William Royce Scaggs was born on this day in 1944 in Canton, Ohio. He's better known to the world as Boz Scaggs. Boz had learned to play the guitar by the age of 12 and by the age of 15 he had met Steve Miller at school in Texas and was the lead vocalist for Miller's band The Marksmen. Both Boz and Steve Miller attended University together and continued playing in Blues bands together. After finishing University they both went their separate ways, Scaggs to London and Miller to Chicago to immerse himself in the Blues. That wouldn't be their last meeting though.
After a spell in London he found himself in Sweden where in 1965 he recorded his debut album for Polydor Records, simply called 'Boz'. It didn't sell well and is very hard to find these days as only 300 copies were pressed and released in a wraparound picture cover. It contains two traditional songs that Scaggs arranged himself and the other ten songs are all cover songs.
In 1967 he returned to the States and hooked up once again with Steve Miller and would play on 'Children of the Future' and 'Sailor', the first two studio albums by the Steve Miller Band released in 1968. The picture below is of the Steve Miller Band.
In 1968 Scaggs secured a record deal with Atlantic Records, releasing his second album, 'Boz Scaggs', featuring the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and session guitarist Duane Allman, in 1969. The album failed to chart despite a number of good reviews.
A further four albums between 1971-1974 brought a little attention though only 'Slow Dancer' (1974) broke into the Top 100, peaking at #81.
In 1976 he released 'Silk Degrees', which would become the most successful album of his career. It stayed on the US chart for 115 weeks peaking at #2 and spawned four hit singles: It's Over (#38 in the US), Lowdown (#3 in the US, #28 in the UK), What Can I Say (#42 in the US, #10 in the UK) and Lido Shuffle (#11 in the US, #13 in the UK).
Since those heady days of the 70s Boz Scaggs continued to release albums that charted but never again like the success of 'Silk Degrees'. In the last decade he has returned to the Blues with three fantastic albums, 'Memphis' (2013), 'A Fool To Care' (2015) and his latest release 'Out of the Blues' (2018). He still plays live, but like many has been prevented from doing so due to the pandemic. To finish off here's a track from each of those:
Here's another album in the short series of albums that have reached their 50th Anniversary this year. This time round it's Teenage...
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