SHIPPENSBURG, Pa.— By the time Jim Messina met an up-and-coming Kenny Loggins, Messina was already a music veteran.

He had played with the influential rock group the Buffalo Springfield and later formed the early country-rock band Poco with fellow Springfield alum Richie Furay. During each stint he had produced and engineered albums.

So when Messina met Loggins, the veteran was to be his producer as part of his own deal with CBS. But the two weren't meant to be solo acts - at least not yet.

Messina had been tired of playing country-rock and had returned to producing, something he had been doing since age 17, as a way to regroup.

"There was a song I had written that went 'I managed to get to my desk and eat late and into the arms of my ultimate fate,'" he said. "I'm reminded of the fact that I was trying to get out of performing and doing all of that when I met Kenny Loggins. Lo and behold it was actually the beginning of all of that."

Messina, now 61, said he saw something in the man who would be his future musical partner.

"I liked his approach to his voice. He was not limited by wanting to sing one kind of music," Messina said during a telephone interview from the road. "He was a good listener and loved music, period, so he was open to doing something more rock or something more soulful or something more acoustic. And that has been his greatest asset, as far as I'm concerned. And in some ways, it's been his greatest curse, because he's so good at singing that he wants to sing everything."

What resulted from that first meeting became 1972's "Sitting In," which was actually billed as Kenny Loggins with Jim Messina. That same year the duo would put out their first official self-titled Loggins & Messina album featuring hits such as "Your Mama Don't Dance."

Until the duo disbanded in 1977, they produced eight albums, selling 16 million albums worldwide.

After '77, Loggins established himself as a successful solo act. Messina continued to do his own musical projects including returning to the producing chair.

Then in 2004, Messina was asked to be a part of a Christmas benefit concert in which Loggins was performing in Santa Barbara, Calif.

"In the process of singing, we both recognized the sound of our voices together is something we have never been able to accomplish with anybody else," Messina said.

After letting the agents and managers hash out the logistics, the duo reunited in 2005 for a reunion tour aptly titled "Sittin' In Again." The tour was so successful that they are doing it again in 2009, which includes a stop at Shippensburg University's H. Ric Luhrs Performing Arts Center tonight.

In the beginning, Loggins has said in interviews, he looked up to Messina as a mentor because of his experience. Messina said today, that dynamic has changed.

"For me, it meant allowing me to take little bit more of a passive role to accept that he has done very well in his career. He's a great singer, " Messina said, "and what is it that he can bring to this that can make it more than just what it was?"

Messina said he's enjoying the more mellow approach.

"In fact, I was sitting here this morning thinking that in many ways I'm becoming more like he was in the beginning, because I don't need to worry about that. I can sit back and enjoy being just a musician and play," he said.

Q&A with Jim Messina

Jim Messina, 61, who is best known for the second half of Loggins and Messina, was on the road with the reunited duo when The Herald-Mail caught up with him. Later that evening he was scheduled to perform at a venue in Windsor, Ontario, before off to the next venue. Here's a conversation with Messina.

Herald-Mail: Most of your younger fans may not realize it, but you started out as a producer.

Messina: Before I left high school, I was 17 or something like that. I think (it was) the summer before, a man name of Bob Edwards, a DJ at a local station KCBY in the Disneyland Hotel, had found me through some source and had asked me to produce some records for him.

I said, "Well, I don't know what that means."

He said, "Well, I'll help you do that, if you're open to do that. And if your parents will let you. I'd like to have you do that for me."

He brought me into Hollywood and I met this engineer, Mike Durough, who's become this very famous and very rich engineer. At that time, we were both very young and poor. ... By the time I graduated high school I had become friends with Mike Durough. When that thing finished with IBS records, now I'm old enough to move to Hollywood. I started apprenticing under Mike's care, becoming a recording engineer.

When I moved to Hollywood, I never thought I'd have a chance to be an artist because everybody was so good and all the players were so great. And I wasn't going to move back to Colton, Calif. I decided to try to be part of the music business by being an engineer. And through the process of engineering, working in different studios and eventually Sunset Sound, I came upon a group called ... Buffalo Springfield.

Being part of Buffalo Springfield

Messina: I had produced a few other things and helped Mike (Durough) with Dick Clark's Hollywood Hotline and Casey Kasem, and editing all of that stuff. I was becoming very fluent in machines and alignments and building and wiring. And when I met ... Buffalo Springfield, it was because of that experience that allowed me to engineer their second record.

By the time their second record was over, they enjoyed working with me and their bass player was busted for putting things in his mouth that were illegal. (Bruce Palmer was deported to Canada).

By that time, I had developed with the band. They were having problems with their producers Charlie Green and Brian Stone. I got a call from (Ahmet) Ertegn in the middle of the night and he asks me, "Would you produce the Buffalo Springfield? They can't find anybody and can't find anybody they trust in there."

I said, "Well, sure." So I started that part of my relationship with them. ... I felt comfortable accepting that.

So their bass player got busted and they were auditioning for a bass player. And I showed up. And they asked is there anyone else who would like to audition for bass player and I raised my hand.

"Oh, yeah, Jimmy."

I got up there and played with them and Steve Stills looked at me and said, "Wow, you can play that thing."

Of course I can and I had only sat there the year before listening to Bruce (Palmer) play his parts. Well, duh. So they hired me. Now I'm their producer, bass player and engineer. And that was the beginning of all that happened.

Poco, and the curse of musical talent

Messina: And when the Springfield split (up), Richie (Furay) and I wanted to keep working together. Buffalo Springfield was a folk-rock group and I ... grew up in country music. The music just had that feel to me like being young country, more oriented in rock music. That was where we came up the term country-rock. And finishing up the Buffalo Springfield album, I wanted to put a steel guitar on "Kind Woman."

An old roadie of ours said I know a man who lives in Colorado who plays steel guitar named Rusty Young. We could fly him out. We didn't have much money so we pooled our change together and bought him a ticket and brought him out and put him on "Kind Woman."

And that sort of soldered the wires together for Richie and I because, wow, maybe we can put a country-rock band together. ... from there it was finding a drummer (George Grantham) that Rusty had, and last thing was finding a bass player. We started checking out Ricky Nelson's bass player, Randy Meisner, and he was cute, good looking, good player. Girls loved him. We thought, well, he has all the talent we need. We asked him to join us and that's how Poco began.

It started out really great. Unfortunately, between having poor management and poor communication skills and being under a lot of stress and being kids ourselves, we managed to screw it up. Fortunately, not because of drugs or alcohol, but because of stupidity, I think.

I'm surprised we ever survived the time we did. There was a lot of talent there. We were very gifted and sometimes it can be (as much) a curse as beauty can be for a beautiful woman. (Talent is) all there to be explored or destroyed. Controlled and used properly and sparingly, (it) will generate a good life. Poco did what it did because it was the beginning point for a lot of bands to launch, the Eagles for one.

From there I got tired of playing country-rock music. I had gotten known as a country-rock guitar player and I thought I was more than that. I wanted to explore my talents as a writer, because Richie wrote most of the tunes in Poco. I just decided to give up everything and go back to producing, something that I felt I knew. And there was a song I had written, "I managed to get to my desk and eat late and into the arms of my ultimate fate," then I'm reminded of the fact that I was trying to get out of performing and doing all of that when I met Kenny Loggins. Lo and behold, it was actually the beginning of all of that.

Loggins & Messina

Messina: My first thoughts about (Kenny) are more about him as a singer. I liked his approach to his voice. He was not limited by wanting to sing one kind of music. He was a good listener and loved music, period, so he was open to doing something more rock or something more soulful or something more acoustic. And that has been his greatest asset, as far as I'm concerned. And in some ways, ... it's been his greatest curse, because he's so good at singing, he wants to sing everything.

At some point in time, in order to really develop to your self-sense in the world there has to be (one) thing in there that people can always count on, that people identify with. Fortunately for him it's the sound of his voice. His voice is very, very recognizable.

I didn't see that in the beginning. It wasn't something I was conscious of, ... that he could use his voice (to) bring him attention in a positive way. At the time, most of his songs were like folk songs, most of his songs were like "Danny's Song" or "House at Pooh Corner" or more acoustic. He had the songs that had the potential, like he had the song "Sail the Wind" about kites.

I said, "No, this song is no longer about kites, it's about sailboats. We'll arrange it this way." "On Full Sail" was more of a an island kind of feeling, more summer, more in that direction.

It's one of those things ... his enthusiasm, and his voice, and his desire to be a performer and to work was all there. Experience, unfortunately, was not. That's where I had to figure out how to get him exposed and to compete in a market that would require not just being able to sing folk songs but being able to stand up and deliver rock and roll.

Herald-Mail: In interviews, Kenny said he saw you as a mentor. As the years progressed was it difficult to see you both on equal standing?

Messina: I wasn't competing with him. That wasn't something in my mind. I think one difficulty, which has nothing to do with Kenny, but people in general (is that) at the heart of everyone there is a personality there when they were a child (and) it's there as an adult. (It's) the archetypal aspect about each of us that has a tendency to rear its head.

And the question inside of me as a professional is ... "Can we stand and relate to one another without all of the old baggage and stuff coming up?"

He was quite aware of that in himself when we started working together in '05. And I was quite aware of it, as well, taking off four years to study (to become a) Gestalt practitioner. So (there were) certain things I could see (about which) we would have problems if we allowed to them exist.

... I figure if there's something that comes up, I'll approach it. There's really no point in me having to say, "Let's do it my way." If he's got an approach and it works and it's working fine, don't fix it if it's not broke. But if it's not going in the right direction and I'm having difficulty with it ..., my approach is to simply say, "We need to chat about this I'm having difficulty figuring out what you're doing here. Let me take another look at this, maybe I misunderstood something." And that works for me.

And I have so many more interests in life - more than just performing in this duo - that have nothing to do with music. I'm pretty satisfied and content as a human being, whether I'm welding or building furniture or in my studio trying out some new equipment or spending time with my 3-year-old daughter. It's not that big of a deal anymore.

Does your daughter know your legacy?

Messina: I have a studio and I record music, so she'll sing along. She watches a lot of Disney Channel. And now, since Kenny has his family album, "All Join In," she's aware of that. She loves him and she loves the drummer. She's going to be a musician. She loves to travel. (The Messina family travels in a bus.) She calls it her rock 'n' roll bus.

Do you have any other children?

Messina: My 16-year-old son, is a drummer, way on his way to become a brilliant musician. He's into recording and wants to become an engineer, too.

We actually did a smart thing. The fathers (in our circle of friends) all pitched in and bought our sons pro (musical) tools. And because my studio is so deep ..., the kids don't want to go (anywhere else). ... They hang out all weekend making music, recording and overdubbing. It's kept them away from drugs and alcohol.

If you go ...

What: Loggins & Messina in concert

When: 8 tonight

Where: H. Ric Luhrs Performing Arts Center at Shippensburg University, Pa.

Cost: $60 to $75

MORE: To purchase tickets, call the Luhrs Center at 717-477-7469 or visit www.luhrscenter.com.