William Royce “Boz“ Scaggs is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Scaggs was born in Canton, Ohio, the eldest child of a traveling salesman. Their family moved to McAlester, Oklahoma, then to Piano, Texas (at that time a farm town), just north of Dallas. He attended a Dallas private school, St. Mark’s School of Texas, where schoolmate Mal Buckner gave him the nickname “Bosley”, later shortened to “Boz”.
After learning guitar at the age of 12, Scaggs met Steve Miller at St. Mark’s School. 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 joined the burgeoning R&B scene in London, then traveled on to Sweden as a solo performer, and in 1965 recorded his solo debut album, Boz, which failed commercially. He also had a brief stint with the band the Other Side with Mac MacLeod and Jack Downing.
Returning to the U.S., Scaggs promptly headed for the booming psychelelic music centre of San Francisco in 1967. Linking up with Steve Miller again, he appeared on the Steve Miller’s Band’s first two albums, Children of the Future and Sailor in 1968. Scaggs secured a solo contract with Atlantic Records in 1968, releasing his second album, Boz Scaggs, featuring the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and session guitatist Duane Allman, in 1969. Despite good reviews, this release achieved only moderate sales. He then briefly hooked up with Bay Area band Mother Earth in a supporting role on their second album Make a Joyful Noise on guitar and backup vocals.
Scaggs next signed with Columbia Records releasing the albums Momenta in 1971 and My Time in 1972. His first two Columbia albums were modest sellers and seeking a new more soulful direction his record company brought in former Motown producer Johnny Bristol for 1974’s Slow Dancer album. Although the album only made # 81 on the US Billboard Album Chart, it subsequently attained gold status no doubt getting a boost from the huge success of Scaggs’s next album Silk Degrees.
In 1976, using session musicians who later formed Toto, he recorded Silk Degrees, with Joe Wissert on producing duties. The album, which received a Grammy nomination for album of the year and a further nomination for Wissert as Producer of The Year, reached No. 2 on the US Billboard, and #1 in a number of other countries, spawning four hit singles: “It’s Over”, “Lowdown”, “What Can I Say”, and “Lido Shuffle”, as well as the poignant ballad “We’re All Alone”, later recorded by Rita Coolidge and Frankie Valli. “Lowdown” sold over one million copies in the US and won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Song, which was shared by Scaggs and David Paich.
A sellout world tour followed, but his follow-up album in 1977 Down Two Then Left did not sell as well as Silk Degrees and neither of its singles reached the Top 40. The 1980 album Middle Man spawned two top 20 hits, “Breakdown Dead Ahead” (No. 15 ) and “Jojo” (No. 17); and Scaggs also enjoyed two more top 20 hits in 1980–81, “Look What You’ve Done to Me”, from the Urban Cowboy soundtrack, and “Miss Sun”, from a greatest hits set, both reaching No. 14 on the Hot 100.
Scaggs took a long break from recording and his next album, Other Roads, did not appear until 1988. “Heart of Mine”, from Other Roads, is Scaggs’ last top-40 hit. Also in 1988, he opened the San Francisco nightclub, Slim’s, and remained an owner of the venue through the club’s closure in 2020. After another hiatus from recording, his next album, Dig, got good reviews, although the CD was released on an unfortunate date – September 11 2001. In May 2003, Scaggs released But Beautiful, a collection of jazz standards that debuted at number one on the jazz chart. In 2008 he released Speak Low, which he described in the liner notes as “a sort of progressive, experimental effort … along the lines of some of the ideas that Gil Evans explored.” During 2004, he released a DVD and a live 16-track CD greatest Hits Live that was recorded August 2003 at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco.
