Middle Man (2023 Remaster) Boz Scaggs

• 1JoJo (2023 Remaster)05:52
• 2Breakdown Dead Ahead (2023 Remaster)04:35
• 3Simone (2023 Remaster)05:05
• 4You Can Have Me Anytime (2023 Remaster)04:56
• 5Middle Man (2023 Remaster)04:51
• 6Do Like You Do in New York (2023 Remaster)03:44
• 7Angel You (2023 Remaster)03:38
• 8Isn't It Time (2023 Remaster)04:53
• 9You Got Some Imagination (2023 Remaster)03:56
• Total Runtime41:30

Info for Middle Man (2023 Remaster)

"Middle Man" is the ninth studio album by Boz Scaggs released by Columbia Records in 1980. Scaggs hired members of the band Toto as session musicians and shared songwriting credits with them, returning to the commercial, soul-influenced rock of Silk Degrees (1976).

The album reached No. 8 in the Billboard 200 album chart, and two singles reached the Billboard Hot 100: "Breakdown Dead Ahead" at No. 15 and "Jojo" at No. 17.

"1980's Middle Man was Boz Scaggs' last album for Columbia before an eight-year self-imposed sabbatical. Scaggs nonetheless caps off the decade with equal nods to his '70s hitmaking formulas and the newer, shinier production techniques of the coming decade. The synthesizer rocker "Angel You" and the title track are given the full in-vogue androgynous (i.e., Hall & Oates) treatment, while the opener "Jo Jo" and "Simone" are pages taken from his Here's the Low Down-era grooves that wedded soulful vocals against a flurry of jazz changes. His penchant for the ballad is explored on "You Can Have Me Any Time" and "Isn't It Time," while his seldom-seen rockier side comes up for air on the bluesy "Breakdown Dead Ahead" and "You Got Some Imagination," both featuring stinging guitar from Steve Lukather. Not his best album, but a very timely one." (Cub Koda, AMG)

Boz Scaggs, lead vocals, guitar (1–8)
David Foster, synthesizers (1, 3, 5, 7–9), acoustic piano (1–5, 7), string arrangements (1, 3–5, 8), electric piano (3, 4, 8), synthesizer programming
Don Grolnick, electric piano (2), acoustic piano (8)
David Paich, additional synthesizer (3), organ (6), synthesizers (6)
James Newton Howard, clavinet (6)
Michael Boddicker, synthesizer programming
Larry Fast, synthesizer programming
Steve Porcaro, synthesizer programming
Ray Parker Jr., guitar (1–8), bass (6)
Steve Lukather, lead guitars (1, 3, 5–8), additional guitars (2), guitar solo (2, 7, 8), all guitars (9)
Carlos Santana, guitar solo (4)
John Pierce, bass (1)
David Hungate, bass (2–5, 7–9)
Jeff Porcaro, drums (1, 3–5, 7, 9)
Rick Marotta, drums (2, 8)
Joe Vitale, drums (6)
Lenny Castro, percussion
Adrian Tapia, saxophone solo (1)
Marty Paich, string arrangements (4)
Charlotte Crossley, backing vocals (1)
David Lasley, backing vocals (1, 6)
Sharon Redd, backing vocals (1)
Paulette Brown, backing vocals (2, 3, 5, 8, 9)
Venetta Fields, backing vocals (2, 3, 5, 8, 9)
Bill Thedford, backing vocals (2, 3, 8)
Julia Tillman Waters, backing vocals (5, 9)
Oren Waters, backing vocals (5, 9)
Bill Champlin, backing vocals (6)
Chuck "Fingers" Irwin, backing vocals (6)
Rosemary Butler, backing vocals (7, 8)

Recorded 1979 at Studio 55, Los Angeles; Sunset Sound, Hollywood; Cherokee, Hollywood
Produced and engineered by Bill Schnee

Digitally remastered

Boz Scaggs
Born William Royce Scaggs in Canton, Ohio on June 8, 1944, he grew up in Oklahoma and Texas, where he spent his teenage years immersed in the blues, R&B and early rock 'n' roll. While attending school in Dallas, he played in local combos. After several years as a journeyman musician around Madison, WI and Austin, TX, Scaggs spent time traveling in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, eventually settling in Stockholm where he recorded the album Boz.

Returning to the U.S. in 1967, Scaggs joined the Steve Miller Band in San Francisco, performing on that group's albums Children of the Future and Sailor, before launching his solo career with 1968's seminal Boz Scaggs LP, recorded in Muscle Shoals, AL for Atlantic Records. Scaggs continued to mine a personalized mix of rock, blues and R&B influences, along with a signature style of ballads on such influential '70s albums as Moments, Boz Scaggs & Band, My Time, Slow Dancer and 1976’s Silk Degrees. The latter release became a massive commercial breakthrough, reaching Number Two and remaining on the album charts for 115 weeks. It spawned three Top 40 hit singles: "It's Over," "Lido Shuffle" and the Grammy-winning "Lowdown." Subsequently, "We're All Alone” from that same album, would become a #1 single for Rita Coolidge. Silk Degrees was followed by the albums Down Two Then Left and Middle Man, and such hit singles as "Breakdown Dead Ahead," "Jo Jo" and "Look What You've Done to Me."

Despite his '70s successes, Scaggs spent much of the 1980s out of the music-biz spotlight, traveling, opening a family business, fathering young children and founding the San Francisco nightclub, Slim's, He returned to the studio after an 8-year hiatus and released, Other Roads, Some Change, Dig, the Grammy-nominated Come on Home, the unplugged Fade Into Light, the in-concert retrospective Greatest Hits Live as well as a stint touring with Donald Fagen’s New York Rock & Soul Review; all while continuing to maintain a loyal audience in the U.S. and overseas, particularly in Japan. A pair of albums of jazz standards, But Beautiful and Speak Low, the latter topping the Billboard Jazz chart, demonstrated Scaggs' stylistic mastery, as did the Southern-flavored Memphis and the rhythm & bluesy A Fool to Care.

"Music has been a constant companion and I'm feeling more free with it than ever," Scaggs comments. "I feel like I've found my voice through all these years, and I've gotten closer to where I want to be with my approach."

This album contains no booklet.