It involved broken ribs, a failedFlashdanceaudition, and a songwriting session in a laundry room.
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Kenny Loggins had yet to be crowned the King of 80s Soundtracks when Dean Pitchford came calling.
1 slot on The Hot 100, but it became one of the most popular singles of the decade.
Excerpt From Still Alright: A Memoir
The soundtrack song everyone remembers, of course, is Footloose.
Flashdancewas set up perfectly for me.
It was produced byJerry Bruckheimer, who I knew was a fan of Im Alright.
The films musical director was Phil Ramone, the producer onCelebrate Me Home.
I was one of their first calls.
Back then, anything Bruckheimer touched was gold.
Id loved my experience withCaddyshackand was eager foranother shot at a soundtrack.
What I came up with was the melody for a song I called No Dancin Allowed.
That didnt suit Jerrys timeline, so I regretfully had to withdraw.
Then fate intervened if one chalks up poor stage management and my own clumsiness to fate.
I was up there just before showtime, walking around to my normal entry spot from stage left.
My lungs were badly bruised and exquisitely painful, but luckily they hadnt been punctured by my broken ribs.
Needless to say, the show was canceled.
Then the entire tour was canceled.
I was hospitalized for two days until it was safe to fly home.
Once I got back to California, I crawled into bed and stayed there for weeks.
That went over pretty damn well.)
I managed my pain with a supply of Percodan prescribed by the doctor in Salt Lake City.
Wow, did those pills work maybe a little too well.
I felt fine in no time at all, even though I was actually pretty far from fine.
So I called up Bruckheimers office.
I went to an L.A. studio to record No Dancin Allowed on Bruckheimers dime.
Unfortunately, Percodan and I produced the thing together.
I was popping it around the clock, and it affected my judgment more than I realized.
Theres no explanation for it beyond my inability to think straight.
But I didnt do those things, or anything else.
I still think ofFlashdanceas the one that got away.
That soundtrack ended up producing two No.
1 singles and was the album that finally knocked Michael JacksonsThrillerfrom the top of the charts.
And to think that for want of a sober co-producer, I could have been part of it.
Not that Im complaining.
Dean Pitchford was a Broadway veteran who had won an Oscar for the theme song toFame.
He wanted to break into screenwriting and was working on a script about a rural town that banned dancing.
He called my sound uniquely American and praised my materials relentlessly upbeat nature.
He said he pictured me as the musical equivalent of the lead role.
The words were justla-la-lasexcept for the chorus: Dont fight it.
Nothing in the verse set that up, and nothing else in the chorus completed the thought.
I left all of that up to Dean.
Thats when I cracked my ribs.
This threw off Deans schedule.
First, I was laid up and in no shape to work.
Once I found my bearings, I dedicated myself to finishing No Dancin Allowed forFlashdance.
He must have used Chloraseptic spray by the gallon.
I didnt learn that part until later, of course.
Somehow he pulled it off.
For three consecutive days, we spent hours together in his room, fully developing the song Footloose.
Dean helped integrate the script into our lyrics.
Dean brought in a ton of ideas like that.
By the time I left for Asia, wed finished everything but the bridge.
He really must have been in bad shape.
Initially, Dean wanted to use a demo of the song on set while they filmed.
Footloose laid over it perfectly in post.
(Actually, it wasnt as easy as Id initially thought.
Johnny B. Goode came out in 1958, before the use of click tracks.
That meant that drummer Fred Belows sound, while classic, was not quite precise enough for our purposes.
It was painstaking and totally worthwhile.)
The last piece of the puzzle was put into place at my house in Sherman Oaks.
Next, of course, was bedtime, so Dean waited around some more until they were asleep.
I sat on the dryer with a guitar on my lap, and he pulled out his notebook.
Outside, it started to storm.
I mean, the sky just opened up.
It was like all of nature was conspiring to make this an epic evening.
With that, the writing was done.
The opening guitar line is very much a twangy Duane Eddy influence.
It was exactly the sound I wanted.
Why not simplify it and just pick the best one to repeat over and over?
That was the bass line.
Ithadto be the bass line.
Thats Nathans soul out there.
I slowed it down a little so my lyrics would sit on it better.
It was a basic, gut-level, rock-and-roll drum groove, which was exactly what I wanted.
Putting it all on paper shows just how many influences can go into a piece of music.
Thats the history of rock and roll: a constant gumbo in the making, alive and cooking.
Cutting Footloose was simultaneously easy and complicated.
Little did he know.)
Polishing the song was a bit more complex.
Thats a lot for any song at that time, let alone a simple rock-and-roller.
It was worth it.
How the fuck did you get all that information onto that record?
I used a gigantic hamburger press.
Prior to hitting No.
1, Footloose was the beneficiary of a perfect marketing plan.
Footloose the song was an immediate hit on MTV, spent three weeks at No.
1, and reached the top ten in seven countries besides the United States, hitting No.
1 in three of them.
Its almost Pavlovian: Even folks in tuxedos and formal dresses at fancy benefit galas boogie to that one.
Theyve been trained by the movie.
Theyre not allowed tonotdance.
Actually, he didnt even wait that long.
A 19-year-old Richard Marx sang backup on the demo.
That one reached No.
Not bad for one albums work.
Excerpted fromStill Alright: A Memoir,by Kenny Loggins with Jason Turbow.
Available from Hachette Books, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc. Reprinted by permission.
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