I've always seen Boz Scaggs as the guy coming home with the milk, black silk-tie loosened, feet still feeling the last samba, heart slightly regretting the heiress who got away.I go back to 1971 with Boz. I saw him do one of the nullest shows I've ever witnessed, when he visited here in the wake of "Silk Degrees", and also one of the best about ten years ago at the Jazz Cafe.
He's seventy-one now and has no right to be still making records as good as this one. He reckons he finds it quite easy because he doesn't write the songs. This has tunes associated with Al Green ("Full Of Fire"), Huey Smith ("High Blood Pressure"), The Band ("Whispering Pines"), The Impressions ("I'm So Proud") and Bobby Charles ("Small Town Talk").
I've written about that last masterpiece before. Only sold a few thousand copies but I've met everyone who bought it.
Does anybody need another album of rhythm and blues covers, particularly now that it's never been easier to access the originals? Probably not but he's got his own very special flavour and sometimes a little bit of what you fancy does you all the good in the world.
Fully agree - though, if anything, his last album Memphis was even better than this gem!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Phil. Memphis is one of my favourite albums of the last few years.
ReplyDeleteMe and Boz go way back. When the Number One Son was born it was Lido Shuffle that came on the car radio as I was leaving City Hospital in Nottingham. Twenty years later he made the best record of his career - Dig was all things to all men.I I loved it then and I love it now.
ReplyDeleteSaw him and his equally tall band in the tiny Country Club (?) club in Belsize Park in the early 70s... I think he might have gone to my school (st marks in dallas) as did steve miller, a few years before me. The school chartered a train for some (probably football related) reason and contracted the promising outfit Ike and Tina Turner to while away the miles, at least for the older guys at that end of the train.
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