We're not sure if Kenny Loggins actually kicked off his Sunday shoes, but the popular singer/songwriter most certainly did get "Footloose" in Provo in the early 1980s. That's when Loggins slipped while walking onstage for a concert at Brigham Young University's Marriott Center, resulting in broken ribs and a postponed show.

"That's actually become a real bonding experience for me and some of that audience -- I don't know how many of them are still there. That was a college tour, so they're mostly off into the world by now," said Loggins in a phone interview last week as he was en route to Nashville for the Country Music Awards. "Yeah ... a legendary moment for Provo. When I came back to do the make-up date, I had a couple nurses walk me onto the stage."

In a case of coincidence -- or, perhaps, irony, depending on how you look at it -- Loggins wrote a good portion of the song "Footloose" while he was still recovering from those broken ribs. The hit song was the title track of the 1984 movie "Footloose," which was filmed in various locations throughout Utah County.

Loggins is returning to the scene of the rhyme tonight -- with a concert at the Covey Center for the Performing Arts. His appearance is part of the Mayor's Series, a collection of events that feature music, dance, drama and comedy headliners in an effort to raise funds for a legacy endowment for the arts.

"We're thrilled that he's coming to the Covey Center," said Helen Anderson, the community relations and public information officer for Provo City, which oversees the Mayor's Series. "We were already excited about the other performances in the Mayor's Series, which were lined up first, and when Kenny Loggins agreed to come, that put our enthusiasm over the top. It was hard keeping it a secret before we could announce it. There's been great buzz ever since."

Loggins last performed in Utah County three years ago, when his reunion tour with previous partner Jim Messina made a stop at the McKay Events Center in Orem.

Loggins is best known for feel-good songs like "Your Mama Don't Dance, "Danny's Song," "Danger Zone," "I'm Alright," "Don't Fight It," "This is It," "House on Pooh Corner" and, yes, "Footloose." His new album, however, is a marked departure from those themes.

"How About Now," re-released in September by 180 Music, is Loggins's highly personal and emotional take on the breakup of his 12-year marriage to his second wife, Julia, in 2004. Many of the songs, in fact, were culled from journal entries he scribed during the various phases of his divorce.

While Loggins said he often gets song ideas from his journal entries, his reliance on the emotions of those writings was much greater this time around.

"I think more so on this record than ever, the journal entries influenced the writing because I wanted the album to have continuity of thought, to follow the process of heartbreak and healing step by step," Loggins said. "Just like a leap of faith was following the process of a dissolution of marriage, and the falling in love and that whole cycle of losing a relationship and finding a new one. 'How About Now' is more like moving forward from heartache."

Indeed, one of the album's strengths is its order of sequence. From the first song, "A Year's Worth of Distance," to the last, "One Last Goodbye Song," the listener is along for the ride as Loggins shares his roller coaster ride of emotions in a logical pattern. Other titles include "I'll Remember Your Name," "I Don't Want to Hate You Anymore," "This Too Will Pass" and "Free Man Now."

So, just how cathartic was it for Loggins to work through all these emotions and lay everything out there so personally -- especially since it was not his decision to end the relationship?

"Um, [that's] hard to say. I was certainly hoping it would be more cathartic than it was, but it's been a complex process," Loggins said. "I think that it was somewhat -- because I got to move through it. But the difficulty of being a songwriter, at least my style of songwriter, is that in going back into the journals and back into the emotions that created those entries, I had to dredge all of those feelings back up again in order to write about them. And some of that stuff, I would have rather not gone back into. It took me a couple years before I could really drop in and write about them objectively, just not from the depth of it.

"Some songwriters write really well when they're in the middle of it, and I've found that I couldn't write much while I was in it," he said. "I would write in pieces, and mostly what I wrote during the worst of the dark night, let's call it, is journal stuff -- poetry and pieces of poetry and journal entries -- but writing songs was very difficult."

Ironically, "One Last Goodbye Song," a fitting conclusion to the album, was not taken from a journal entry, but was a moment of studio inspiration.

"That was not from the journal at all, but yet, you can feel that the lyrical content could easily have been a part of the journal, just not word for word," Loggins said, noting that the idea for the song came out of a conversation he had with collaborator Gary Burr.

"Gary and I had written five songs. And I said to him, 'You know, I'm just really sick of writing about that woman! So let's write one last goodbye song and then move on.' And he said, 'Let's write that one!' So I already had the title and worked out from there."

Fans at tonight's show can expect to hear two to three songs from Loggins's new album, mixed in with his more well-known material. Playing new songs is always a bit of a risk, even for a legacy artist like Loggins.

"They fit in well, and the audience is responding to them," Loggins said of the new songs he's been performing live. "And new songs usually get a sort of tepid or mild response, or polite, one might say. But these songs are getting really strong responses."

Anderson, with Provo City, said Loggins connects well with local listeners because of the variety of his work over his long career.

"Also, some of his most popular numbers, like 'Danny's Song,' really celebrate family," she said. "What young couple or family around here can't relate to, 'Even though we ain't got money, I'm so in love with you, Honey'? The idea is that being together is more important than money, which resonates with this audience. Like many of the people around here, his music is wholesome, but high spirited and fun."

And Anderson sends a special message out to Loggins on the day of his Covey Center concert -- which also is his last scheduled live appearance this year.

"Tell him that we will do everything we can to make sure his performance runs smoothly," she said, hearkening back to Loggins's long-ago Marriott Center mishap. "But if anything happens, there's a fire station right next to the Covey Center!"

Kenny Loggins

When: Tonight at 7:30 p.m.

Where: Covey Center for the Arts, 425 W. Center St., Provo

Tickets: $45-$100, available at the Covey Center box office or online

Info: 852-7007, www.coveycenter.org