Boz Scaggs- Silk Degrees 50th Anniversary

It is the golden anniversary of Boz Scaggs’ Silk Degrees, one of the albums which musically defined America’s bicentennial year in much the same way as Frampton Comes Alive, Fly Like an Eagle and Year of the Cat. More accurately, my Boz Scaggs interview falls under “Ultra Rare”, as the Dallas Texas native, long residing in the San Francisco Bay wine country, has led one of the more private lives in contemporary music.

Part one  details Boz Scagg’s journey out of Texas as a sideman with Dallas schoolmate  Steve Miller in Chicago, then San Francisco. The title song to Slow Dancer   in 1974 clearly pointed the way to where Scaggs was headed musically, but there had been five albums by this point and until then Boz was best known for a cover version of “Loan Me a Dime” with guitar solos by a young Duane Allman. Scaggs’ next door neighbor in San Francisco was Rolling Stone  magazine founding editor Jann Wenner, which proved invaluable in buying Scaggs enough time to make the all-important connections which would bear fruit on Silk Degrees.

Boz Scaggs was practically the only white rock/rhythm ‘n’ blues musician to walk on the water of the U.S. disco fad and not drown. After all, Rod Stewart paid dearly for ” Do You Think I’m Sexy”, whereas with the massive hit album Silk Degrees  in 1976, Boz Scaggs merely got paid, because of massive hits “Lido Shuffle”, “Georgia”, “We’re All Alone”, the exquisite “Harbor Lights”, and “Lowdown”.

Part two includes Scaggs playing his monster hit “Lowdown” In the Studio during the conclusion of my  interview, with Boz Scaggs  doing a superb live performance of the soul classic “Drowning in the Sea of Love”. –Redbeard