Boz Scaggs

Calvin Theatre (19 King St, Northampton, MA 01060)

Music

It's appropriate that Boz Scaggs' new album is Out of the Blues, since the blues is what first sparked his five-decade musical career. Born William Royce Scaggs in Canton, Ohio on June 8, 1944, he grew up in Oklahoma and Texas, where he spent his teenage years immersed in the blues, R&B and early rock 'n' roll. In 1967, Scaggs joined the Steve Miller Band in San Francisco, performing on that group's albums Children of the Future and Sailor, before launching his solo career with 1968's seminal Boz Scaggs LP, recorded in Muscle Shoals, AL for Atlantic Records. Scaggs continued to mine a personalized mix of rock, blues and R&B influences, along with a signature style of ballads on such influential '70s albums as Moments, Boz Scaggs & Band, My Time, Slow Dancer and 1976’s Silk Degrees. The latter release became a massive commercial breakthrough, reaching Number Two and remaining on the album charts for 115 weeks. It spawned three Top 40 hit singles: "It's Over," "Lido Shuffle" and the Grammy-winning "Lowdown." He's continued to make great music, tour the world, and with his new album Out of the Blues, he returns to his roots and makes it clear that he has retained his love for all the sounds that captured his imagination all those years ago.