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Kenny Loggins is on the docket for the first Professor of Rock Live program in Park City

Interview and performance hosted by Park City Institute

Adam Reader has made a name for himself as the Professor of Rock, a music aficionado who interviews artists about their iconic songs. Park City Institute will partner with the Professor of Rock for a string of intimate interviews and performances that will start with Kenny Loggins on March 18 at the Eccles Center for the Performing Arts.
Courtesy of Adam Reader

Adam Reader is on a mission to get to the nuggets, the origins and emotions of hit songs, and he has made a name for himself as the Professor of Rock by interviewing such artists as former Styx vocalist and keyboardist Dennis DeYoung, Billy Idol guitarist Steve Stevens and female rock pioneer Suzi Quatro.

While answering Reader’s questions, these rockers and others reveal the stories behind songs that have become soundtracks to music fans’ lives.

“I feel that every song that we all sing at one time or another has a story, an origin, that needs to be told,” Reader said.



Reader will premiere Professor of Rock Live with the Park City Institute on Friday, March 17, when he interviews Grammy-, Emmy- and Academy award-wininng singer and songwriter Kenny Loggins at the Eccles Center for the Performing Arts.

The evening will feature the interview interspersed with live performances by Loggins and his band, Reader said.



“It’s about the artist’s life history,” he said. “It is about giving them the spotlight for two hours, where we talk about their music from the beginning to the present, and they tell us the stories and play the songs.”

The sessions, which will continue with Kevin Cronin of REO Speedwagon on April 1,

Graham Russell and Russell Hitchcock of Air Supply on April 15 and Lou Gramm formerly of Foreigner on July 16, will feature some surprises, Reader said.

“We will have a huge video screen and we’ll have guest artists check in to talk about some experiences they’ve had with the artists,” he said. “It’s like combining the Actor’s Studio with MTV Unplugged and ‘This is Your Life.'”

The foundation of the Professor of Rock interviews was laid down by Reader’s father.

“He would tell me stories about why he loved music, even though he didn’t play an instrument or sing,” Reader said. “He would tell me what it was like when he first heard ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon for the first time while sitting in his Mustang he had bought with his own money when he was in high school.”

Those stories helped connect Reader to his father, even though they didn’t really get along until later in their lives.

“Music was a way for him to be vulnerable,” Reader said. “He came from that tough-guy, John Wayne generation, but he would let his hair down when he told me about songs and share his memories.”

The stories his father told him resonated with Reader when he would listen to the songs.

“He would have one experience with them, and then I would have my own experience with them,” Reader said. “And that’s when I started to want to know more about what it was about these songs.”

Along with buying the albums, Reader would buy music books or magazines so he could learn more about his favorite artists, and that curiosity and knowledge led to a dream opportunity at ABC 4 TV in Salt Lake City in 2013.

Station manager Richard Doutre Jones was developing a new show that would spotlight local musicians and was looking for sponsors.

The list included Reader, who was an entrepreneur and in sales.

“I suggested instead of a show only about local music, why not recruit some of the touring acts who come through town and use them as a headliner that would bring people in to watch the show,” Reader said. “And then we would push the local, indie music once people were engaged.”

Jones loved the idea, and during the process of looking for someone to host the show, he asked Reader to do it.

“I was shocked,” Reader said, “I had no experience and I hadn’t gone to college. But he told me I had this throwback look with my hat and glasses.”

The first interview he did was, coincidentally, with Kenny Loggins.

“Richard sat in on the interview, and after 15 minutes, Kenny said, ‘This is the best interview I’ve ever done. ‘Why have I never heard of you?'” Reader said. “I thought he told everybody that, so I didn’t take what he said really seriously.”

Grammy, Emmy and Academy Award-winning singer and songwriter Kenny Loggins will be the first Professor of Rock Live interview hosted by the Park City Institute on Friday.
Courtesy of the Park City Institute

But Loggins was serious.

“The interview was only supposed to take 20 minutes, but it went for more than an hour,” Reader said. “Kenny wanted to keep going, and after it was over, he pulled me aside and said, ‘You have a gift. Let me help you out.'”

Loggins helped secure other interview opportunities for Reader, and one of those interviews was with the Beach Boys, who coined the phrase Professor of Rock.

“We were talking about the song ‘Good Vibrations’ and Bruce Johnston said, ‘You know more about us than we do. You’re like a professor of rock,'” Reader said. “Well, Richard was there and he said, ‘That’s what we’re going to call you.'”

The moniker took Reader by surprise, and he felt a little uneasy about it, but other artists like the Goo Goo Dolls’ Johnny Rzeznik continued to call him that.

“It’s nice to be known like that, but the reality is I see myself as a stand-in for all the fans who love music,” he said. “I’m the one who will ask their questions, so I feel a big responsibility to do this right and capture these stories. To me, Professor or Rock is a state of mind, and a destination.”

Today, Reader works with his business partner, Dell Williams, who helped the careers of such bands as Radiohead, Coldplay and Maroon 5.

“He’s been in the business for more than 30 years, and he helps put these interviews together,” Reader said.

The partnership with Professor of Rock and the Park City Institute has been in the works for years, according to Reader.

“I was doing an event with Kenny Loggins, again, during the Sundance Film Festival at O.P. Rockwell, and a gentleman named Michael Labertew was there,” Reader said. “He liked what we did, and we both kept the idea in our minds to bring Professor of Rock to Park City.”

Last spring, Labertew told Reader he had secured a donor and they partnered with the Park City Institute. And Reader can’t wait to start the series.

“If we’ve learned anything through the trials we all faced, is that we need each other after being shut away for so long,” he said. “That’s why I’m so excited to do Professor of Rock Live now, because it will bring the community together.”

Professor or Rock Live: Kenny Loggins

When: 7:30 p.m., Friday, March 18

Where: Eccles Center for the Performing Arts, 1750 Kearns Blvd.

Phone: 435-655-3114

Web: parkcityinstitute.org/professor-of-rock-live

Upcoming Professor of Rock Live events

Kevin Cronin of REO Speedwagon, April 1

Graham Russell and Russell Hitchcock of Air Supply, April 15

Lou Gramm formerly of Foreigner, July 16

Entertainment


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