Boz Scaggs

William Royce “Boz” Scaggs is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist born in 1944 in Canton, Ohio. He is best known as a rock and soul artist who achieved commercial success in the 1970s with platinum-certified albums and Grammy-winning hit singles. Scaggs is also recognized for his instrumental role in the formation of the supergroup Toto through his 1976 album Silk Degrees.

Scaggs began his professional career in the early 1960s as a bandmate of Steve Miller in bands including the Ardells, and he was a member of the Steve Miller Band from 1967 to 1968. He launched his solo career in 1969 but achieved limited commercial success until 1976, when Silk Degrees reached number 2 on the Billboard 200 chart. The album produced four hit singles: “Lowdown,” “Lido Shuffle,” “It’s Over,” and “What Can I Say,” along with the ballad “We’re All Alone,” which Rita Coolidge later took to number 1 in 1977. “Lowdown” became a major success, winning the Grammy Award for Best R&B Song and selling over one million copies in the United States.

Following Silk Degrees, Scaggs released two additional platinum-certified albums: Down Two Then Left and Middle Man, which produced the top-40 singles “Breakdown Dead Ahead” and “Jojo.” After a hiatus from recording during most of the 1980s, he returned to music in 1988 with Other Roads and later joined the New York Rock and Soul Revue. Beyond recording, Scaggs opened Slim’s, a celebrated music venue in San Francisco that operated until 2020. He has continued recording and touring, with recent albums including Out of the Blues (2018) and Detour (2025).