Michael McDonald Gets His Own Joke

So after all this, you might ultimately be wondering: what is Michael McDonald really like? Does he think he's cool? Does he think he's ridiculous? Is he in on his own joke?

Ladies and gentlemen, I think I've found the answer. He is.

Back in 1999, many unsuspecting viewers of South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut reached the credits and were initially hit with a punk version of "What Would Brian Boitano Do?" Suddenly, after about a minute and forty-five seconds, a cheap, '80s-style keyboard entered, and a husky, soulful voice began crooning:

The eyes of a child, so innocent and pure
A child's heart is full of song
Take their tiny hand and lead them to the light
As adults we see pain in the world, and it sometimes don't seem right

But through the eyes of a child
The world seems magical
There's a sparkle in their eyes
They've yet to realize the darkness in their soul
The beauty of their smile
Adventurous and wild
Life is kind of gay, but it doesn't seem that way
Through the eyes of a child

Could it really be...yes...it's...Michael McDonald!

Here, according to Parker and Stone, is how it went down:

Having him come in and record that, he was just like, he was fucking perplexed. He said something like, "Beggars can't be choosers...you can pay me in food...can I crash at your guys' place...yeah it's been kind of lame lately...I gotta do whatever I can." He was great, he did a really good job on that song. He did Michael McDonald really well.

It truly is a treat to hear one of the iconic voices of my childhood belt out lines such as "Spread your wings and fly to the brightest star/If you want I can even get my friend Steve to detail your car - for like 20 bucks." He sounds like he means it.



Additionally, in a recent interview with Time Out New York, McDonald displays an impressive self-awareness. Some excerpts:

You should know going into this that I’ve had “I Keep Forgettin’ ” stuck in my head for 25 years now. I think I’m technically insane.

Well, that’s good to hear.

That “Regulate” song by Warren G and Nate Dogg? Didn’t help.

It’s funny. To my kids, that’s the good version of the song. They say, “Why couldn’t you have written it that way?” They love that record—but not because of anything I did.

As a guy with prematurely graying hair myself, I want to thank you for being a role model.

I wish I had a choice in that one, but yeah, you’re welcome.

You wore it proudly—like Steve Martin!

I wish I could say that I was that way from the beginning. It was only after two or three humiliating episodes where the record company told me, “We’re not going to shoot a video unless you dye your hair,” and I looked like Mr. Chocolate Kiss from Clairol. It had to get really ugly before I decided that I would never dye it again.

All well and good. But what we really want to know is: has he heard of Yacht Rock? Nothing could have prepared me for his delightful answer:

Have you ever owned a yacht?

No, but I thought Yacht Rock was hilarious. And uncannily, you know, those things always have a little bit of truth to them. It’s kind of like when you get a letter from a stalker who’s never met you. They somehow hit on something, and you have to admit they’re pretty intuitive.

Have you at least lived near a marina?

No, I never did. Although a couple summers ago, when I opened for Steely Dan, I’d do the encore with them and come out in a little captain’s hat, like Alan Hale Jr. We all wore them onstage.

And not one of you owns a yacht?

Not that I know of. Well, David Crosby owns a sailboat. But I’m not sure he counts.

The man has not only seen Yacht Rock; he liked it. Sometimes, the universe really is a wonderful place. The interviewer manages to squeeze a few more juicy morsels out of him:

Okay. So what’s the craziest thing you ever did with Kenny Loggins?

We mostly worked a lot when we would get together. Kenny, he’s one of those guys who was a more serious artist; I was just a schlub. He was like, “C’mon, let’s get this right,” and I was like, “Got any beer?”

I’m thinking that your tenure in the Doobie Brothers probably wasn’t drug-free.

Not exactly, no. Not everybody had the same problems that I had, but there was a few of us who did the dust.

Did fans almost expect that kind of stuff from you?

I don’t want it to sound like I’m bragging about smoking pot, but there was a time when that was a big part of our day. Smoking in the morning was normal. But a lot of things became normal to me. Seizures, pissing my pants, waking up in a hotel room with the New York City police at the foot of my bed became normal. It’s not like I’m proud of it.

I'm proud of it, Michael. We're all very proud.

--------------------------------

Thus ends our adventures in Yacht Rock - or at least the collection of artists featured heavily in the Yacht Rock web series. In reality, the show has only dipped its toes into the vast ocean that is early '80s soft rock. I have vague plans of starting a series on great Yacht Rock one hit wonders, as well as a series on Yacht Rock's late '80s sister genre, Yuppie Rock. But all in due time. For now, it's on to a discussion of a genre to which I have decided to bestow the name "Cosby Rock."

Yacht Rock: Episode 12

And now, my friends, we come to the final episode of Yacht Rock, and let me tell you, it's a doozy. Somehow our dear Channel 101'ers have managed to wrap up every loose end and every stray reference into one loving little send-off. Even Christopher Cross makes a comeback!

Supposedly the episode is in 3-D, but I can't really attest as to whether that works or not. And yes, just what was Dan Ackroyd doing at the "We Are The World" session? Not only was he not a singer, he wasn't even American.

Michael McDonald Does His Own Soundtrack Song!

One day our middle-aged, soulful crooning maestro must have looked up and noticed that Loggins was running laps around him in the hit soundtrack department. I guess he figured "better late than never."

And what better movie to write a song for than the Billy Crystal/Gregory Hines flick Running Scared. You know, Running Scared.

By this time McDonald's salt & pepper looks were firmly more salt than pepper. And what a surprise when, at the 2:40 mark, Michael McDonald finds himself in the movie with Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines! Look at the infectiously great time everyone is having. Little do they know, but it's 1986, and the party's about to be over.

Kenny Meets Giorgio

Kenny Loggins loved movie soundtracks. Giorgio Moroder loved movie soundtracks. Kenny, meet Giorgio; Giorgio, meet Kenny.

According to Wikipedia, "Moroder originally asked Bryan Adams to record this song, but he was said to have rejected it because he had disliked the jingoism expressed in Top Gun." Obviously Kenny Loggins had no qualms about any of that. Don't you know anything, Bryan Adams? If you want to make it as an '80s rock star, check your values at the door.

Hilariously, "the rock group Toto was also supposed to perform the song, but due to legal matters, it was passed to Loggins." Luckily fate intervened, because Toto were about as dangerous as a sponge. By comparison, danger is Kenny Loggins' middle name. Just look at the video. Kenny appears to be residing in the highly dangerous zone of ... his bedroom. Nothing spells "danger" like a ceiling fan.

Yacht Rock: Episode 11

Apparently, by Episode 10, Yacht Rock had become quite the hip little show - hip enough to bask in some genuine celebrity cameos. Drew Carey and Sara Silverman made guest appearances alongside Hollywood Steve. Episode 11 even features Jason Lee as Kevin Bacon, and what appears to be The Daily Show's Wyatt Cenac as James Ingram (!).

You see, while Kenny Loggins was on the phone with Michael McDonald, he was eating an apple, so when he told McDonald, "I'll be there in fifteen minutes," it came out sounding like "Yah mo b there in fifteen minutes."

A notorious song title was born.

Likewise, you probably thought that lyrics like "Jack, get back/Come on before we crack" and "Geez, Louise/Blow me off of my knees" were just Loggins' absurdly lame attempts to sound energetic, right? Little did we know, but the song was actually a direct plea to Jimmy Buffet's two most senior Parrotheads, Jack and Louise. And when Loggins sang "Cut foot loose," he was literally asking Michael McDonald to cut ... his foot ... loose.

Kenny Loggins, Meet Movie Soundtracks

Most musicians don't stay up in their bedrooms late at night playing air guitar, dreaming that one day, if they're lucky, they could write hits for movie soundtracks. Kenny Loggins, however, is not your ordinary musician.

So country rock wasn't good enough for him, and then mildly soulful soft rock wasn't good enough for him? I'm afraid Kenny Loggins was a restless spirit who would never be satisfied.

"I'm Alright," his initial foray into the world of cinema, appeared on the soundtrack to Caddyshack, a movie I have not actually seen. It seems to be praised by people whose taste in movies I generally do not respect, but perhaps one day I will give it a viewing.



Nor have I seen Footloose, the Kevin Bacon film to which Loggins provided the smash title track. The undisputed highlight of this song can be heard at the 2:44 mark.



And yet, somehow I have seen Sylvester Stallone's Over The Top, or at least parts of it on TV. Children, do not play with this '80s movie at home.

The Last Of The Great Loggins/McDonald Collaborations

As a kid I always wondered why all these Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins songs sounded so similar to each other, and then one day, a couple of years ago, I finally found out why: because they were all secretly written together by Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins!

Although not featured in Yacht Rock, "Heart To Heart" was a cherished track on my '80s Tape (sadly, McDonald doesn't sing backing vocals, but he apparently plays keyboard), and I am not the only one who fell for the tune's sultry spell. In Stephen Thomas Erlewine's review of Loggins' 1982 album High Adventure, he writes that "Heart To Heart" is "the second of two pop classics Loggins cut as a solo artist" (the other being "This Is It," which he praises in an earlier review). "Here, he has a great mid-tempo groove, a good lyric and an indelible melody that is soft rock at its finest." Erlewine goes on to admit that "the rest of the album may not match this height -- most of the genre didn't..."

Ah, but Loggins would soon reach heights of a different, more hard-rocking kind.

Like An Anteater, But Worse

A sinister bass line. Choppy guitar chords. It's The Supreme's "You Can't Hurry Love," only this is one dark alleyway The Supremes wouldn't want to find themselves walking down. A ghostly synthesizer riff. Percussion that sounds disturbingly like water droplets. A saxophone. Ladies and gentlemen, I have seen the future. And its name is "Maneater."

Maneater? What the fuck is a Maneater? A dangerous woman? If a dangerous woman came up to me and said she was a "maneater" I'd tell her she had a digestive disorder and she should get that looked at. Is it some kind of veiled oral sex reference? Nah - Hall & Oates weren't that sneaky. Is she a prostitute? "So many have paid to see/What'd you think, you'd get it for free?" Biologically speaking, we could assume that a maneater is in the Panthera genus, given that the animal described in the song is "a she-cat tamed by the purr of a jaguar." Maneaters are also nocturnal animals, seeing as they "only come out at night," and they also possess tremendous vision; how else could she keep her eyes on the door while she is sitting right next to you?

Although "I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)" may have the hipster cache (even appearing on the Pitchfork 500, for example), "Maneater" is probably the true summit of Hall & Oates' art. When Hall sings "I wouldn't if I were you/I know what she can do," it's like a warning from a man who's already been there and barely lived to tell the tale. It lends an air of mystery to the narrator. So the guy survived a maneater; what else does he know?

But I'll tell you what truly elevates "Maneater" beyond the rest of Hall & Oates' singles: the saxophone solo.

The saxophone solo in "Maneater" is the mother of all '80s saxophone solos. Scratch that. It is the father, the son, and the holy ghost of all '80s saxophone solos. For you see, it's a duet. But not just any duet. The saxophone has a duet ... with itself.

It has a fucking duet with its own echo. Pete Townshend used to try this with a guitar during live shows, and Led Zeppelin created an effect in "Whole Lotta Love" where the echo of the vocal appeared before the vocal itself, but this, ladies and gentlemen, is a whole other creature entirely.

It starts off soft, playful. Then it builds. The notes begin to dance with each other. It's like a vice grip on your head, becoming tighter and tighter. Until finally, the saxophone and its echo weave and weave into this giant cascading crescendo and the intensity becomes so brutal it's just about to destroy your ears and rip Christopher Cross a new asshole and then Hall swoops in with a gritty "Oooooooohhh!" and brings us back to safety.

I've always pictured Hall and Oates sitting at the recording console, listening to the playback, saying to each other in hushed tones things like, "Nobody's ever done this before." "This is a totally new sound, man." "Nobody's even gonna know what to make of it."

Extra points for some of Hall's most inspired ad-libbing: "The woman is wild, whoo-ooo-ooohh!" and "Watch out, watch out, watch out, watch out!"

In summary: whatever a maneater is, you really don't want to know.

Apparently Hall & Oates Cannot Go For That

If I had been hanging out in the studio with Hall & Oates in 1981, and they had asked me, "Hey Little Earl, what do you think about us having this lyric that goes, 'I Can't Go For That, I Can't Go For That, No Can Do'?," I would have told them that, no, actually I couldn't really go for that, and honestly guys, that is a lyric that you cannot do. But I wasn't there, and thank God, because they did go for that, and yes, they could do.

What they could do was score with R&B listeners:

Thanks to heavy airplay on urban contemporary radio stations, "I Can't Go for That" also topped the U.S. R&B chart, a rare feat for a non-African American act. According to the Hall and Oates biography, Hall, upon learning that "I Can't Go For That" had gone to number one on the R&B chart, wrote in his diary, "I'm the head soul brother in the U.S. Where to now?"

So yes, even black people could go for that. One very famous black person who could go for that was Michael Jackson. You may notice a slight similarity between the spare, "bass-and-percussion" opening bars of "I Can't Go For That" and "Billie Jean." According to Hall, this is no coincidence:

On "We Are the World" we were all in the room together. He sort of clung to Diana Ross pretty much, but at one point I was off to the side and he came over to me and said, "I hope you don't mind, but I stole 'Billie Jean' from you," and I said, "It's all right, man, I just ripped the bass line off, so can you!"

Years later, another group of black people could go for that: New York rappers De La Soul. I did a double-take the first time I heard this track from 3 Feet High and Rising:



De La Soul sampling Hall & Oates? That's almost as crazy as ... Warren G sampling Michael McDonald!

(Final note: So crucial was the saxophone player to '80s music that, when it came time to do the video for "I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)," the filmmakers included only three musicians: Hall, Oates, and the saxophone player.)

Hall & Oates Discover New Wave And Run With It

In Episode 2 of Yacht Rock, Oates slams Hall against the wall and shouts "Get your dick out of your heart. You even know what the kids in the street are listening to? Disco, motherfucker!" I doubt it went down quite like that, but at some point they must have turned the radio dial to a dance station and realized that their precious Philly Soul had become passe. They grabbed a synthesizer and a drum machine, and beginning with 1981's "Kiss On My List," they became ... inescapable.



Hall & Oates may have been huge, releasing five US #1 hits in the span of three years, but they weren't exactly "cool." At this point, Both Hall and Oates were in their 30s. To hip listeners, it was probably a bit like watching your dorky uncles try to "get down" with "the kids." Like any of that mattered to me. I was three years old, and as far as I was concerned, Hall & Oates were fucking gods.

My favorite moment of "You Make My Dreams" would have to be when Hall exclaims: "Now listen to this!" (at 1:43). And then nothing happens. Like, wait, what am I listening for exactly?



I remember when I was little I took "Private Eyes" literally and I imagined a bunch of private investigators in trench coats following some woman around. I didn't get the pun. "Private Eyes" may also feature the best use of hand claps in a pop song ever. And there have been a lot of pop songs with hand claps in them.



The title of "sleaziest Hall & Oates song" would have to go to "One On One," where Hall attempts to compare lovemaking to the playing of basketball:

I'm tired of playing all the team
Oh it seems I don't get time out anymore
What a change if we set the pace, face to face
No one even trying to score

Ewwww.



How do you know when you're on fire? When even the new song you tack onto your Greatest Hits collection becomes a hit! Released in conjunction with Rock 'n Soul Part I (sadly there was never a Part II), "Say It Isn't So" doesn't sound like a classic Hall & Oates single right off the bat. But Hall & Oates are like ABBA or the Bee Gees: you need to have faith. Because when the chorus arrives...well, it touches me in places I didn't know I could be touched.

Yacht Rock: Episode 7

Back in the mid-90s, when I was not paying attention to rap in any way, I heard a song that I later realized was Warren G's "Regulate." But I noticed something that I'm pretty sure 90% of Death Row's target audience did not: the song sampled Michael McDonald's 1982 supermarket favorite "I Keep Forgettin' (Every Time You're Near)." I remember thinking, "Wait a second, are they really sampling Michael McDonald's 'I Keep Forgettin'?" Yes. Yes, they were.



And so we come to Yacht Rock Episode 7, which leaps ten years into the future, long past Yacht Rock's heyday. Initially, in 1982, when McDonald plays "I Keep Forgettin' " (featuring, of course, three members of Toto) to Loggins, the now hard-rocking songwriter is unimpressed. McDonald challenges him to a bet:

"God damn it Loggins, the smooth grooves of this song alone will make it to at least #2."

Although "I Keep Forgettin'" was a big hit, it nevertheless only managed to peak at #4. McDonald is undettered:

"I don't know how, and I don't know when, but my song will bounce back."

And Dr. Dre was right of course; Warren G was destined to be mellow, not aggressive. "Little brutha, you don't get it. You don't gotta be all gangsta to make it in the rap game. You gotta find a style that fits. And you're not hard. You're...smooth."

Yacht Rock: Episodes 4 And 5

Episode 4:



Although the "Rosanna inspired 'Rosanna' " rumor is, as I've established, essentially false, the Yacht Rock writers gleefully run with it here. When all is said and done, Toto manages to bring Michael McDonald to this stunning conclusion: "I never knew that smooth music could rock so hard." Also, apparently there really was a skit on SCTV making fun of Michael McDonald, but I'm not sure if the footage here is from the original sketch. But yes, here we have a satirical sketch within a satirical sketch.

Yacht Rock is blowing my mind.

Episode 5:



Thumbs up for the depiction of Michael Jackson as a macho womanizer: "Fuck this smooth music, Steve! I ain't that little boy anymore, understand? How am I supposed to stick my dick into some pussy, when you got me singing like one? Hard rock has got me and Eddie drilling more cooch than Black & Decker!" Ah, but at the sight of Koko's ghost, he transforms into the tender MOR crooner as seen on this infamous record sleeve:

And yes, that is a real duet between Kenny Loggins and Steve Perry. I have it.

Toto's "Africa": Haunting, Embarrassing, Quasi-Racist, Or Some Combination Of All Three?

Say it's 1982, you just bought Toto IV and you've put it on the turntable for the first time. There's "Rosanna," there's "Make Believe," some rockers, some ballads, some hits, some filler - in other words, nothing too unexpected. Finally you come to the end of the album, track number 10. There's this quiet drumbeat. Some bizarrely synthesized percussion. The verse begins:

I hear the drums echoing tonight
But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation
She's coming in 12:30 flight
The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation
I stopped an old man along the way
Hoping to find some old forgotten words or ancient melodies
He turned to me as if to say , "Hurry boy, it's waiting there for you"

What is this? Where's Toto? Where are we? Who's the old man? What's waiting there? What the hell is going on?

Suddenly there's a dramatic drum fill, and the Toto that we know and (slightly) love appears in its full splendor:

It's gonna take a lot to take me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had

See, you wouldn't have been crazy if you'd concluded up to this point that Toto was only capable of churning out some slick, generic pop-rock and nothing more. But you would have been wrong.

Who knew Toto had it in them? Maybe they didn't. Apparently in one UK survey, the line "I know that I must do what's right/Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti" was voted the worst lyric of all time. I used to think it was "rises like a lepress." Either way, it's problematic.

But who cares about the ridiculous lyrics when you can savor the atmosphere? It's the little touches that impress me most, like the subtle instrumental shifts that make the last go-around of the chorus particularly powerful. Listen to how the guitars enter at 3:16, then climb even higher at 3:27. Or the soaring vocal ad-libbing around 3:32. What really does it to me every time are those little, extra-emphatic piano chords at 3:42. And then - all is quiet again. A man on the savannahs of Africa must conceal his passion, only to reveal it when the moment strikes.

I didn't think such an atmospheric song would have a video that matches the images in my head. Toto, why did I underestimate you so?

Jeff Porcaro said of the song, "... a white boy is trying to write a song on Africa, but since he's never been there, he can only tell what he's seen on TV or remembers in the past." This is hilarious, because what I picture when I hear this song is not really Africa, but some city-dwelling white guy's weird mental images of Africa. I can tell you exactly what this song reminds me of. It reminds of the displays of African wildlife I used to look at as a kid in the old Academy of Arts and Sciences in Golden Gate Park, with their cheap, fake backdrops and stiff tigers and zebras. And Boom! Toto was thinking almost the same thing.

Here we have David Paich in a rather urban-looking library, staring at a black librarian, with lots of masks and flaming torches surrounding him. So they just found some black girl to play the librarian? How much do you want to bet she was just some black girl, not African or anything, but probably just from Baltimore, and they said, "Hey, do you want to be in this video about Africa?"

Paich keeps flipping through books. What is he looking for? He's looking for a book called Africa. But little does he know, the book called Africa is sitting under the feet of Toto! At any rate, when he finally finds the book, a savage warrior throws a spear into the library, and the black librarian's glasses fall shattered to the floor as the building burns down in flames. You see, by trying to search for Africa, the White Man has been destroying Africa! Yes, Toto. Yes.

The Ubiquity Of Toto

The average man on the street may know Toto as a cheesy band that had several cheesy hit singles. What he probably doesn't know is that the musicians in Toto, apart and occasionally together, played on almost every single mainstream pop album ever.

If you were recording an album in LA in the late '70s and early '80s, Toto were your guys. Steely Dan? Call Toto. Don Henley? Call Toto. Lionel Richie? Jackson Browne? Stevie Nicks? George Benson? Call Toto.

Here's how omnipresent Toto were: they even played on parts of Pink Floyd's The Wall. Don't tell most Pink Floyd fans that.

Not only could Toto play on your album; they could help you write it. Witness Boz Scaggs' Silk Degrees, in which half the songs were co-written by David Paich. Check out this Yacht-tastic groove from drummer Jeff Porcaro on "Lowdown":



Most significantly, Toto performed on almost the entirety of Thriller, and Steve Porcaro co-wrote "Human Nature," my favorite Michael Jackson song ever. So even if nobody realized it, they were all listening to Toto, almost all the freaking time.

Around 1977, this loose collection of studio professionals, including a seemingly limitless number of Porcaro brothers, decided that, hey, if they were already playing together so much of the damn time, maybe they should just form a band and get it over with. A bland, faceless corporate band, but a band nonetheless. It's sort of like one of those opposite sex friendships where you're not really attracted to each other but you've gotten to know each other so well and the tension has been building for so long you just get lazy and say, "Why don't we just go out with each other so we don't have to keep looking for someone else?"

Toto scored right out of the box in 1978 with the very catchy and very meaningless "Hold The Line":



Although they continued to work as steadily as ever, the hits under their own name began to dry up. That's when Steve Porcaro decided to date Rosanna Arquette. Actually, despite the widely spread rumor, according to Wikipedia, "Rosanna" is not about Rosanna Arquette at all:

This song has been widely misunderstood to refer to the band member Steve Porcaro's defunct relationship with actress Rosanna Arquette. However, this was actually just a coincidence. The rest of the song had already been finished, and Paich needed a name that fit well into the chorus.

Well OK, but gee, I wonder how anybody ever got the impression it was about Rosanna Arquette. They could have picked another three-syllable name, right? And no, that is not her in the video.

Also, did you know that the drum pattern on "Rosanna" is called the "Rosanna Shuffle"? I didn't know that either.

This song is routinely referenced by drummers as being a perfect example of a "half-time shuffle" (Purdie shuffle) and shows, "definite jazz influence". Featuring ghost notes and derived from the combination of what Jeff Porcaro calls the "Bernard Purdie half time shuffle" and the "John Bonham beat" (from "Fool in the Rain") with the well-known Bo Diddley beat. The pattern is notoriously difficult and played by Jeff Porcaro on the recording.

"Ghost notes"? Toto, you're spooking me out more than Vincent Price's monologue on "Thriller."

Yacht Rock: Episodes 1 And 2

And now, ladies and gentlemen, we finally come to Episodes 1 and 2 of Yacht Rock. Hopefully, courtesy of my brief Yacht Rock tutorial, you will now grasp the hilarity of every obscure reference and subtle joke, as I do.

Here at the start, I think the show hadn't quite found the proper mockery/affection balance, leaning perhaps a little too far toward mockery, but this would correct itself in time. I should also mention that the YouTube video quality of Episode 1 is not so hot, making the show look cheaper than it really is, but bear with me: all subsequent episodes look better. Most of the characters, as we've established, are real, but I can confirm that Koko Goldstein is an entirely fictitious creation. Christopher Cross' real name really was Christopher Geppert, and yes, that is a piece of straw in his mouth, supposedly signifying his innocent country hayseed background. Without further ado:

Episode 1:



Episode 2:

The Meekness Of Christopher Cross

It's been said that the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star" was written about Christopher Cross. While probably not true, it might as well have been. Christopher Cross lacked, shall we say, visual charisma. At least the similarly pudgy Elton John dressed up as Donald Duck and Mozart. Christopher Cross just dressed up as ... Christopher Cross.

But who needs looks when you've got such a ... weird, wimpy voice? Cross's self-titled debut album, loaded with soft rock gems, famously won the Album of the Year Grammy over The Wall. Other albums released that year: London Calling, Tusk, Fear Of Music, Unknown Pleasures, Off The Wall. But clearly none of them held a candle to Christopher Cross!

I find it hard to buy Cross as a gun-toting outlaw. "I was born the son of a lawless man/Always spoke my mind with a gun in my hand." Yeah, what, like a glue gun? Michael McDonald's transcendent backing vocals almost make me believe it. Maybe. Not really.



More convincing is "Sailing," which may very well be the purest four minutes and fifteen seconds of Yacht Rock ever recorded.



Yet Cross's finest moment may have come at the hands of a resuscitated Burt Bacharach and a drunken Dudley Moore. Even the black guy with a tambourine is gripped by the song's melancholy power. "Arthur's Theme (The Best That You Can Do)" would also hold a prominent place in my as-yet-to-be-assembled "Greatest Saxophone Solos of the '80s" mix.

Hall & Oates: Something Silly From Philly

Michael McDonald was one white guy trying to sound black. Imagine two white guys trying to sound black. Although, on their first album, Whole Oats (ha ha, get it?), Hall & Oates sounded surprisingly Loggins & Messina-esque:



It wasn't until their second album, Abandoned Luncheonette, and its hit single "She's Gone," that the boys really showed the world what they were made of:



After an awkward pairing with producer and fellow Philly legend Todd Rundgren on War Babies (featuring such memorable song titles as "Beanie G. and the Rose Tattoo," War Baby Son of Zorro," and "Screaming Through December"), Hall & Oates hit their late '70s stride. Many of their biggest '80s hits, including "You Make My Dreams," "Private Eyes," "I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)," and "Maneater," would eventually be co-written by Hall's longtime girlfriend Sara Allen, the subject of the beguiling "Sara Smile":



Then there came the day when they realized they could rhyme "rich" with "bitch." The dollar signs began flashing right in front of their eyes:



But as the '70s wound down, our ambiguously gay duo hit a rough patch. No, not until the calendar flipped over into that magical decade of synthesizers and hairspray would the pair become an unstoppable force the likes of which pop music had rarely seen.

The Loggins/McDonald Alliance Is Born

Lennon/McCartney, Jagger/Richards ... Loggins/McDonald. Doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it? But probably more Grammys.

In 1979 the Loggins/McDonald alliance revealed itself to the world with two irresistible slices of AM majesty. Although released on Loggins' solo album Keep The Fire, "This Is It" was co-written by (and features prominent backing vocals from) a certain Doobie Brother. You may assume that this pure chunk of late '70s smoothness is a simple, generic love song. However, you would be wrong. From Wikipedia:

At one point in the song's evolution, its melody was underway, but the lyrics were incomplete. Loggins moved it forward after a visit to his ailing father, who had undergone a series of surgeries for vascular problems stemming from small strokes and was discouraged at the prospect of another. His perspective on the lyrics then changed: "'I've got it,' I announced to Michael, it's not a love song. It's a life song."

Yes, Kenny, a "life" song - from two men who truly know a thing or two about life. Although the one needing medical attention might be Kenny and not his father. He can't even breathe properly. "Theeeeeere've been times in my liiiiiiife/I've been wondering whyyyyy/Still somehow I believe we always surviiiiiiiive." Somebody get the man a doctor.



The second major collaboration, "What A Fool Believes," as initially released on Loggins' solo album Nightwatch, doesn't sound like much - maybe a filler track at best, or a Steely Dan B-side.



McDonald must have heard this version and thought, "Jesus, Kenny, what the hell did you do to our song?" (As one YouTube user put it, "Kenny Loggins Is My Dude...But im Sure A Gang of Yall Agree...He Aint Fuckin Wit Micheal Mac on This Joint.") Because in the supple hands of the Doobie Brothers, "What A Fool Believes" became a beast, with more hooks than a fishing supply store. This brutal combination of stately piano, wobbly synthesizer, judiciously placed hand claps, soaring falsetto chorus, and a poignant lyric of unrequited love pushed disco from the top of the charts for a couple of weeks in 1979. Disco! In 1979! Allegedly, one of the soaring falsetto vocals in the background is Michael Jackson, but the army of multi-tracked McDonalds is so overpowering, it's hard to tell.



For our Yacht Rock heroes, what a long, strange trip it had been. Ah, but while Loggins and McDonald were slowly rising to glory in Los Angeles, thousands of miles away, in the gritty city of Philadelphia, another fateful pairing was laying down a challenge.

The Rise Of Michael McDonald

Once upon a time, there was an early '70s rock band called the Doobie Brothers. Led by Tom Johnston and Patrick Simmons, the Doobies played a mixture of countrified, good ol' boy blues rock in the mold of the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Grand Funk Railroad, maybe with a dash of the Band and CCR thrown in. The Doobies could blow out your car speakers with a killer riff a la "China Grove":



Or they could slow things down with a sweet Southern ballad like "Black Water":



Given their success in this style, it seemed like the Doobies could have gone on as boogie rockers for a while. But around 1975, lead singer Tom Johnston began experiencing health problems and took a leave of absence. Guitarist Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, who had recently joined the Doobies from Steely Dan (after Donald Fagen and Walter Becker turned Steely Dan into a studio-only enterprise), recommended one of Steely Dan's back-up singers to potentially take Johnston's place.

Enter a white guy with a beard who thought he was Ray Charles: Michael McDonald.

McDonald had been kicking around for a while when he became a favorite of Becker and Fagen. His most famous Steely Dan appearance is probably "Peg":



Suddenly, with the addition of McDonald, the Doobies got a little less bluesy and a little more...smooth. McDonald hijacked the band's sound with his soulful yet silky pipes:



Old Doobie Brothers fans cried foul, but thousands of new fans flocked to the smooth grooves of the McDonald sound. Little did he know, but McDonald would suddenly find a new, unexpected ally in smoothness.

The Rise Of Kenny Loggins

Once upon a time, there was a band called Buffalo Springfield. Featuring three songwriters in Stephen Stills, Neil Young, and Richie Furay, Buffalo Springfield were one of the more promising California folk-rock bands, arguably rivaled only by The Byrds. But the band never quite capitalized on the momentum generated by their one big hit, "For What It's Worth" (otherwise known as "Stop, Hey, What's That Sound"):



By 1968, the band was falling apart. Enter a Texas musician named Jim Messina.

After kicking around in several obscure bands and learning the tricks of the recording studio, Messina ended up being asked to produce what would be the third and final Buffalo Springfield album. But in addition to producing the album, Messina ended up playing on it, essentially becoming a member of the band. While Stills and Young drifted off into obscurity (I mean whatever happened to those guys?), Furay and Messina decided to start a country rock group named Poco. After three mildly successful albums of mellow California goodness, Messina left the group, unsure of where he wanted to go next.

Enter Kenneth Clark Loggins.

Could there be a better last name for a '70s California country rock musician than "Loggins"? Think about it. From Wikipedia:

Jim Messina, formerly of Poco and Buffalo Springfield, was working as an independent record producer for Columbia Records in 1970 when he met Kenny Loggins, a little-known singer/songwriter who was signed to ABC-Dunhill. The two recorded a number of Loggins' compositions in Messina's home living room. When Columbia signed Loggins to a six-album contract (with the assistance of Messina), recording began in earnest for Loggins' debut album, with Messina as producer. Messina originally intended to lend his name to the Loggins project only to help introduce the unknown Loggins to Messina's well-established Buffalo Springfield and Poco audiences. But by the time the album was completed, Messina had contributed so much to the album - in terms of songwriting, arrangement, instrumentation, and vocals - that an "accidental" duo was born.

Together, Loggins & Messina spun their soft rock magic throughout the early '70s. They could burn the house down with an uptempo 12-bar blues rocker like "Your Mama Don't Dance":



Or they could break your heart with a folk-rock ballad like "Danny's Song," written by Kenny as a tribute to his brother, who was having his first child:



But ultimately, Kenny wanted more. He wanted worldwide glory and fame. Mostly he wanted to create Smooth Music. Maybe Stevie Nicks wasn't the new partner he was looking for:



No, it wasn't until he teamed up with another '70s Mellow Rock icon that Yacht Rock was truly born.