Kenny Loggins Forced to Stick With His Beard

Long before his beard became a trademark, Kenny Loggins was warned about facial hair.

"My manager had told me early on, 'You can start a career with a beard, but then you can never shave it off,'" Loggins tells Spinner.

Grow a beard after some success, he was told, and it's no big deal -- you could keep it or lose it. But if you start with a beard, forget it; it's you. And so it was with Loggins, whose neatly-trimmed -- but always full -- brown beard was tied to him just as much as the song 'Footloose.'

"The beard was more of a trademark than I realized," says Loggins, who is currently working on an album of family music; a compilation of ' Winnie the Pooh' songs and an album of duets with Richard Marx. While the prospect of shaving the beard threatened to unleash a backlash with fans, when he finally did bare all (on his face, anyway), it affected a member of his family the most.

"I had a six-month-old daughter, who wouldn't let me hold her," Loggins says. "She didn't recognize me."

After going sans beard for about four years, Loggins compromised and grew a goatee, which he is currently sporting on tour. Of course, as the manager predicted, he's still known for the beard, which was a signature for the Loggins character featured in the Internet hit 'Yacht Rock.' The web show, which ran from 2005 until this past spring, lampooned soft rockers from the '70s and '80s, with Loggins playing a key role in several episodes.

"My kids love them," Loggins says of the episodes. "I kind of get a kick out of them. It's kind of flattery in a way. And the guys that do it actually like the music, even though it's tongue-in-cheek. I've gotten messages from them that they don't mean any disrespect."

The series suggests that yacht rock appeals to those who might sip wine while sailing large boats. When asked if he has ever owned a yacht, the Bearded One was a little ambivalent.

"Not really," he says.