
  There is a section on playing lead with a modified blues scale, and even a part combining it all into a solo version. This lesson may be complete information overload but try to absorb it in small doses over an extended period of time.

• Lesson 6: Footloose by Kenny Loggins - Guitar Lesson

  Footloose is the title track to the great 80’s movie and it kicks off with a fast, rhythmic unison riff.
  
  This lesson will not only teach you the riffs and licks to the song but also how to play the vocal melody on guitar!

• Lesson 7: Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins - Guitar Lesson

  Everybody knows the movie Top Gun and this song is the highlight of the soundtrack.
  
  Built around some simplistic power chord riffs, this lesson will show to the ropes to one of the most iconic rock songs of the 30 years!

• Lesson 8: Long Tail Cat

  The second album from Kenny Loggins and Jim Messina really put them on the map, particularly due to the success of Your Mama Don't Dance. The album featured a bunch of great tunes and this lesson breaks down Loggins' catchy one, Long Tail Cat. It only has a few chords along with a very basic picking pattern that makes it accessible to even beginning guitar players, although a couple barre chords are used.

• Lesson 9: Summer Breeze - Seals & Crofts - Guitar Lesson

  Jim Seals and Dash Crofts had a string of hits and great songs during the 70s. They had been together for quite a while when they hit it big with Summer Breeze, their fourth album, released in 1972. The song featured an unusual chord progression, a distinctive opening instrumental theme, and great harmonies with a little Texas twist. This lesson shows a couple of different ways of incorporating some of Dash’s mandolin parts into the guitar accompaniment.

• Lesson 10: Whiskey

  Loggins & Messina's second album, released in 1972, is best known for their hit Your Mama Don't Dance. It also included a bunch of great tunes that guitar players love to play. This lesson goes into Kenny Loggins' song Whiskey. It is a short, tongue-in-cheek ditty about the famous L.A. club where many famous folk appeared in the 60s and 70s.

  It features some very basic fingerpicking, admittedly at breakneck speed. The lesson goes into all the sequences and ideas for mastering the techniques involved.