Remember When: Kenny Loggins Broke Out as a Solo Artist with “Whenever I Call You ‘Friend’”

Kenny Loggins’ reign as the ‘80s king of the soundtrack was hardly inevitable. Less than a decade before we were doing the gopher dance to “I’m Alright” from Caddyshack, the mellow rock duo of Loggins and Jim Messina embarked on their run of Gold-certified albums, some of which eventually went Platinum. By the time Loggins and Messina broke up in 1976, their last big radio hit, ”My Music,” was already three years in the past. Between the rise of disco and the decline in attention given to Loggins and Messina, there was little reason to expect that Loggins would turn into a steady hitmaker.

Yet that is precisely what Loggins became, firing off 14 Top-40 hits during a 10-year commercial peak. Oddly enough, the springboard for his emergence as a solo artist was a duet, and it was with one of the most famous vocalists in rock at the time he recorded it. That was not the initial plan Loggins had when he co-wrote “Whenever I Call You ‘Friend’,” but the version of the song that wound up on his Nightwatch album doesn’t sound anything like a Plan B.

Not Much Success with Singles at First

Loggins’ solo career began much the way his time with Loggins and Messina ended. His debut solo album, Celebrate Me Home, took less than six months from its April 1977 release to receive Gold certification. It also failed to yield a big airplay hit. The album’s first single, “I Believe in Love,” peaked at No. 66 on the Billboard Hot 100 and at No. 37 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart. Columbia Records released the title track as a follow-up single, but it didn’t crack any of Billboard’s charts.

It looked as if Loggins was destined to continue the pattern he established with Messina of releasing popular albums that didn’t translate into success on the singles charts. By the time Loggins embarked on his solo career, he had enough visibility that he was frequently tabbed to be a presenter on televised music award shows. He would frequently see fellow singer/songwriter Melissa Manchester at these events. These encounters would eventually lead to Loggins’ first big hit as a solo artist.

In a 2012 interview for Huffington Post, Manchester recalled Loggins eventually asked her if she would be interested in collaborating on a song. She accepted the invitation, and “Whenever I Call You ‘Friend’” was the result. They not only wrote the song together but also intended to record it as a duet. However, their contractual situations made it impossible for them to release a song together.

Pivot to Stevie Nicks

Loggins didn’t give up on finding a duet partner for “Whenever I Call You ‘Friend’,” and he decided to aim high. He targeted Stevie Nicks, and in a 1983 interview for Musician magazine, Loggins conceded that her being “the biggest female vocalist in the country at that time” was a key consideration. He also noted the choice made sense artistically. Loggins and Nicks knew each other from Fleetwood Mac’s 1977-78 Rumours Tour, for which he was the opening act. Though Loggins was ambitious in recruiting Nicks to be his duet partner, he wasn’t exactly making a cold call with the request.

Nicks recalled in a 1982 interview for High Times the recording sessions were tense and she threatened to quit. She said after two days of recording she “was knocked out,” but she was pleased with the final result. Summing up the experience, Nicks noted, “I really had to keep my mouth shut and do what I was told. And it worked. He wasn’t interested in a dull vocal.”

For her efforts, Nicks was not officially credited on the single for “Whenever I Call You ‘Friend’.” She was credited for her vocals on the song on Loggins’ Nightwatch album.

The Impact of “Whenever I Call You ‘Friend’”

A duet with Nicks was sure to attract attention when “Whenever I Call You ‘Friend’” was released in the summer of 1978. Rumours was still hanging around in the upper half of the Billboard 200 more than a year after its release, and Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham could be heard on Walter Egan’s Top-10 hit “Magnet and Steel.” (“Whenever I Call You ‘Friend’” and “Magnet and Steel” would wind up overlapping their stays on the Top 40 for six weeks.) Buoyed by Nicks’ presence, “Whenever I Call You ‘Friend’” would peak at No. 5 during a 20-week stay on the Hot 100.

A year later, Manchester would record and release her own version of “Whenever I Call You ‘Friend’” as a track on her self-titled album. Her duet partner was Arnold McCuller, who may be best-known as the longtime touring backing vocalist for James Taylor and Phil Collins. Loggins and Manchester finally recorded their own version of the duet for Manchester’s 2024 Re:View album, with Dave Koz performing the sax solo.

For as popular as “Whenever I Call You ‘Friend’” was, it didn’t immediately launch Loggins into superstardom. Nightwatch became Loggins’ only Top-10 album, but the second single “Easy Driver” stalled at No. 60. His next album, Keep the Fire, produced a pair of hits (“This Is It” and the title track), but it was “I’m Alright” that threw Loggins’ career into high gear.

In his 2022 memoir Still Alright: A Memoir, Loggins acknowledges his debt to Nicks, writing, “So many musicians emerge from duos or bands and immediately fall off the map; Stevie’s generosity spared me from that.” You could even say that, if not for “Whenever I Call You ‘Friend’,” Loggins’ career could have been headed to an altogether different kind of danger zone.

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Photo by Chris Walter/Getty Images