Boz Scaggs

The son of a travelling salesman, Boz Scaggs mostly grew up in Oklahoma and Texas and was given the nickname Boz while still at school. He started playing guitar at 12 and after meeting Steve Miller in 1959 became vocalist with Miller's band The Marksmen. At university he continued to play with Miller in a series of blues bands before moving to London, where he became heavily involved in the burgeoning UK R&B scene. He released his debut solo album Boz in 1965, but it flopped and Scaggs returned to the US; involving himself in the exploding San Francisco psychedelic scene, once more linking up with the Steve Miller Band and playing on their first two albums. His second solo album Boz Scaggs, with guitarist Duane Allman in 1968, laid the groundwork for the soulful, R&B sound for which he became famous. His mainstream breakthrough came in 1976 with the album Silk Degrees, on which he collaborated with a group of session musicians who went on to form Toto. The mix of straight-ahead rock and engaging soul, typified by the hit single Lowdown, rocketed the album to Number 2 in the US charts and in the 1980s Scaggs had further hits with Breakdown Dead Ahead, Jojo, Look What You've Done To Me and Miss Sun. Releases later became irregular and in 2003 he released a jazz album But Beautiful, returned to live performance with a major tour in 2008, and in 2010 he toured with Michael McDonald and Donald Fagen.