Recorded live in San Francisco, New York and Boston, this two-record set communicates the essence of Kenny Loggins and Jim Messina more fully than their three studio albums. Their rapport with a live audience spurs them to execute semi-improvisational rave-ups and to vent vocal enthusiasms that have only been half-realized in their studio work. Though L&M's music is neither profound nor startlingly innovative, it is consistently engaging and stylistically varied. They are as much at home punching out simple electric folk-rock as they are performing in an acoustic style. In the rock genre, On Stage offers exciting renditions of such favorites as "Your Mama Don't Dance," "Angry Eyes" and "Vahevala" (a 20-minute version). Kenny Loggins, whose excellent voice resembles a cross between Jose Feliciano and Danny O'Keefe, shines on the acoustic ballads "House at Pooh Corner," "You Could Break My Heart" and "Lady of My Heart." For those who own no Loggins and Messina albums, this is the one to get; they are among the ablest practitioners today of what was dubbed "good-time" music in the mid-Sixties. (RS 163)

STEPHEN HOLDEN