Native Sons by Loggins and Messina (Vinyl record album review)

Album name: Native Sons

Group name: Loggins and Messina

Year: 1976

Number of discs: one

Label: Columbia Records

Collection: Selman

Distinguishing characteristics:

Stamped on back of album: DEMONSTRATION / Not For Sale

Scratched into side 1 of LP: PAL – 33578 – 1D Az

Scratched into side 2 of LP: PBL – 33578 – 1D Az

Buy it on Amazon: $5.80

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never heard of this record, but I’ve built up a pretty solid familiarity with Loggins and Messina, having reviewed four of their other records:

Kenny Loggins with Jim Messina Sittin’ In (1971): 3/5

Loggins and Messina (1972): 2/5

On Stage (1974): 4/5

Mother Lode (1974): 2/5

What I expected

Country, soft rock.

What it was actually like

This was a weird one.

The first track, Sweet Marie was a funk song with a very jazzy sound, and I thought that maybe the whole record would be the same way, since it was from 1976. There was nothing funk about the rest of it, however, and the only other time I thought of 1976 was at the beginning of It’s Alright, which started with flute and a mashup of someone reading the preamble to the Constitution and the end of the Declaration of Independence. That song had some pretty distressing lyrics, and a violin solo.

Pretty Princess and Wasting Our Time were both pretty bad soft rock songs, the former with a terrible saxophone solo. No saxophone solo, however, could possibly have been as bad as the one on Native Son, the worst song – so bad that they actually named the record after it – largely filler crap and literally Kenny G. level of awful.

My Lady, My Love had country style vocals and some kind of classical or Spanish guitar and violin, which was somewhat interesting.

Peacemaker had some more flute and more violin, with a good lively tempo, and what sounded like xylophone, or some kind of bells.

Boogie Man was actually a boogie woogie song! It was the best on the record.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me