Published in The Santa Barbara Sentinel
Ah, the sounds of Boz Scaggs.
One of the reasons we dig his vibe is how broad his range of music has come to be.
It generally has up taping our feet, rolling down the windows, and singing to the tops of our lungs.
No shame.
You can do the same, sans window, when he takes the Granada stage on Tuesday, August 2nd at 8 pm.
Read below in a deep, soft, soothing voice to get the full Boz Scaggs effect.
What influences your funk?
I am not a funk musician.
When I was younger, growing up in the East Bay there were some heavy funk influences in my club band maybe but they were minor compared to the other influences I’ve had.
I don’t think this question really relates to me.
I recently heard James Brown was heavily influenced by jazz, not what many people would think. Is there a music genre or artist you enjoy or like to play that may surprise people?
Oh, some people might be surprised to hear I like jazz, country music, and early rock ‘n roll but I think anyone who listens to my music gets the sense that I work in several music genres.
In all of my albums, you can hear a progressive or jazz influence.
My voice is influenced by some jazzy idioms.
I’m certainly influenced by the blues and early Top 40 rock n roll music.
That developed into an appreciation for rhythm and blues, which is the more progressive form of the blues.
My love of rock n roll comes out of country music, and the early music from the Appalachia, New Orleans, Memphis, and St. Louis certainly form a good deal of the music that I love.
What’s the biggest difference between making music now and 5 or 10 years into your career?
(At that time), I would have been in my mid to late twenties and that’s the time in one’s artistic career one is learning a lot and looking around and trying to attach to the kind of music that you’re listening to.
It’s a time before you have a style and you’re just searching around and trying things and there’s a certain excited, creative thing going on when you figure out what you can do and what you can’t do and what you really love and what doesn’t matter.
It’s a much more active process creatively than that which one has later on which is derived from one’s own style.
Once you have a style, you have a great facility to use your strength, whereas before that you’re working on anything and everything.
You may be weak in style and technique but there an excitement and passion that’s involved when you’re young and coming up.
