Boz Scaggs

William Royce “Boz” Scaggs was born on June 8, 1944, in Canton, Ohio. His early life involved moving to McAlester, Oklahoma, and later Plano, Texas, where he developed an interest in music. At age nine, he began learning the cello, and at twelve, he started playing guitar after meeting Steve Miller at St. Mark’s School of Texas. Miller later gave him the nickname “Boz.” Scaggs further pursued music at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, playing in blues bands like the Ardells and the Fabulous Knight Trains alongside Miller. In 1963, Scaggs left college to focus on his music career, forming the Wigs and touring Europe, eventually recording his debut solo album, “Boz,” in Stockholm in 1965.

Upon returning to the U.S. in 1967, Scaggs joined the Steve Miller Band, contributing to their first two albums, “Children of the Future” and “Sailor” (1968). He then embarked on a solo career, signing with Atlantic Records and releasing his second album, “Boz Scaggs,” in 1969, featuring Duane Allman and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. After signing with Columbia Records, Scaggs released several albums including “Moments” (1971), “My Time” (1972), and “Slow Dancer” (1974), which achieved gold status. His breakthrough came with the 1976 album “Silk Degrees,” which peaked at number 2 on the Billboard 200, earned a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year, and produced hit singles like “Lowdown” and “Lido Shuffle.” “Lowdown” also won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Song.

Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, Scaggs released platinum-certified albums like “Down Two Then Left” (1977) and “Middle Man” (1980), which yielded top-20 singles such as “Breakdown Dead Ahead” and “Jojo.” He also co-founded the popular San Francisco music venue, Slim’s, in 1988, which he owned until its closure in 2020. After a hiatus, Scaggs continued to record and tour, releasing albums like “Other Roads” (1988), “Some Change” (1994), “Come On Home” (1997), and “Dig” (2001). His later work includes jazz standards albums “But Beautiful” (2003) and “Speak Low” (2008), the Southern-influenced “Memphis” (2013), and blues-focused albums “A Fool to Care” (2015) and “Out of the Blues” (2018), the latter topping the Billboard Top Blues Albums chart.