This Is It! Loggins Logs Off with a Grand Performance at the Bowl

Bubbly show woman and former Broadway actress Janet Adderley’s students from four of her five school’s locations – Santa Barbara, Pacific Palisades, Austin, and New Orleans – were front and center when local rock icon Kenny Loggins, 75, performed the sold-out final show of his “This Is It!” tour at the 4,500-seat Santa Barbara Bowl.

The youngsters, aged 10 to 18 – including Maile Merrick, granddaughter of former Journal receptionist Christine Merrick, who sang with Kristin Chenoweth for a second time at the Granada earlier this month – led by Janet’s gracious and formidable daughter, Alana, accompanied Kenny, who has lived in our Eden by the Beach for more than half a century, singing three part harmony on two songs “If You Believe” and “Conviction of the Heart,” followed by the rocker’s son Lu singing with him and his granddaughter, Phifer – making her Bowl debut – receiving two standing ovations.

Earlier in the hugely entertaining concert Michael McDonald, another longtime Santa Barbara resident, longtime collaborator, and formerly of the Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan, sang the first song they wrote together, “What a Fool Believes.”

Kenny was also joined on the stage by his musician son Crosby and daughter Bella, a true family affair.

Janet’s talented troupe then helped Kenny, who has been Oscar nominated and won two Grammy Awards, wrap the show with a rousing performance of Footloose dancing alongside surprise soloist actor Kevin Bacon, star of the 1984 movie, and his brother Michael of the Bacon Brothers Band.

A helluva night!