Hit Man

With “Footloose,” “Danger Zone” from “Top Gun” and the current “Nobody’s Fool” from “Caddyshack II,” Kenny Loggins has been the master of hit movie themes in the ‘80s.

“A hit movie enhances the power of the music so a song has a better chance of becoming a hit,” says Loggins, who opens a four-night stand Friday at the Greek Theatre and moves to the Pacific Amphitheatre Oct. 9. “It has also helped me to have hits from movies to pick up the slack when I’ve gone three years between albums. It’s given me a radio presence and has kept my career visible and alive.”

Visible, certainly. Alive, sort of.

The film hits, and such others as “I’m Alright” (from the first “Caddyshack”) and “Meet Me Halfway” (from “Over the Top”), have given Loggins, 40, a steady pop radio presence at a time when other veteran singer-songwriters are having trouble finding their place in the pop world.

But the film hits also seem to have typecast Loggins, who hasn’t had a Top 20 hit that wasn’t from a film in nearly six years.

“It doesn’t matter to me if a song is from a movie or not,” he says. “Making that distinction assumes that my songs from movies are not my songs, and they are.”

The pop veteran says the real issue is how a song is embraced by the public. He says “Danger Zone”--a No. 2 hit from “Top Gun”--gets less audience response in concert than “Celebrate Me Home,” a ballad from his first solo album which was never a hit single.

“ ‘Celebrate Me Home’ pushes emotional buttons that a song like ‘Danger Zone’ never will,” Loggins says. “ ‘Danger Zone’ evokes the memory of the movie, but it doesn’t hook into the heart. On the other hand, ‘Footloose’ gets a great response because it was a No. 1 record that was really embraced by the public.”

The bottom line for Loggins? “I want radio to judge my material based on the material and not based on what it’s from. Play the song because it’s good. If it’s not good don’t play it.”