Boz Scaggs
The master craftsman of blues and soul.
By Mat Snow.
Bolt from the blues: Boz Scaggs rips it up, Rainbow Theatre, London, July 29, 1977.
Ian Dickson/Shutterstock, Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy Stock Photo
POP HAVING ALWAYS been driven by new sounds, beats and words for new generations, it’s the radical disruptors and innovators who get the biggest props. But even the Berrys, Beatles and Hendrixes cut their snazzy new cloth from fabric homespun over time by the weavers who preserve, evolve and deepen the music. So to William ‘Boz’ Scaggs, a footnote to the canonical history chaptered by the revolutionary big beasts but also the creator of some of the warmest, most gorgeous music you’ll ever hear. Having cut his teeth in various US blues crews he wound up in London, soaking up future inspiration in the soul-jazz Soho of Georgie Fame And The Blue Flames, then cut loose to busk around the globe, in 1965 making an obscure debut LP in Sweden. Reunited in 1967 with Texas high school pal Steve Miller in his new San Francisco-based band and cutting two psych classics,Children Of The FutureandSailor, Scaggs then split to do his own rootsier, blues-rock thing.
Spreading his wings stylistically in the early ’70s and, like Van Morrison, leading a Ray Charles/Bobby Bland/ B.B. King-style R&B big band, he commanded cult status among roots rock connoisseurs before rebooting to slick, blue-eyed R&B, a class act “A footnote to the canonical history, but creator of some of the most gorgeous music you’ll ever hear.”
rewarded in 1976 with the hit-packed Silk Degrees, a peak LA AOR classic.
That multi-platinum platter’s sessioneer roll-call birthed Toto, and it’s a measure of bandleader Scaggs that he’s always attracted and gelled top-drawer talent, groove-steeped musical aces on the same page as a fellow craftsman who first and foremost cares for the music as he cares for his voice – he’s that rare bird who sang better at 56 than 26 – and only lastly cares for career, fortune and fame.