Silk Degrees

Boz Scaggs’s 1976 breakthrough, Silk Degrees, was not only his biggest-selling album, it was also one of his best. Here Scaggs collaborated with keyboardist and bandleader David Paich, who would soon form the hugely successful band Toto with this record’s drummer, Jeff Porcaro. In Paich, Scaggs found a foil who added just enough pop gloss to make his blues- and R&B-tinged material palatable to the masses. Crucially, though, the pair keeps Scaggs’s remarkable voice at the centre of things, never going too far overboard with the studio polish. As a result, hit singles “Lowdown” and, particularly, the horn-spiked R&B of “Lido Shuffle” still sound fresh, while the ballads remain soulful. A year or so later, Rita Coolidge would take one of those ballads, “We’re All Alone,” into the Billboard Top Ten with her own version.