Boz Scaggs

Boz Scaggs - Some Change - 1994 - Virgin (USA)

A brilliant album from Boz Scaggs, and VHR by A.O.O.F.C. You will go a long way to find better cover versions of some of the great soul, blues, and R&B classics. Four tracks on this album are written or co-written by Boz. There is an incredible array of top notch musicians on "Some Change," and the album was partly recorded by the great Elliot Scheiner. You have probably heard his classic "Silk Degrees" album, but check out Steve Miller Band's brilliant album, "Sailor" with Boz contributing guitar and vocals. Listen to Boz Scaggs' great "My Time" album, and if you can find it, buy his great 1971 "Boz Scaggs & Band" album which contains some wonderful funky soul tracks.

TRACKS / COMPOSERS

"It All Went Down the Drain" - Earl King
"Ask Me 'Bout Nothin' (But the Blues)" - Boozier, Henry/Malone, Deadric
"Don't Cry No More" - Malone, Deadric
"Found Love" - Jimmy Reed
"Come On Home" - Mitchell, Willie/Randle, Earl
"Picture of a Broken Heart" - Scaggs, Boz/Walker, Dennis
"Love Letters" - Heyman, Edward/Young, Victor
"I've Got Your Love" - Scaggs, Boz
"Early in the Morning" - Williamson, Sonny Boy I
"Your Good Thing (Is About to End)" - Hayes, Isaac/Porter, David
"T-Bone Shuffle" - Walker, T-Bone
"Sick and Tired" - Kenner, Chris/Bartholomew, Dave
"After Hours" - Scaggs, Boz
"Goodnight Louise" - Scaggs, Boz

MUSICIANS

Boz Scaggs - guitar, vocals, horn arrangements
Steve Freund - guitar
Fred Tackett - guitar
James "Hutch" Hutchinson - bass
Darryl Johnson - bass
Freddie "Ready Freddie" Washington - bass
Scott Plunkett - piano, organ (Hammond)
David Matthews - piano, organ (Hammond)
Jim Cox- piano, organ (Hammond)
Charles Hodges - organ (Hammond)
Jim Keltner - drums
Ricky Fataar - drums, percussion
Mark Scaggs - percussion
Willie Mitchell - horn, horn arrangements
Ronnie Cuber- horn, sax (baritone), horn arrangements
Norbert Stachel - horn, sax (alto, baritone, tenor), horn arrangements
James Mitchell - sax (baritone)
Dave Ellis - sax (tenor)
Lonnie McMillan - sax (tenor)
Rev. Ron Stallings - sax (tenor)
Vince Lars - sax (alto)
Wayne Wallace - trombone
Marty Wehner - trombone
Jack Hale - trombone
Brenda Rutledge - trombone
Ben Cauley - trumpet
Bill Ortiz - trumpet
Anthony Blea - violin
Tom Coster - accordion
Harry Duncan - harmonica
Otis Cooper - background vocals
Kitty Beethoven - background vocals
Monte Owens - background vocals

Recorded at Meac Studio, San Francisco, California; Skywalker Sound, Nicasto, California; and Royal Recording Studio, Memphis, Tennessee. Engineers: Elliot Scheiner, Michael Rodriguez.

REVIEWS

On this prime collection of R&B and blues songs and influences from Boz Scaggs' youth — and four new yet classic-sounding self-penned originals — the blue-eyed soulman eschews the slick production values of his pop chart-toppers such as "Lido" and "Lowdown," instead getting way down and his hands dirty with the honest blood, sweat, and tears of the real down-home blues. Packing in tow drummer Jim Keltner, guitarist Fred Tackett (from Little Feat), and slow-burning, soulful horn arrangements by Willie Mitchell, one of the founding fathers of Memphis soul (and composer of Come On Home's title track), Scaggs' covers of songs originally composed and performed by such legends as Jimmy Reed ("Found Love"), T-Bone Walker (the legendary "T-Bone Shuffle"), Sonny Boy Williamson ("Early in the Morning") and Bobby "Blue" Bland (the thunderous "Ask Me 'Bout Nothing (But the Blues)"), along with "It All Went Down the Drain" (Earl King), and the smoldering "Your Good Thing (Is About to End)" (David Porter with Isaac Hayes), are absolutely impossible to resist. Come On Home is a genuine musical treasure. © Chris Slawecki, allmusic.com

COME ON HOME was nominated for a 1998 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album. For much of his career, Boz Scaggs has taken the musical path of slick L.A. pop, culminating in his 1976 hit album SILK DEGREES. COME ON HOME brings ... Full DescriptionScaggs full circle to his first love of R&B and blues for the first time since his earliest recordings. Members of the famed Hi Records house band, Bonnie Raitt's touring band, and Little Feat's Fred Tackett accompany Scaggs in criss-crossing the musical map. COME ON HOME features traditional numbers by Sonny Boy Williamson ("Early In The Morning") and Jimmy Reed ("Found Love"), nuggets from the Stax catalog (the Hayes/Porter classic "Your Good Thing [Is About To End]," and Texas jump blues ("T-Bone Shuffle"), all performed with loving care by this student of soul. Scaggs' originals fit in nicely next to these covers, giving a nod to Charles Brown's stylings ("After Hours") and French bistro ambiance ("Goodnight Louise"), complete with rambling piano and an accompanying squeezebox. ©1996 - 2008 CD Universe

You gotta pay your dues to sing the blues, goes the old cliché. But if you're Boz Scaggs, you bear your burdens pretty lightly. With his tangy, delicately weary tenor and his flair for slipping authentic R&B textures into breezy adult-contemporary arrangements, this guy could never be accused of the overwrought soulman posturing practiced by fellow yuppie icons Lionel Richie and Michael Bolton. If Scaggs had just been dumped by his wife and were sitting next to you at a bar, he'd be more likely to give you a meaningful shrug than cry into your beer. On his new album, Come on Home, Scaggs gives props to the musicians and songwriters who influenced him early on, covering songs by T-Bone Walker, Jimmy Reed and others. True to form, Scaggs never tries to outemote the masters; instead he maintains a soft, graceful touch, imbuing this classic material with a winning combination of subtle pathos and understated wit. His version of Walker's "T-Bone Shuffle" is gently playful and lean to a fault. Likewise, Reed's "Found Love" is faithfully presented as taut, driving 12-bar blues; and Earl King Johnson's "It All Went Down the Drain" is served with a piquant, Stax-style horn arrangement and a healthy dash of slide-guitar grit. Ballads such as the wistful standard "Love Letters" and Scaggs' own "I've Got Your Love" – one of four songs on Home written or co-written by the singer – are rendered with equal elegance. That's not to say that Scaggs never breaks an emotional sweat. Singing the radiant David Porter/Isaac Hayes number "Your Good Thing (Is About to End)," Scaggs achieves a moody intensity that builds to a smoldering peak. It's a pleasure to listen to a veteran artist like Scaggs letting his roots show with such unaffected sincerity. © ELYSA GARDNER, (Posted: Apr 1, 1997), © 2008 Rolling Stone

Having sat most of the '80s out, Boz Scaggs returns in the mid-'90s as an urbane blues crooner, effectively bringing his music full circle from the sleek, disco-friendly pop of his '70s commercial zenith to the purer R&B of his late '60s debut. Come Home is a soulful valentine to the same models that informed that first outing, juxtaposing solid new originals against venerable songs from Jimmy Reed, Earl King Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson, Willie Mitchell, and other blues and soul masters from Memphis, Texas, and Chicago. Scaggs, always a model of taste (who else could have produced disco hits that still sound stylish), juggles two blue-chip rhythm sections with strategic infusions of soulful brass, greasy organ, and Scaggs's own deep-fried guitar work sustaining the set's bluesy accents. © Sam Sutherland, Amazon.com

MORE ABOUT BOZ SCAGGS / ALBUMS

Boz Scaggs launched his career with such R&B-flavored hits as "Lido Shuffle," "Lowdown" and "What Can I Say" -- each sung in his distinctive husky baritone. But with his new album, "Speak Low," Scaggs extends his run as a jazz crooner, albeit with the same soulfulness that distinguished his earlier recordings. "Speak Low" is his second album of jazz standards; his first, "But Beautiful," came out in 2003 and featured a more tried-and-true selection of songs: "Sophisticated Lady," "What's New?" and "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered." Scaggs' current tour -- which includes a run of shows at Jazz Alley Thursday through Nov. 2 -- coincides with Tuesday's release of "Speak Low" (Decca Records), which combines jazz standards with blues songs and ballads. Scaggs describes the album as "a sort of progressive, experimental effort ... along the lines of some of the ideas that Gil Evans explored." The collection features a sumptuous version of "Invitation," the haunting 1952 ballad by Bronislaw Kaper; "Skylark," the Johnny Mercer-Hoagy Carmichael classic; and the beautiful title track "One Touch of Venus" by Ogden Nash and Kurt Weill (written for their 1943 show). Though recording albums of jazz standards has been trendy among veteran rock and pop stars with moribund careers, Scaggs brings a rich, old-school soulfulness to a varied collection that features a number of not-so-obvious gems, among them "Ballad of the Sad Young Men" (Frances Landesman and Thomas Wolfe Jr.) and "Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me" (Duke Ellington and Keith Russell). Born in Ohio and raised in Oklahoma and Texas (where he picked up the boyhood nickname "Bosley," or simply "Boz"), Scaggs began his career in San Francisco in the psychedelic '60s. There, he hooked up with Steve Miller, whom he had met years earlier while attending a private school in Dallas. Scaggs played on Miller's first two albums, "Children of the Future" and "Sailor." Scaggs' first solo album for Atlantic Records was a poor seller, despite guest musicians Duane Allman and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. But his second album, "Silk Degrees," was a huge hit. Assisting him in the recording studio were a group of musicians who would later form the band Toto. Adult-contemporary-minded baby boomers, then in their late 20s and early 30s, salivated over the album's silky soulfulness. "Down Two Then Left" in 1977 didn't do as well as "Silk Degrees," but "Middle Man" in 1980 yielded two hit singles, "Breakdown Dead Ahead" and "Jojo." After that, Scaggs dropped out of sight for eight years before releasing "Other Roads" (and its adult-contemporary hit single, "Heart of Mine") in 1988. Another semi-retirement from the music business -- aside from operating a nightclub in San Francisco -- ended with "Some Change" in 1994, followed by "Come on Home" (a blues-influenced album) and "My Time" in the late '90s. "Dig," released on Sept. 11, 2001, was lost in the post-9/11 downdraft. "But Beautiful" represented a natural stylistic progression from the sound that launched his career, but not without some hurtles. "It opened up a whole new set of challenges for me," Scaggs says of the album on his Web site. "It's sacred ground, as far as I'm concerned, and the more I got into it, the more I realized how little I know." © Gene Stout, ©1996-2008 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

BIO (Wikipedia)
Boz Scaggs (born William Royce Scaggs, 8 June 1944, Canton, Ohio) is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. He gained fame in the 1970s with several Top 20 Hits in the United States along with the #2 album Silk Degrees. Scaggs continued to release and record in the 1980s and 1990s, and still tours into the 2000s. Scaggs 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 Dallas private school, 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. 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 rhythm and blues scene in London. After singing in bands such as The Wigs and Mother Earth, he traveled to Sweden as a solo performer, and in 1965 recorded his solo debut album, Boz, which was not a commercial success. Scaggs also had 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, achieved lukewarm sales, as did follow-up albums on Columbia Records. (His Atlantic album was deleted and replaced with the exact same cover and tracks, but it was given a new catalog number and it was completely remixed in Los Angeles in 1977. This new remix brought Duane Allman's guitar up to the front, but it greatly altered the original feeling. On the track "Finding Her", the volume fades down real low for the last minute, an obvious mixing error by engineer Craymore Stevens. The original has never been available on CD.) 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 covered by Rita Coolidge and 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 spawned two top 20 hits, "Breakdown Dead Ahead" and "Jojo," and Scaggs enjoyed two more 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 U.S. #14 hits). 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 adult contemporary success. Scaggs continued to record and tour sporadically throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and for a time was semi-retired from the music industry. He opened the San Francisco nightclub, Slim's, in 1988, and remains a co-owner as of 2008. After Other Roads, Scaggs 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. Other releases followed. In 2008, Scaggs began an expanded tour, and is scheduled to appear across the country from spring through fall. Scaggs and his wife grow grapes in California's Napa County and have produced their own wine.