Boz Scaggs

is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. He gained fame in the 1970s with several Top 20 Hits in the United States along with the #2 album Silk Degrees.
Born William Royce Scaggs in Canton, Ohio, the son of a traveling salesman, he attended a Dallas private school, St. Mark's, where a schoolmate gave him the nickname "Bosley.” Soon, he was just plain Boz. After learning guitar at the age of 12, he met Steve Miller at St. Mark's. In 1959, he became the vocalist for Miller's band, The Marksmen. The pair later attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison together, playing in blues bands like The Ardells and The Fabulous Knight Trains.
Leaving school, Scaggs briefly joined the burgeoning rhythm and blues scene in London. After singing in bands such as The Wigs and Mother Earth, he traveled to Sweden as a solo performer, and in 1965 recorded his solo debut album, Boz. Scaggs also had a brief stint with the band The Other Side with fellow American Jack Downing and Brit Mac MacLeod.
Returning to the U.S., Scaggs promptly headed for the booming psychedelic music center of San Francisco in 1967. Linking up with Steve Miller again, he appeared on the Steve Miller Band's first two albums, Children of the Future and Sailor. After being spotted by Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, Scaggs secured a solo contract with Atlantic Records in 1968. His album featured the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and slide guitarist Duane Allman, achieved lukewarm sales, as did follow-up albums on Columbia Records.
In 1976, he linked up with session musicians who would later form Toto and recorded his smash album Silk Degrees. The album reached number 2 on the U.S. charts and number 1 in a number of countries across the world, spawning three hit singles: "Lowdown,” "Lido Shuffle,” and "What Can I Say,” as well as the MOR standard "We're All Alone,” later covered by Rita Coolidge and Frankie Valli. A sellout world tour followed, as did a follow-up album, the 1977 Down Two Then Left.
The 1980 album Middle Man spawned two top 20 hits, "Breakdown Dead Ahead" and "Jojo,” and Scaggs enjoyed two more hits in 1980-81 ("Look What You've Done to Me" from the Urban Cowboy soundtrack, and "Miss Sun" from a greatest hits set, both U.S. #14 hits). His next LP, Other Roads, appeared in 1988.
Scaggs continued to record and tour sporadically throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and for a time was semi-retired from the music industry before returning with Some Change in 1994. He released Come On Home, an album of blues, and My Time, an anthology in the late 1990s. He garnered good reviews with Dig although the CD, which was released on September 11, 2001, was lost in the post-9/11 melιe. In May 2003, Scaggs released But Beautiful, a collection of jazz standards that debuted at number 1 on the jazz charts.
He tours each summer, has a loyal cadre of fans, remains hugely popular in Japan, and released a DVD and a live CD in 2004. Other releases followed. In 2008, Scaggs began an expanded tour, and is scheduled to appear across the country.
Scaggs and his wife grow grapes in California's Napa County and have produced their own wine. He is one of the owners of the San Francisco nightclub, Slim's.