| Boz Scaggs | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | William Royce Scaggs |
| Born | June 8 1944 Canton, Ohio, U.S. |
| Genre(s) | Blue-eyed soul, Rock, Blues-rock |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, songwriter, guitarist |
| Instrument(s) | Guitar, vocals |
| Years active | 1965 – present |
| Label(s) | Columbia, Virgin, Gray Cat |
| Associated acts |
Steve Miller Band |
| Website | BozScaggs.com |
Boz Scaggs (born William Royce Scaggs, 8 June 1944, Canton, Ohio) is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist.
Contents |
Biography
Boz was born William Royce Scaggs in Canton, Ohio, the son of a traveling salesman. The family moved to Oklahoma, then to Plano, at that time a Texas farm town just north of Dallas. He attended a private school in Dallas, St. Mark’s, where a schoolmate gave him the nickname “Bosley.” Soon, he was just plain Boz. After learning guitar at the age of 12, he met Steve Miller at St. Mark's School of Texas in Dallas. In 1959, he became the vocalist for Miller's band, The Marksmen. The pair later attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison together, playing in blues bands like The Ardells and The Fabulous Knight Trains. Leaving school, Scaggs briefly left Texas to join the burgeoning rhythm and blues scene in London. After singing in bands such as The Wigs and Mother Earth. He travelled to Sweden as a solo performer, and recorded his solo debut album, Boz in 1965, which was not a commercial success and did a brief stint with the band The Other Side with fellow American Jack Downing and Brit Mac MacLeod. Returning to the U.S., Scaggs promptly headed for the booming psychedelic music center of San Francisco in 1967. Linking up with Steve Miller again, he appeared on the Steve Miller Band's first two albums Children of the Future and Sailor, which received good reviews from music critics. After being spotted by Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, Scaggs secured a solo contract with Atlantic Records in 1968. Despite good reviews, his sole Atlantic album, featuring the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and slide guitarist Duane Allman, was met with lukewarm sales, as were follow-up albums on Columbia Records. In 1976, he linked up with session musicians who would later form Toto and recorded his smash album Silk Degrees. The album reached number 2 on the U.S. charts and number 1 in a number of countries across the world, spawning three hit singles: "Lowdown", "Lido Shuffle", and "What Can I Say", as well as the MOR standard "We're All Alone", later a hit for Rita Coolidge and covered by Frankie Valli. A sellout world tour followed, but his follow-up album, the 1977 Down Two Then Left, did not fare as well commercially as Silk Degrees. The 1980 album Middle Man would spawn two top 20 hits, "Breakdown Dead Ahead" and "Jojo," and Scaggs would enjoy two more hits over 1980 and 1981 ("Look What You've Done to Me" from the Urban Cowboy soundtrack, and "Miss Sun" from a greatest hits set). But Scaggs' lengthy hiatus from the music industry (his next LP, Other Roads, wouldn't appear until 1988) slowed his chart career down dramatically. "Heart of Mine" in 1988, from Other Roads, was Scaggs' final top 40 hit but was a major AC success. Scaggs has continued to record and tour sporadically throughout the 1980s and 1990s, although he has semi-retired from the music industry, and now owns the San Francisco nightclub, Slim's. Scaggs recorded Other Roads in the mid-1980s, took another hiatus and then came back with Some Change in 1994. He released Come On Home, an album of blues, and My Time, an anthology in the late 1990s. He garnered good reviews with Dig although the CD, which was released on September 11, 2001, was lost in the post-9/11 melée. In May 2003, Scaggs released But Beautiful, a collection of jazz standards that debuted at number 1 on the jazz charts. He tours each summer, has a loyal cadre of fans, remains hugely popular in Japan, and released a DVD and a live CD in 2004.
Discography
- Boz - 1965
- Boz Scaggs - 1969
- Moments - 1971
- Boz Scaggs & Band - 1971
- My Time - 1972
- Slow Dancer - 1974
- Silk Degrees - 1976
- Down Two Then Left - 1977
- Boz Scaggs - 1977 remix of 1969 album
- Middle Man - 1980
- Hits ! - 1980
- Other Roads - 1988
- Some Change - 1994
- Come on Home - 1997
- My Time: A Boz Scaggs Anthology - 1997
- Fade Into Light - 1999/2005 U.S.
- Dig - 2001
- The Lost Concert (live) - 2001
- But Beautiful - 2003
- Greatest Hits Live DVD/CD - 2004
- Hits ! - 2006 version of 1980 greatest hits compilation with five more tracks[1]
Family
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Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the or at requests for expansion. (December 2007) |
Scagg's son, Austin Scaggs, is a music journalist. Austin has a column called "The Smoking Section" in Rolling Stone. Another son, Oscar, then 21, died of a heroin overdose in 1998.
References in popular culture
- At the end of the Family Guy episode "Death is a Bitch," Death's present to Peter was "The Complete Boz Scaggs".
- In the "Mobile Homer" episode of The Simpsons, Homer tells the RV enthusiasts to tell his wife that they are there for a Boz Scaggs concert, should Marge ask why there are several motor homes parked on the back lawn.
- "Lido Shuffle" is played at Philadelphia Eagles games when Lito Sheppard gets an interception.
- A Mr. Show episode depicts eccentric entrepreneur Grass Valley Greg holding an impromptu concert by Scaggs in the company cafeteria.
- Scaggs makes a cameo appearance in the first episode of the final season (Season 5) of Ally McBeal (McBeal in a previous episode reveals herself to be a Boz Scaggs fan).
External links
- Boz Scaggs Official Site
- Boz Scaggs Official Fan Site
- Boz Scaggs Lyrics and Information
- Boz Scaggs Yahoo Group
- Boz Scaggs Message Board
