Boston Pops, Kenny Loggins lead Fourth specials

Television is never at a loss for ways to celebrate the Fourth of July — and one of them is returning this year.

While it has continued to be broadcast in and near the city itself, the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular hasn’t had full CBS coverage since 2012, but it’ll be shown to the entire country again Monday, July 4. Largely produced by network-owned affiliate WBZ-TV, it rejoins an evening that also features two more ongoing holiday TV traditions: “A Capitol Fourth” on PBS (check local listings) and “Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular” on NBC.

Nick Jonas and Demi Lovato, plus country music’s Little Big Town, will be the guest performers with conductor Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra.

Dennis Alves — the Pops’ director of artistic planning — says, “Our first responsibility always is to our local crowd, but you’d have to describe it as more than a ‘crowd.’ It sometimes can be 500,000 or 600,000 of our closest friends who show up, Bostonians and New Englanders but also others who come from far and wide to get a seat on the Esplanade.”

Certainly, there’s extra significance to the Boston Pops organization in being able to display to the nation how strong Boston is following the 2013 Marathon bombings.

“We’re delighted to be back on network TV,” Alves confirms. “CBS has gone all out, with Nick Jonas and Demi Lovato joining us, and we’re very excited about that. Hopefully, they’ll sing a duet or two together.” (The two artists are touring together this summer.)

Kenny Loggins also has performed with the Boston Pops, but he’ll be in Washington, D.C., for “A Capitol Fourth” this Independence Day. The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter shares the bill with returning host Tom Bergeron (“Dancing With the Stars”), Motown legend Smokey Robinson, Gavin DeGraw, Yolanda Adams, “Glee” alum Amber Riley, singer Jackie Evancho, “Younger” star and Broadway veteran Sutton Foster, Christopher Jackson (alias George Washington in the Broadway smash “Hamilton”), the cast of the Gloria and Emilio Estefan musical “On Your Feet!,” Olympic medalist Scott Hamilton, Gen. Colin L. Powell and two winners of NBC’s “The Voice”: Season 3’s Cassadee Pope and the most recent round’s Alisan Porter.

The movie title tune “Footloose,” which Loggins recently revised for younger listeners, and “Conviction of the Heart” are among the numbers he plans to render on “A Capitol Fourth.” He reflects, “I’ve played Earth Day there on the lawn (of the U.S. Capitol Building), but I’ve never done the Fourth of July there, and it sounds like fun. (Washington) is a pretty cool place and I love sharing it with my kids.”

As a solo artist after his 1970s partnership with Jim Messina, Loggins has scored such other enduring hits as “Whenever I Call You Friend,” “Meet Me Half Way” and the movie themes “I’m Alright” (from “Caddyshack”) and “Danger Zone” (from “Top Gun”). “The irony of my career,” he says, “has been that it’s (largely based in) what they call ‘soft rock.’ I started with an acoustic guitar around the same time as James Taylor and Cat Stevens. For me, they were the models of the introspective singer-songwriter, so that’s the direction I started in.

“I have a big brother who’s four years older than me, and he was always turning me onto R&B and rock-and-roll, so my real dream as far as performing goes was to be in a band like The Who. When ‘Footloose’ came along, I finally had an opportunity to do some rock, and that launched me into the era of trying to transform toward that childhood dream.”

Having also collaborated with such artists as Stevie Nicks and former Journey lead singer Steve Perry, Loggins still is doing that as part of the country trio Blue Sky Riders.

“I’ve always said my biggest mistake was being a moving target,” he notes. “I was raised on two different styles of music, so I always would flip-flop between the two. It made me too schizophrenic, which made it very difficult for my record company to figure out who I was and to present a cohesive image to my audience.”

“In the long run, though, it’s allowed me to continue to reinvent myself and to stay interested and to have fun,” Loggins concludes. “The audience now looks at my career and says, ‘Wow, this guy can do a lot of stuff.’ I guess if you can hang in, it’ll all work out.”