Boston- Third Stage 40th Anniversary- Tom Scholz
By the time Boston’s Third Stage would finally be launched in September 1986, musical maverick Tom Scholz was in his sixth year of being sued and prevented from working as a professional recording artist by his former record company. To fans (and there were tens of millions) it felt like a lifetime since Don’t Look Back had been rush-released eight long years earlier. But all of that angst evaporated when, in September 1986, we heard Brad Delp’s clear distinctive voice rise on the twin-harmony guitar wings of Tom Scholz on “Amanda”.
The 1986 Third Stage comeback Boston album put up spectacular numbers in popularity, with three Top 20 hits on Billboard including “Cant’cha Say”,”We’re Ready”, and the #1 “Amanda” all helping to blast the album to #1 sales in the U.S. as well. But for the big picture in entertainment history, realize that a full decade after the Boston debut became the top-selling rookie in music history, Tom Scholz fought the good fight as the “David” versus a real corporate “Goliath”against unbelievable odds, and every musician that has ever recorded for a living since then owes him a debt of gratitude for bringing free agency to the music business.
After listening to my classic rock interview with Boston’s composer/producer/guitarist Tom Scholz, you’ll no doubt realize that when the late gonzo journalist Hunter S.Thompson wrote,” The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason”, it just as easily could have been written about the 20th century music business. Scholz, in a real-life passion play staged in boardrooms and courtrooms over six agonizing years, is often depicted as a modern-day Don Quixote in the music industry’s own version of Man of La Mancha.
( The late Boston singer Brad Delp in Dallas the night before their first performance in about eight years in front of 70,000 in the Cotton Bowl for the Texxas Jam 1987 )
Below is Boston mastermind Tom Scholz & me in the late Nineties playing 1-on-1 basketball at Dallas radio station Q-102 for $102 a shot in 100+ degree Texas heat in August . As you can clearly see, at 5’5″ I am vertically challenged and height impaired, but matched Tom shot for shot… until Tom Scholz dunked on me to turn out the lights, beating me 5 buckets to 4. The Dallas Women’s Shelter got the $510 bet that I was happy to lose. 
Don’t miss the “gloves off” inside story of the Boston Third Stage eight year saga by the genius who put principles over profits, Tom Scholz, and his personal battle which gave musicians free-agency in the music business. -Redbeard
