I'm easy (Boz Scaggs) (LP 3737 - 3738)

Boz Scaggs  Boz Scaggs (CD, Edsel Records, 1969) **** 

Boz Scaggs  Silk Degress (CD, Columbia Records, 1976) ****   

Genre: Soul, rock, Americana, R&B, country, blues

Places I remember: Amoeba Records, The Warehouse

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Lido Shuffle (Silk Degrees)

Gear costume: Lowdown (Silk Degrees)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6

Active compensatory factors: Boz Scaggs was his second solo album. In it he already displays easy mastery over a range of genres. It was recorded at the famed Muscle Shoals studio with some of the studios' musicians, and Duane Allman (pre fame).

Over the years, I'd read some glowing reviews of the album and it appears in many of the album review books I have. I had been looking for a while and managed to eventually track down a CD reissue version (comes with the original and a 1977 re-mixed version).

His voice and style are authentic, as in, he hadn't taken on the Toto boys' smoother sophistication yet. A good thing, too. AllMusic calls it 'an enduring blue-eyed soul masterpiece'.

That said, Silk Degrees has him at the zenith of his commercial powers. Four singles were released from it: It's Over; Lowdown; What Can I Say; Lido Shuffle. They all helped Silk Degrees sell heaps!

Where do they all belong? An el cheapo best of collection rounds out the Scaggs corner of my collection. Four of its 14 songs come from Silk Degrees. Breakdown Dead Ahead (from Middle Man) is the most crucial addition to those Silk Degree songs.