Boz Scaggs -- We're All Alone/Miss Sun

 

Welcome to another Reminiscings of Youth article since it is Thursday. And one of the reasons that I've had this category in the first place is because of one William Royce Scaggs, aka Boz Scaggs. Up to now, I've had his cool, uptown-and-downtown and upbeat songs such as "Lowdown" and "Jojo" as ROY articles, but I had yet to post this one mighty ballad of his from the "Silk Degrees" album of February 1976.

Arguably my memory of the really old days when I was a kid isn't exactly crystal-clear anymore, but I think out of all of the Boz songs, "We're All Alone" might be the first one that I had ever heard by him from the radio. The music is automatically identifiable although way back then, I hadn't known who Boz was; I just knew that the song was a pretty epic one, and one that has been covered by a lot of other singers such as Rita Coolidge and Frankie Valli.

Now, as I approach old age, I can honestly say that they certainly don't make them like "We're All Alone" nowadays when it comes to pop balladry. Glad that I did get my own copy of "Silk Degrees" a couple of years ago. 

Anyways, what was hitting the top of the Oricon charts when the album was released? Well, I've got Nos. 1, 3 and 5 from February 16th 1976, just a couple of days before listeners got their hands on "Silk Degrees" at the record store.

1. Masato Shimon -- Oyoge! Taiyaki-kun (およげ！たいやきくん）

3. Hiromi Ohta -- Momen no Handkerchief (木綿のハンカチーフ）

5. Iruka -- Nagori Yuki (なごり雪）

However, as the commercial announcer often says: Wait! There's more!

I have never and will never categorize Scaggs' "Miss Sun" from 1980 as a ROY tune. For one thing, I never heard this one at all in my childhood or youth. I only got to hear it for the first time in the last month! And it's such a banger! I am assuaging my poor soul with weak pleadings of "Better late than never" but man, am I over forty years late to the party here. Mind you, I'm in good company. The good folks at View From the 502 who have become hardcore Boz acolytes over the years were the music lovers who introduced me to this one and I still haven't quite pulled out from its allure. Have a read of the Wikipedia article for the song but basically TOTO had a lot of influence on this one.

Boz Scaggs -- Jojo

 

In the past few years, there have been a lot of YouTube reactors covering the works of singers from long ago and enjoying them greatly. And in turn, being a fellow who has been appreciating the cool music from his childhood and adolescence (which is why I've been including ROY articles here on a Japanese music blog), I've been enjoying the reactions greatly myself. Furthermore, it seems as if the songs of Boz Scaggs and Steely Dan have been getting particular attention and joy. 

Boz Scaggs is a name (and it's a name that I can never forget) that has been synonymous with radio listening since I was that kid of the 1970s but it's only been within the last decade or so that I've finally appreciated his funk, soulfulness and balladry. In fact, I inadvertently ended up providing Reminiscings of Youth articles on his legendary "Lowdown" twice in less than a year here and here. Such is my love for that 1976 single and personally I think for any budding graduates who are heading for prom night and despite the nature of the lyrics, "Lowdown" is the type of song that should be accompanying the limos filled with high school seniors to the hotel ballrooms.

However, getting back to those reactors, they have been going ga-ga for not only "Lowdown" but also for his June 1980 single "Jojo". For instance, the guys on the YouTube channel Views from the 502 above went into total meltdown especially when Adrian Tapia did his sax solos on the song. I used to hear this one all the time on radio but it's been only within the last several years that this romantic-sounding tune about a dangerous pimp (and for some reason, I can only believe that Jojo lives in the Big Apple) being backed by a jazzy and sunset disco arrangement has been truly appreciated by me. The backing chorus, the horns, the groove, and of course Tapia's saxophone and Scaggs' vocals are splendiferous and it's a kind of a wonder that "Jojo" wasn't even made into a movie.

The other thing that makes this ROY stand out among the others is that I had actually introduced "Jojo" much earlier as a cover version performed by fusion band Chikara Ueda & The Power Station（上田力&パワーステーション）some months after the original had been released. I've provided some further information on the original song in that article but let it be said that it was Scaggs, David Foster and David Lasley who were the brains behind "Jojo". Also, though I didn't mention it in the Power Station article, Ueda unfortunately passed away in 2017.

In the United States, "Jojo" peaked at No. 17 on Billboard while in Canada, it hit No. 15 on RPM. Now, what else was being released in June 1980?

Juicy Fruits -- Jenny wa Gokigen Naname　（ジェニーはご機嫌ななめ）

Yellow Magic Orchestra -- Rydeen (雷電）

Off Course -- Yes-No

Bobby Caldwell/Boz Scaggs -- Heart of Mine

From Wikipedia

Being March 14th, it is White Day in Japan so the guys there are getting their cookies and chocolates. In the rest of the world perhaps, it is known as Pi (3.14) Day for the mathematically inclined and strangely enough, the theoretical physicist Albert Einstein was born on this day in 1879. I've already mentioned yesterday that enka singer Hiroshi Itsuki（五木ひろし）also has his birthday today. But for this weekly Reminiscings of Youth article, I'm going to be featuring once more singer-songwriter Bobby Caldwell because it was one year ago today that he passed away at the age of 71.

The man known as Mr. AOR in Japan will always be famous and adored for his 1978 "What You Won't Do For Love". I've been listening to that one for decades but it was also the fact on the ol' radio that I also got to hear another song of his, "Heart of Mine", which was the title track for his 1989 album. Yet another tenderhearted ballad by the late crooner about trying to mend a broken heart after a sudden and unexpected romantic breakup, I was surprised that the song came into being so much later than I had thought. I had assumed that "Heart of Mine" was the follow-up to "What You Won't Do For Love" which perhaps attests to its timelessness. I am still assuming that the song was used for one of those ancient Parliament cigarette commercials in Japan.

Crazy thing though. When this song first came to my ears' notice decades ago, I'd been left wondering whether it was Caldwell or other AOR crooner Boz Scaggs behind "Heart of Mine". Well, it turned out to be both: both of them co-wrote the song along with Dennis Matkosky and Jason Scheff. And Scaggs' version came out first as a single in 1988 with its inclusion in Scaggs' May 1988 album "Other Roads". As much as his 1976 "Lowdown" is one of my favourite uptempo tunes by him, "Heart of Mine" is his representative love ballad. "Other Roads" ended up peaking at No. 35 on the US charts while in Canada, it ranked in at No. 25.

May 16th 1988 was the release date for "Other Roads". Coincidentally enough, I was able to find the Oricon chart for that date. What was up at Nos. 1, 3 and 4?

1. Yui Asaka -- C-Girl

3. Yoko Oginome -- Stardust Dream（スターダスト・ドリーム）

4. TUBE -- Beach Time

Shun Sakai -- For All We Know

 

It was through Shun Sakai's（酒井俊）version that I found out about "For All We Know" which according to Wikipedia "...is a popular song published in 1934, with music by J. Fred Coots and lyrics by Sam M. Lewis". The main lyrics begin with "For all we know we may never meet again..." but apparently there have been different verses created for the many covers that have been done over the past century. The above video may be the original recording with Hal Kemp and his orchestra with Bob Allen as the vocalist. I don't peg this as a jazz tune...I think it's some of that beautiful music that I've read about in jazz history books that was used as the counterpoint to the so-called sinful jazz at the time.

Sakai has had a couple of articles placed onto "Kayo Kyoku Plus" so far and I've known her as a soulful chanteuse hovering thereabouts in the City Pop realm. It was in her 1979 album "My Imagination" where her version of "For All We Know" exists as a track, and it's quite the blistering and bluesy slow jam (love the sax) about a couple ending a wonderful evening while savoring every moment that was spent together. Will they never meet again?....nah, they will see each other over and over again. In fact, I bet "For All We Know" will be played at their wedding reception and on their 50th wedding anniversary.

Considering the original version's style, it's ironic that there are probably many jazz versions of "For All We Know", and I found one by the incomparable Boz Scaggs from his 2003 album "But Beautiful".

Chikara Ueda & The Power Station -- Jojo

It was just a little over two weeks that I'd made up the ROY article for Boz Scaggs' "Lowdown", and now I've got "Jojo" on the board. As with "Lowdown", "Jojo" was another song that I was able to hear on the radio for years although since I was never a lyrics guy, I hadn't been aware that this was all about a pimp on Broadway; the title had struck me as being about a French clown on Broadway.

Even to this day, I'm still picking up information about "Jojo" which was originally a track on the smooth-singing star's "Middle Man" LP released in April 1980, according to Wikipedia. For one thing, "Jojo" was created not only by Scaggs but also by David Foster and singer-songwriter David Eldon Lasley. For another, in the recording booth, joining the singer on guitar was Ray Parker Jr., while Steve Lukather and Jeff Porcaro from TOTO were on lead guitar and drums respectively, and then there Foster and Lasley themselves on keyboards and backing vocals respectively. All that musical goodness rolled up in one song!

Later in September of that year, Chikara Ueda & The Power Station（上田力&パワーステーション）released "Flying Easy" and one of the tracks just happened to be an instrumental cover of "Jojo" with the horns coming into play here (I swear, though, that I've heard those series of six horn blasts in the intro on various TV programs in Japan). I miss the smooth Boz vocals but still, Ueda's take on the soulful AOR classic is worthy of merit especially with some talented guitar. Incidentally, jazz drummer and record producer Harvey Mason was on those drums for the entire album.

It was also about a year ago that I first wrote about Ueda & The Power Station through their "Twilight Shadows".

Boz Scaggs -- Lowdown

 

Ahhh...1976! The year of the Montreal Olympics, one of the very few things that I remember fondly from that year (school was definitely not one of those things).

Boz Scaggs and his "Lowdown" were one singer and one song that I had heard before in the ancient past but neither of them were entities that I had associated with 1976, and yet the latter by the former was released for the first time in June of that year. For me back then, as a whelp large enough to generate my own source of gravity, Scaggs was this fellow with this unique voice who came up with these soul songs such as "We're All Alone" and "JoJo". Little did I know that he was also the voice behind "Lowdown", and the one thing that I remembered from that single was the horns blasting in twice in the song in places where I had assumed that the singer would be crooning out the main refrain. I knew about genres like pop and disco when I was in elementary school but I didn't appreciate them, and wouldn't for several more years.

For the past number of years now, though, Boz Scaggs' "Lowdown" is one of my prized aural jewels in the crown, and not just for the horns. It starts off with the coolest intro riff comprised of bass, percussion, keyboards and flute all coming together to express something like downtown's baddest dude doing his usual weekend cruise in the convertible. Then comes Scaggs' buttery vocals which actually tell a guy the gosh-darn lowdown about how horribly the lady that he adores is treating him. Seems like the idea for a rom-com is right here.

However, it's that music that gets me every time. It feels like that convertible coming in from out of the suburbs, slowing cruising through the city limits until those horns explode right when it hits the gleaming skyscrapers of downtown, whether it be New York or Los Angeles. There are good times coming tonight. 

According to the Wikipedia article on "Lowdown", Scaggs and keyboardist David Paich created the song, and session musicians including bassist David Hungate and drummer Jeff Porcaro were in the recording booth. Paich, Hungate and Porcaro would all collaborate with others to form the band TOTO in 1977, and the latter two would also help out on Mariya Takeuchi's（竹内まりや）"Miss M" LP, her most City Pop release, in 1980.

Not sure how "Lowdown" or the album which includes the single, "Silk Degrees" did in Japan, but the single did very well in the United States and Canada. It hit No. 3 on US Billboard while getting up to No. 2 on the RPM charts in my country.

Being a June 1976 release, what were three of the kayo that got released as well in that month?

1. Hiromi Ohta -- Akai High Heel（赤いハイヒール）[June 1]

2. Momoe Yamaguchi -- Yokosuka Story （横須賀ストーリー）[June 21]

3. Teruhiko Aoi -- Anata dake wo (あなただけを) [June 25]

Thanks very kindly to Amigo Lovepop for the stats. Also, I should also confess that due to my dotty memory, I had already written up "Lowdown" less than a year previously as a ROY article but just plain forgot. Still, I had three different kayo kyoku up there due to different criteria.

Boz Scaggs -- Lowdown

Here's another one from my Reminiscings of Youth file and this time we're going to June 1976. Yes, the age when bell-bottoms and wide lapels were king! Yes, I was indeed alive back then and actually saw them being worn...since I was one of those people.😰

I had barely remembered Boz Scaggs' "Lowdown" which was released in that month and year. Before recently happily re-acquainting myself with this enormously cool and funky Scaggs' trademark number, what I had retained in my noggin was that blast of horns that came in twice during the song. In fact, I hadn't even been aware that it was Scaggs' tune. Up until recently, the one song that was still in my memory for him was his ballad "We're All Alone". Both songs were included on the B-side of his 1976 album "Silk Degrees", a hit release that peaked at No. 2 on US Billboard and the Canadian charts (via "RPM" magazine) and ended up on the respective year-end charts at No. 17.

Of course, getting to play it again over and over through YouTube, I realized (again) that there was some mighty wonderful funk and groove surrounding those appearances of the horns. "Lowdown" was my aural time machine heading back for a Saturday night on the town in downtown Toronto or New York City (it was mostly school nights back then for me...no disco!😭). Plus, backing up the singer were future members of the band Toto: David Paich, David Hungate and Jeff Porcaro. Now I rather wonder whether Scaggs and "Lowdown" were also influences on the Japanese City Pop scene along with Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers.

Up to now, in the ROY articles, I've brought in the kayo hits via Oricon or even those singers/bands that had their debut in the introductory month of the featured song. But this time, I've decided to go with three of the award winners at the Japan Record Awards for 1976. The connection among the three songs was that all of them were given lyrics by the late great Yu Aku（阿久悠）!

Grand Prize: Harumi Miyako -- Kita no Yado kara

Best New Artist: Kenji Niinuma -- Yome ni Konaika

Best New Artist: Pink Lady -- Pepper Keibu