The Lisa Smith Wengler Center for the Arts Presents Jim Messina

Rock legend Jim Messina comes to Pepperdine University's Smothers Theatre at 7 p.m. on Sunday, January 29.

Tickets, starting at $22 for the public and $10 for full-time Pepperdine students, are available now by calling (310) 506-4522 or visiting arts.pepperdine.edu. More information about Jim Messina: http://www.jimmessina.com/

As one half of Loggins & Messina, co-founder of the country-rock band Poco, and member and key contributor to Buffalo Springfield, Jim Messina has left an indelible footprint on popular music. Jim produced, engineered, and composed much of the Loggins & Messina, Poco, and Buffalo Springfield albums, selling over 20 million albums domestically.

Messina's performances with his new touring band are a rousing hit across the country, and the shows include some of the best of his own material and as well as that of some of the illustrious company he'd kept over the years. With an album of all-new material, Messina says he's enjoying discovering who he is, where he's been, and where he's going.

"After all my years as a producer shaping other people's music to be the best it could possibly be, I'm just enjoying focusing my efforts and abilities on my own identity musically," he says. "I've just wanted to do the best work I possibly can and then let it be what it's gonna be, because there are no guarantees in this business. The only thing I hope for is that what I do will be inspiring to enough people that it will become a part of their lives and create a life of its own."

Messina began learning guitar at the age of five and as he got older was attracted in particular to the guitar parts and sounds in early Elvis Presley and Ricky Nelson records. His California roots led him to early 1960s surf music, especially fascinated by the guitar sounds of early surf/rock groups like Dick Dale and the DelTones and the Champs. At the age of 17, he got his first gig as a music producer, working on two albums a local deejay was working on. Though both albums made beelines for oblivion, the studio's engineer was impressed with Messina and asked him to stay on as his assistant and protégé.

Over the next few years Messina became a knowledgeable and skilled recording, mixing and mastering engineer as well as musician and producer, having graduated to the position of second engineer at Hollywood's famed Sunset Sound, working with superstars-to-be, among them the Doors, Lee Michaels and Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, and later Buffalo Springfield.

After engineering their second album, Buffalo Springfield Again, on which he also served as something of an uncredited producer, Jim joined the group playing bass and producing their final album, Last Time Around. When the Springfield splintered in 1968, Messina, Richie Furay, and Rusty Young were already formulating a plan to hang onto the rock 'n roll shoes while adding some spin from the country influences they'd loved and grown up on. And thus Poco was born.

"There really was a sense of something new and exciting in the air at that time," Messina said. "By the time we showcased for the heads of a number of the labels, we were tight and rehearsed and the program was sequenced, and we came on that stage like a freight train." While Poco's chart performance and commercial success was less than their historical importance, their impact was nonetheless profound.

Messina departed with hopes of returning to the producer's chair, and was soon rewarded with a six-album production deal with Columbia Records.

His first project was a young singer-songwriter named Kenny Loggins. Messina became an integral part of Loggins' debut, Sittin' In, and felt a desire to join the newcomer on his first tour until Loggins was firmly and confidently established. The credibility Messina brought from his days with both the Springfield and Poco cemented the relationship in the label's eyes.

Loggins & Messina went on to release nine albums in the next seven years, amassing sales of over 14 million units. "It was so musically diverse," said Messina, "from folk to country/rock, to jazz or classical. Through the years, the Loggins & Messina period yielded the stuff I'm most proud of."

Messina made three solo albums in the 1980s, as well as recording and touring with the original, reunited Poco when they released the album Legacy in 1989.

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