We had hardly settled into our temporary lodgings on my beloved father’s property and he was on me like flies on shit.
“How about that Boz Scaggs review you’ve been promising to do for what . . . ten years?”
I had already sketched out my review plan minus Boz so my initial instinct was to tell him to piss off but then I remembered that I was staying at his place rent-free and might not get another chance to do a Boz review if I land a job in international relations. Gratitude and reality won the day.
“I’m on it. You’ll see it in a few weeks.” The look on his face told me that he was stunned that he didn’t get the usual pushback, which robbed him of the opportunity to mansplain why I was full of shit for not liking all his musical treasures. He departed rather forlornly into the morning mist.
This was a big deal for Dad, a huge Boz fan who once claimed that he saw the man in action over a hundred times. I always thought that his estimate was pure fantasy, but a few years ago when he reasserted his claim while bugging me about the review for the umpteenth time, I decided to check it out on the various concert history websites. Much to my surprise, I learned that it was indeed possible if you count the twenty-two gigs Boz played as a member of the Steve Miller Band at the Fillmore Auditorium. After he went solo, he performed twenty-five times at Fillmore West and several other venues throughout the Bay Area in the first half of the 70s. Boz even opened for Jethro Tull once, and I know my parents wouldn’t have missed that. Affordability was not an issue because a ticket at the Fillmore in the late 60s cost three measly bucks ($28.75 in today’s dollars).
Adjusting for inflation, I did the math and figured that my parents saw the Yardbirds, the Byrds, Chuck Berry, Electric Flag, Count Basie, Cream, Pink Floyd, the Who, Hendrix, John Mayall, and Jefferson Airplane for what I would have paid to grab two nosebleed seats to see Radiohead in 2008. As soon as AI figures out how to build a time machine, I will abandon this shitty era in human history and head back to the 60s, where I will change the timeline to prevent the three assassinations, negotiate an immediate end to the Vietnam War, deactivate all nuclear weapons, capture the Zodiac Killer, smoke anywhere I want, take full advantage of free love and use my inflated dollars to buy flats across the street from both the Fillmore Auditorium and Fillmore West.
Well, excuse the fuck out of me for having a vivid imagination.
Adhering to my policy of never giving a man everything he wants, I rejected Dad’s request to review the U.S. debut album and chose Silk Degrees instead. I don’t think Boz Scaggs is a bad album, but there isn’t much meat on the bones to interest me. Yeah, yeah, Rolling Stone gave the album 4 1/2 stars and it still clings to a spot on that rag’s 500 best albums list (#499), but shit, what would you expect from an album produced by Jann Wenner? I felt that Silk Degrees was the better choice for three reasons:
- Boz’s vocals are stronger and more confident. His range is greater, his falsetto more solid and he frequently modulates his vocals according to what the song demands (nasal, soft, don’t-fuck-with-me, romantic). On Silk Degrees, Boz plays little or no guitar, allowing him to concentrate mainly on his vocals.
- It sounds like he’s having a great time. The vibes on this album are infectious, largely because producer Joe Wissert made sure that Boz and his backing band consisting of future Toto members and some of the best session musicians and vocalists in the business were all on the same page.
- I noticed that the genre assigned to “Lowdown” was disco and I’ve never done disco.
Let me be perfectly clear (she thundered in a Nixonian voice): this is as close to disco as I ever want to get. THE LINE MUST BE DRAWN HERE. THIS FAR, NO FURTHER!
*****
The reason my father was able to see him in concert so frequently is that Boz had a hard time breaking out of the Bay Area confines. After leaving the Steve Miller Band to embark on a solo career, he released five albums praised by the critics but largely ignored by record buyers who didn’t live in or near San Francisco. In retrospect, the album that suggested a path to the way out was My Time, where Boz dipped his toe into the waters of soul music in a cover of Al Green’s “Ol’ Time Lovin’.” Recognizing the man’s natural feel for soul, Columbia brought in Johnny Bristol of Motown to produce the follow-up album, Slow Dancer. Bristol and Boz also formed a temporary songwriting team, supplying half of the album’s tracks and providing Boz with a learning experience that further strengthened his soul chops.
Slow Dancer wasn’t exactly what you’d call a hit, peaking at #81 on the Billboard album charts—the first time Boz made it into the top 100. Nonetheless, all involved felt they were on the right track, and about eighteen months after its release, Boz and his cast of twenty-seven entered the studio to record the long-awaited breakthrough album Silk Degrees. Though the entire entourage made valuable contributions, the most important came in the form of the songwriting collaboration between Boz and David Paich, which yielded all four of the album’s singles (Paich also served as the album’s arranger). Though sales were unimpressive during the first few months, Silk Degrees not only became a worldwide hit (5x platinum) but encouraged listeners to explore his previous efforts, and Slow Dancer eventually earned gold record status.
Silk Degrees has been slotted into a variety of genres: R&B, disco, pop, rock, funk and soul, compatible genres that give the album both diversity and unity. I should point out that the “soul” in Silk Degrees is referred to as “blue-eyed soul.” That label was coined by an African-American DJ from Philly by the name of Georgie Woods who invited the Righteous Brothers to his R&B station and was surprised to learn that they were white dudes. Woods meant the term as a compliment, but some in the African-American community resented what they felt was yet another example of cultural appropriation of black music.
I never forget that most popular music created since the dawn of the 20th Century originated in African-American culture: blues, jazz, R&B, rock, soul, funk, hip-hop and rap. I realize that there were plenty of white musicians who made records in those genres and failed to give credit to the African-American creators, and often it was the white folk who made more money with their versions of songs with African-American roots. But labels like “blue-eyed soul” are insulting to white performers who simply love soul music and have the talent to sing and play it with heartfelt authenticity. What matters is the quality and sincerity of the performance, and in part due to his grounding in the blues, Boz Scaggs clearly had a feel for soul music.
So excuse the fuck out of me if this green-eyed white girl refuses to use the “blue-eyed” label when describing any of the soul music that appears on Silk Degrees.
Side One
“What Can I Say” (Skaggs-Paich): This mid-tempo soul number seems an odd choice for an opening track, but from a commercial standpoint, it reflected the times. Though the hard rockers and progressives were still in business, popular tastes had begun to move in the direction of funk, soul, classic pop and disco. Albums by Earth Wind & Fire, George Benson and Stevie Wonder topped the charts in 1976 and even the Stones got into the act with the thoroughly regrettable Black and Blue. Given the context, “What Can I Say” serves as a warm welcome to listeners with its easy sway and pleasant melody. The simple chord set (G, Bm7, Am7) allows Boz to play with the melody, and his leap to the higher octave in the second verse tells you that he’s feeling it. The lyrics are pretty much classic love song material, completely unthreatening and easy to grasp. The background singers exercise due restraint in the call-and-response format and Plas Johnson’s tenor sax solo eschews the growl and embraces smoothness. While it may be lacking in the depth department, “What Can I Say” is an exceedingly pleasant listening experience. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.
“Georgia” (Skaggs): Boz picks up the pace with this lyrically ambiguous tale-with-a-twist supported by a complementary, complex chord pattern. Lyrics and music meld perfectly, evoking moods that range from celebratory to “Oh, shit!”
Though nearly all the buzz on the internet focuses on the lyrics, the music carries as much meaning as the words. The opening verse begins with two lines of upbeat music (C, Cmaj7, Fmaj7) featuring excellent touch by Paich on the piano, tight performances from the rhythm section of Jeff Porcaro (drums) and David Hungate (bass) and clean unison from the horn section. The mood begins to shift in lines three and four with a move to minor chords (Fm7, Em7, Am7), then things get very quiet on the controversial fifth line, which repeats the minor chord pattern at a slower tempo:
Georgia, I swear I’ve never seen such a smile
Gorgeous enough to make an angel’s heart run wild
Your lazy eyes and small-town lies have got me in your spell
Your drive-in boys and backseat noises, oh, you learned so well
Oh-oh-oh, so how was I to know?
You got me, you got me, by now
“How was I to know?” is the classic defense used by guys who bang underage chicks, and at least one source claims that Boz admitted in an interview that Georgia was jailbait. The closing line is set to a transitional Dm7/Dm7/G which brings us back to the upbeat chord set and the following verse.
There are some pretty weird interpretations of the second verse out there, largely due to the incorrect rendering of one teeny-tiny word in the first line:
- Correct: Georgia, your daddy was high the night he dreamed up you
- Incorrect: Georgia, your daddy was high the night he dreamed of you
The correct rendition tells us that Daddy was feeling his oats when he shot his wad and all the little sperm cells rushed happily to the ovum to create a beautiful little lass. The incorrect version hints that Daddy was stoned and essentially raped his lovely daughter. There is nothing in the remaining lyrics to support a charge of child abuse and Daddy earns no mention whatsoever after that brief appearance. The lines that follow continue to celebrate Georgia’s birth and existence (“Georgia, the stars were flying the night that you came through/Christmas in your eyes/Oh, what a nice surprise”) but the verse ends on a down note, a mood that continues through the chorus:
Oh-oh-oh
And now I miss you so
But baby, I’m comin’ back to youGeorgia, we will be together, dear
If they ever let me out of here
They will say that it’s not true
But I did it all for you
Georgia, won’t you tell them for me, dear
What the hell? Is the guy in jail or a mental institution? How did he get there? What does he mean when he claims “I did it all for you?” Some folks have used the incorrect rendition of the “Daddy line” to suggest that our hero sent Daddy to an early grave, indicating they’ve watched way too many episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. The truth is more pedestrian: he got caught with his pants down and was jailed for having sex with a minor. My guess is that Daddy blew the whistle instead of going after the horny bastard with his shotgun.
Georgia, girl, I never lived through a night like this
Sure enough
Got your loving where I like it at
Moonlight through the pines
Oh-oh-oh
But how were we to know
That wasn’t moonlight
They were searchlights
Oh, noGeorgia, we will be together, dear
If they ever let me out of here . . .
I think it took a lot of guts for nice guy Boz Scaggs to play the villain, and his vocals on this song—particularly the whiny falsetto and the naïve excitement in his voice when he sings of his conquest—capture the character’s essential obliviousness.
Justice has been served, and if I were Georgia, I’d get the hell out of town and consider a name change.
“Jump Street” (Skaggs-Paich): You might want to add Pop Matters to your list of review sites to avoid, given their ludicrous take on “Jump Street.”
That leaves “Jump Street”, a nasty cut featuring Les Dudek’s wisecracking slide guitar. It only sounds idiosyncratic because it’s the album’s only rocker, not to mention its only truly great lyric. You can’t go wrong with a song that opens with a guy waking up in bed after a night of rough sex screaming, “Somebody tell me ’bout this debt I owe!” Best morning-after line ever.
Truly great lyric? Really? Let’s borrow a line from McCartney and listen to what the man said:
Boz explains that “Jump Street” was written ten minutes before it was recorded. “I did a rough vocal standing in the studio just screaming out words that worked phonetically. The music had been written on piano just before that. It was just one of the areas I wanted to cover. The original rhythm track was completely rock and roll. I wanted it to be as raucous as possible.”
I don’t think the gibberish that often accompanies hot sex qualifies as truly great lyrical material, but in the context of well-executed rock ‘n’ roll it works like a fucking charm. The closest analogy I could find appears in my passionate defense of “Goin’ Home” in my review of Aftermath, “where Jagger plants himself on the knife edge between human and animal instinct, occasionally coherent, occasionally communicating in broken syllables, word fragments and breaths.” I can’t remember a single instance when I put the brakes on a fuck because my partner failed to use proper grammar, and as Boz sings like a man in heat, I’ll give him the same consideration.
The girls providing the services ride him so hard that instead of waking up with the usual morning glory, he finds his member suffering from complete exhaustion: “Dawn came sneaking like a skinny snake/The harder they go the harder I ache.” Well, they are “working girls just tryin’ to get ahead,” so why all the whining? The repeated line “You better stop coming down on me” suggests that the women may be coming down from a drug-induced high, but hey, Boz made up the words on the spot, so they could mean anything. It should be noted that his anxieties extend beyond sex (the Feds are after him for unknown reasons), so my suggestion to listeners is to abandon the search for a cohesive narrative and just enjoy the gestalt of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.
The music is as hot as a summer night in New Orleans, with Paich supplying the honky-tonk piano, the rhythm section driving the song with the perfect balance of tight and loose, and Les Dudek soaring on slide guitar. I love the semi-stop-time passages when it’s just Boz and the percussive elements delivering the goods and the fake ending that leads to the fade—a musical suggestion that the hot night will continue until dawn.
“What Do You Want the Girl to Do” (Allan Toussaint): In contrast to its predecessor, this Allen Toussaint cover feels a bit too disciplined and too tightly arranged. I have no quibbles with the performances, but the song simply doesn’t grab me. You can chalk it up to a libido that shifts into overdrive when hearing great rock ‘n’ roll—like Oliver Twist, I want more!
“Harbor Lights” (Skaggs): Oddly enough, had they followed “Jump Street” with “Harbor Lights,” the 45-second introductory passage would have soothed the savage beast and calmed my libido. The compelling quiet . . . the faint sounds of wings flapping . . . the sea . . . the cries of seabirds . . . the warmth of a softly-played Rhodes . . . I feel like I’m entering a magic space where blessed calm pervades the atmosphere.
What follows that lovely opening is a gorgeous, reflective love song where Boz muses on the harbor metaphor. In one sense, a harbor is a seedy place inhabited by lost souls, but it is also a refuge for those seeking safety and relief from the stormy seas. In the first two verses he plays with those contrasting meanings, eventually discovering refuge in the ultimate safe harbor: the love between two human beings:
Son of a Tokyo Rose
I was bound to wander from home
Stranger to whatever I’d awaken to
Spun the wheel, took a shot in the dark
One way ticket and a runaway heart
A sailor’s dream came true
The night I dreamed of youThrough the neon doorways
Down the stony streets, I fell
All hands high side, all eyes erect, I followed
Sailing shadows, reds and blues
Curtains drawn, but I saw through
The window to your soul, and I found you
The beauty of the story is reflected in the beautiful music, marked by a lush chord pattern mixing major and minor ninths with minor sevenths and one straight E7 chord to introduce the build in the chorus. The lyrical section is set to a gentle, dreamy tempo followed by a triumphant fade in double time featuring an ultra-smooth flugelhorn solo courtesy of Chuck Finley. Love has won the battle against loneliness; the search for refuge is complete.
Side Two
“Lowdown” (Skaggs-Paich): In an article attributed to Lenny Stoute of the Toronto Star, “Scaggs is quoted as saying that the success of ‘Lowdown’ was ‘an accident’ and that, even though it was their favorite from Silk Degrees, he and the others involved in the making of the song thought there ‘wasn’t a chance in hell’ that it would be released as a single.” Here’s the full scoop from Songfacts:
- In a Songfacts interview with Boz Scaggs, he explained: “We took off for a weekend to this getaway outside of LA where there was a piano and stayed up all night banging around ideas. We hit on ‘Lowdown,’ and then we brought it back to the band and recorded it. We were just thrilled with that one. That was the first song that we attempted, and it had a magic to it.”
- This was the second single released from Silk Degrees . . . Scaggs had little name recognition at the time, and sales were stagnant for the album until an R&B radio station in Cleveland started playing “Lowdown.” Other stations followed suit, and it quickly became clear that the song had crossover appeal and hit potential. Scaggs’ label, CBS [Columbia], released it as a single and it climbed to #3 on the Hot 100 in October, spurring sales of the album along the way.
So the suits at Columbia/CBS finally got it right . . . sort of. While the album version runs for five minutes and eighteen seconds, the single version clocks in at 3:15, largely due to the surgical removal of the second verse. What the fuck, people? The album version is what caused all the excitement in the first place. Why mess with success? The perceived need for the three-minute single died with “Like a Rolling Stone”—released by COLUMBIA, you idiots!
“Lowdown” has such an irresistible groove that it could have gone on for ten minutes and I wouldn’t have felt a smidgen of boredom. The basic chord pattern consists of two chords (Em9 and A13) played over and over again in verse and chorus with bass, drums, piano and stereo hi-hat (one part overdubbed), with a flute filling the few empty spaces. The only interruptions to the pattern come in the form of the assertive horn-backed segments where Louis Shelton slips in a few guitar licks. On paper, that sounds pretty dull, but the funky beat and interplay between Boz and his background singers—especially in the parts where he answers their question (“I wonder, wonder, wonder who?”)—is endlessly compelling and rather sexy.
Though the music drips with erotic energy, the lyrics have nothing to do with sex. All three verses present vignettes of people who embrace façade over reality. The girl in the first verse attempts to burnish her reputation by bragging about the expensive trinkets her well-heeled squeeze has given her; the guy in the second verse is convinced that a new car will help him score some poontang (“Put your money on the table/And drive it off the lot”); the last vignette is somewhat ambiguous because “Jones” can mean an addiction (one way to escape reality) or “keeping up with the Joneses” in the classic game of material one-upmanship. The answer to the question, “I wonder, wonder who got you thinking like that” is rather obvious—the “who” is a society that equates success with wealth, floods TV screens with image-conscious advertising and values appearance over the dirty lowdown. I get the sense that Boz is mystified by the obsession with unreality; the underlying question posed by “Lowdown” is “Why not try to be yourself for a change?”
Great song, and yes, it’s on many of my fuck playlists.
“It’s Over” (Skaggs-Paich): I was tempted to include this song in my “Bitter Breakups” song series piece but passed on it because Boz doesn’t tell us why he can’t take it no more. Wouldn’t you want to know why your soon-to-be ex thinks you’re an asshole? “You’ll have to find out for yourself/Go and ask somebody else” is a completely unsatisfying response.
I do like the music, though, especially the mingled vocals featuring Boz and Maxine Green. Between the two, Maxine sounds more empathetic while Boz sounds like he wants his soon-to-be ex to get the hell out of there RIGHT NOW! The melody is catchy and the chord pattern is varied enough to separate it from your garden-variety pop song . . . but I still want answers!
“Love Me Tomorrow” (Paich): I have to throw a flag on both Paich and Boz for unsportsmanlike conduct (American version) or wave them off with red cards (European version) for resorting to one of the most hoary clichés in popular music history: “You said that you’d be mine ’til the end of time.” I also find the combination of bright, cheery piano and Latin rhythm somewhat jarring and I think that placing two breakup (or close-to-breakup) songs back to back was a bit too much. Hard pass on this one.
“Lido Shuffle” (Skaggs-Paich): Though Boz will tell you that the inspiration for this song came from the shuffle beat in Fats Domino’s “The Fat Man,” he and his new buddy Paich veered from the straight shuffle that Fats laid down and enhanced it with bits of sharply punctuated syncopation to give the piece more punch. There are several great moments in the arrangement, but it’s the syncopation that kicks the song into overdrive, transforming the pedestrian into a piece of exceptionally exciting rock ‘n’ roll.
The intro is a masterpiece of minimalism. All you hear at first are drums and bass, with Hungate plucking steadily on the low F note for a few bars before moving up two half-steps to G—a brilliant use of the power of rising notes to increase the level of anticipation. Boz enters in his best jive voice for two lines marked by jargon and double entendres (“Lido missed the boat that day, he left the shack/But that was all he missed, and he ain’t comin’ back”) followed by our first bit of syncopation with call-and-response punctuation between the rhythm section and electric guitar—a thrilling, get-your-ass-up-and-onto-the-dance-floor moment.
When Boz returns, the horns enter with the sax in the dominant position, reminding us of the early days of rock when saxophones shared equal billing with guitars. The combination of sound and lyrics tells us that the events in the song took place in an earlier time, most likely in the 30s or 40s when juke joints were at their peak. Some have misinterpreted the use of the word “shack” to mean “prison,” but it’s much more likely that the shack is a juke joint: “Jooks were often ‘shoddy confines’ . . . The term itself connotes a place where lower-class African Americans drink, dance, eat, and gamble.” When Boz sings about a “juke joint car,” he’s talking about a jalopy; when he mentions “tombstone bar” he’s referring to a saloon; a “handle” could refer to old cash registers that required the proprietor to pull or push a handle to open the till:
At a tombstone bar in a juke joint car, he made a stop
Just long enough to grab a handle off the top
The melody moves higher in the next two lines, again making use of rising notes to pump up the energy. Flush with dough from his robbery, Lido decides to invest it in the hope of greater earnings:
Next stop, Chi-town, Lido put the money down, let it roll
He said, “One more job oughta get it
One last shot ‘fore we quit it
One for the road”
The last two lines are loaded with syncopation followed by yet another melodic leap in the chorus. After a brief break in the action, the original syncopation pattern is repeated, heralding the next chapter in Lido’s adventures. Hmm . . . sounds like Lido’s got a woman problem but like anyone with a gambling addiction, the lure of the big payoff is too much to overcome.
Lido be runnin’, havin’ great big fun until he got the note
Saying, “Toe the line or blow it,” and that was all she wrote
He be makin’ like a beeline headin’ for the borderline, goin’ for broke
Sayin’, “One more hit oughta do it
This joint, ain’t nothin’ to it
One more for the road”
Yeah, yeah, one more for the road, my ass.
The vocal harmony on “makin’ like a beeline headin’ for the borderline, goin’ for broke” sends chills of delight up and down my spine—another example of how tiny touches matter in an arrangement. I go back and forth on the use of the Moog, but I have to admit that Paich’s rising whirl adds a touch of heightened drama to the musical narrative. “Lido Shuffle” is a master class in how to raise and sustain energy in music; I loved it when I first heard it and it remains one of my favorite Boz Scaggs songs.
“We’re All Alone” (Skaggs): One aspect of the track order I admire is the choice to end each side with a romantic ballad; each play-through ends with a touch of beauty and warmth.
I love “Harbor Lights,” but I think “We’re All Alone” is one of the most beautiful love songs ever written and I cannot listen to it without crying. From a lyrical standpoint, the two ballads share the same theme of lovers creating their own private universe to escape the noise and storms of the so-called real world, but the extraordinary melody of “We’re All Alone” touches my heart in a special way. The tears I shed when listening to this song come from knowing how hard it is to find true love and the endless gratitude I feel every morning when I wake up and find my true love beside me. I am sure that the desire to create a safe space with one’s partner is common in all loving relationships, but Alicia and I live in a world with many people who refuse to accept our love and some who would do us harm. There is one variation of the chorus that has deep personal meaning for both of us:
Close the window, calm the light
And it will be all right
No need to bother now
Let it out, let it all begin
All’s forgotten now
We’re all alone, all alone
Thank you, Boz, for writing such a beautiful song and making an album full of heat, heart and soul.