What Is Kenny Loggins's Net Worth?
Kenny Loggins is an American singer/songwriter and guitarist who has a net worth of $16 million. Kenny Loggins is perhaps best known for music produced with his Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in the 1970s (which led to seven Loggins and Messina albums from 1972 to 1977), his solo music, and especially for his motion picture soundtrack contributions in movies like "A Star Is Born" (1976), as well as his Academy Award-nominated musical contributions for "Top Gun" and "Footloose."
Finances
Kenny's net worth took a major hit between 2000 and 2010 in the wake of several financial hurdles. First, the unexpected divorce from his second wife, Julia Cooper, was reportedly very costly to Mr. Loggins. Secondly, Cooper, a former colon therapist, and Loggins were reportedly involved in what would later prove to be a multi-level marketing scam called Equinox. In addition to being a pitchman, Loggins also reportedly invested a chunk of his net worth into Equinox, all of which likely vanished. The founder of Equinox would later agree to shutter the organization and refrain from operating an MLM in the future. Finally, the 2008/2009 financial crisis was another hurdle that did not come at an opportune time for the musician. He has since recovered, and he continues to perform and earn royalties on a catalog that is probably more popular today than it has been in three decades.
Early Life
Kenny Loggins was born on January 7, 1948, in Everett, Washington. He is the youngest of three brothers. Lina, his mother, was a homemaker, and his father, Robert George Loggins, was a salesman. His family lived in Detroit before eventually settling in Alhambra, California.
Kenny Loggins went to San Gabriel Mission High School and graduated in 1966. Immediately he began exploring his interest in (and passion for) music, forming his first band, The Second Helping. They released three singles from 1968 to 1969 with Viva Records. Loggins' early efforts have been described as "punky folk-pop."
Loggins would go on to have a brief turn playing guitar for the New Improved Electric Prunes before he began working with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
Music Career
Loggins continued to explore music in the '70s when he was performing and writing ballads as part of the duo Loggins and Messina (with fellow musician Jim Messina).
The famous duo recorded a number of compositions created by Loggins — he often wrote tracks in the living room of Messina's home. Columbia Records ended up signing Loggins (with a little assistance from Messina) to a six-album contract. Recording under Columbia began, and Loggins put out his debut album — Messina performing in the producer role. On his initial album, Loggins brought in his Kenny Loggins Band (which included Larry Sims on bass, drummer Merel Bregante, violinist/multireedist Al Garth, and multireedist Jon Clarke.
Later Loggins and Messina studio albums often entailed Kenny and Jim working as two solo artists, sharing the same record in lieu of having any sort of creative/collaborative partnership. Both have expressed sentiment that the collaboration resulted in something more of a competition in the end.
After leaving Loggins and Messina, Kenny would go on to release a string of very successful solo albums, including "Celebrate Me Home," "Nightwatch" (which included the hit "Whenever I Call You Friend"), and "Keep the Fire."
His later solo albums did not sell as well (and started to be completed less frequently) throughout the '80s, with efforts like 1991's "Leap of Faith," 1997's "The Unimaginable Life," and 1998's "December" finding favor primarily in adult contemporary circles. In 1994, he recorded a children's album, "Return to Pooh Corner," and released its sequel, "More Songs from Pooh Corner," in early 2000.
Loggins would reunite with Messina in 2005 for a successful tour, album, and concert video, and in 2007, Loggins released "How About Now," his first new solo album in four years. It was followed by "All Join In" in 2009. In his third decade of making popular music, Loggins continues to tour and record occasionally. He is a member of Blue Sky Riders, a country music trio also featuring writers/artists Gary Burr and Georgia Middleman. Blue Sky Riders released their debut album, "Finally Home," on January 29, 2013.
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Movie Music
It's no secret that Loggins also became somewhat of a movie hit maker, known as the king of the movie soundtrack song, scoring Top Ten hits with "I'm Alright" (from "Caddyshack"), "Footloose" (from "Footloose"), "Danger Zone" (from "Top Gun") and "Nobody's Fool" (from "Caddyshack II").
Philanthropic Work
Loggins participated in the charity USA for Africa, helping to record the single "We Are the World." Loggins also performed the song "Footloose" in Philadelphia for the July 13, 1985, Live Aid famine-relief charity concert, which resulted in a global television broadcast.
Personal Life
Kenny was married to Eva Ein from 1978 to 1990. They had three children, including Crosby Loggins (their oldest), who became a musician and even won the MTV reality show "Rock the Cradle."
In 1992, Kenny married his one-time colon therapist, Julia Cooper. They had two children together before divorcing in 2004. Kenny would later admit that he was blindsided by Julia's decision to leave. Furthermore, the divorce reportedly was very costly to Kenny. Within a few years, the combination of the divorce and the global financial crisis had an extremely negative impact on Kenny's net worth.
Real Estate
Kenny has spent much of his adult life living in the Santa Barbara area. In 2016, he paid $2.945 million for a home in the town of Montecito. In the early 1980s, he custom-built a mansion on a 3+ acre property in the same area, which he attempted to sell for $5.5 million in 2016. He ultimately accepted $3.8 million in 2017.
Ojai Ranch
When Kenny Loggins was a senior in high school in 1966, he penned a song that would later become one of Loggins & Messina's biggest hits, "House on Pooh Corner." The song was inspired by the Winnie the Pooh books he read as a child and featured lyrics referencing the characters. The song would later help him land a contract with Columbia Records. One of the first moves Columbia Records suggested was that he pair up with Jim Messina to form a duo. After they became a huge success, thanks partially to that song, Jim decided he no longer wanted to live in LA. At the urging of his wife Jenny's father, actor Barry Sullivan, he looked at real estate in Ojai, California. He soon settled on a 20-acre ranch that was then called the Cim-Bam Ranch. He paid $200,000 for the ranch and renamed it the Mother Lode Ranch. Jim and Jenny converted the barn into a recording studio, and between 1974 and 1976, this is where Loggins & Messina recorded three hit records, "Mother Lode," "So Fine," and "Native Sons."
Around the time of Jim and Jenny's 1980 divorce, they sold the Mother Lode Ranch. That buyer owned the home for the next two decades until it was sold, in an interesting twist, to a woman named Mimi Milne, whose uncle A.A. Milne created Winnie-the-Pooh. In 2018, Mimi Milne sold the estate to actress Charlize Theron for $4.2 million.
