Boz Scaggs – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

Steve Miller – Living In The U.S.A.

We’re living in a plastic land
Somebody give me a hand, yeah

I really like the organ in this song as well as the race car that’s revving up… it’s so vibrant. Miller also sets the mood with the harmonica he is playing. It’s too bad his earlier albums get lost in the shuffle because of his success from The Joker on. Those albums show a different Miller than the masses know from his big hits.

This song was released in 1968 on the Sailor LP which was the Steve Miller Band’s second LP. The album peaked at #24 on the Billboard Album Charts and #27 in Canada. Although the song was popular in the late 1960s, it truly gained a resurgence on rock radio in the late 1970s due to the success of the Fly Like an Eagle album.

Out of all Steve Miller songs…this one may be my favorite. This song peaked at #92 and then charted again at #49 in 1974. It wasn’t a big hit but it did get played on FM radio. Boz Scaggs was in Miller’s band at this time and sang harmonies.

Steve Miller: I had come out of a radical environment at the University of Wisconsin in the early ‘60s. I had been a Freedom Rider in the Civil Rights campaign and then I got involved in the Vietnam War demonstrations and debates. That was all going on, and then I ended up out in California where the psychedelic revolution was taking place. So when you combine those things, it was very powerful [creatively].

“Living in the U.S.A.” was put together with the idea of playing at the Democratic National Convention in 1968 in Chicago. That was the one where the cops beat everybody up—Mayor [Richard] Daley brought out the Chicago police. So it was a political tune. It came out, and it was kind of a hit. Then it went away, and then about five or six years later it sold 100,000 copies in a week in Philadelphia for no reason whatsoever.

Living In The U.S.A.

Stand back, stand back
Stand back, stand back

Doot do do do do doot doot
Living in the U.S.A.
Doot do do do do doot doot
Living in the U.S.A.

Where are you goin’ to
What are you gonna do
Do you think that it will be easy
Do you think that it will be pleasin’, hey

Stand back, what’d you say
Stand back, I won’t pay
Stand back, I’d rather play
Stand back

It’s my freedom
Ah, don’t worry ’bout me, babe
I got to be free, babe
Hey

Doot do do do do doot doot
Living in the U.S.A.
Doot do do do do doot doot
Living in the U.S.A.

Stand back, dietician
Stand back, television
Stand back, politician
Stand back, mortician

Oh, we got to get away
Living in the U.S.A.
Come on baby, Owwww

I see a yellow man, a brown man
A white man, a red man
Lookin’ for Uncle Sam
To give you a helpin’ hand
But everybody’s kickin’ sand
Even politicians
We’re living in a plastic land
Somebody give me a hand, yeah

Oh, we’re gonna make it, baby
Oh, we’re going to shake it, baby
Oh, don’t break it
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Come on baby, hey
Hey, hey
In the U.S.A., babe yeah

Doot do do do do doot doot
Living in the U.S.A.
Don’t worry ’bout me, babe
Doot do do do do doot doot
Living in the U.S.A.
Living in the U.S.A.
Doot do do do do doot doot
Living in the U.S.A.
I got to be free
Doot do do do do doot doot
Living in the U.S.A.
Come on try it, you can buy it, you can leave it next week, yeah
Somebody give me a cheeseburger

Boz Scaggs – Loan Me A Dime

An awesome blues song that shows what Boz Scaggs was all about before the hits came. He had been playing with Steve Miller and in 1969 he made this self-titled album Boz Scaggs. He spent some time down south getting this together. He also made a self-titled album (Boz) in 1967 and released it in Europe for the record.

Jann Wenner, the founder of Rolling Stone magazine, was producing Boz’s first U.S. solo album, and he took him to Jerry Wexler at Atlantic Records, who suggested recording in the South. They had a choice of studios…Stax in Memphis, Phil Walden’s studio in Macon, or Muscle Shoals Sound, a new studio founded by the rhythm section from FAME Studios. Boz and Jann listened to everything that was coming out of those studios and they soon knew they wanted the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, and they wanted Duane Allman.

Boz didn’t know a lot about Duane, but he got a good sense of his stature by spending that week with him at Muscle Shoals Sound. Duane’s work with Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin had preceded him, but Boz was most struck by who Duane was to the players at the studio. They lit up when Duane walked in the room…their respect for him was clear.

Boz Scaggs: “Duane had a profound effect on that album. One of the real revelations to me was Duane’s character, seeing him in the South hanging out with those guys. In his appearance, he looked like he was from New York or L.A., with long hair. It was a brave statement in itself in redneck America. You could get in trouble just driving around in his car. It was an occasion and a homecoming. They held him in very high esteem. He was the dude. He was the natural leader, and he made everyone laugh. It was a side I didn’t see in Macon, where he was much more serious and focused.”

Duane set up his amp in the bathroom at the studio on this recording. He liked to do that so his guitar wouldn’t bleed through on the other instruments. This song has some of Allman’s best playing.

Scaggs and his girlfriend Carmella settled into Macon Georgia and were part of the Allman Brothers Band extended family for a time, enjoying the musical energy and experience in Macon. By this time Macon was host to a lot of different musicians. Boz went fishing and played poker with the Allmans late into the night, drinking beer, and telling stories.

This song is usually listed in the top 5 of Boz Scaggs’s songs. It is not as well known but a great blues track. The track was written by Fenton Robinson.

Boz Scaggs: “The first time we did it, it lasted twenty-five minutes and everyone thought it was such a gas, they trouped back in and did it again and we ended up with about forty minutes of ‘Loan Me a Dime’ and we wanted to use at least twenty minutes of it, but we had to use the shorter version, but that music is in the can somewhere in Muscle Shoals, and Duane was really rockin’ out.”

Loan Me A Dime

Somebody loan me a dime
I need to call my old time used to be
Somebody loan me a dime mmm
I need to call my old time that used to be

Little girl’s been gone so long
You know it’s worrying me
Hey it’s worrying worrying me

I know she’s a good girl
But at that time I just didn’t understand
I know she’s a good girl
But at that time I just didn’t understand
Oh no I didn’t

Somebody loan me a dime
You know I need.. I need a helping hand

Oh… she’s a good girl
But at that time I just didn’t understand
Ooooh I know she’s a good girl
But at that time I just could not understand
Oh no

Somebody better loan me that dime
To ease my worried worried mind.. oh
Now I cry.. I just cry
Just like a baby all night long.. oooh
You know I cry I just cry
Just like a baby all night long.. oooh
Somebody better loan me that dime
I need my baby
I need my baby here at home.. oooh YES

Bobby “Blue” Bland – Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City

When I listened to this for the first time, my first thought was… Damn this is good! When I read music books about artists…one artist will talk about another and they will talk about another. It’s like a river with all the twists and turns and you never know who you will hear about next.

If you listen to this song grab some headphones and listen to his wonderfully smooth-rough voice. Also, keep an ear out for the fuzz guitar doing runs in the background. When you hear someone like Gregg Allman say that Bobby “Blue” Bland is one of his singing idols…you know something great is there waiting to be heard. This I have heard before and was impressed even without Mr. Allman’s recommendation.

“Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City” was written by Michael Price and Dan Walsh, a pair of journeymen songwriters who wrote different kinds of music like The Grass Roots’ 1970 hit “Temptation Eyes.”

Bobby was the first to record this song and it was released on his 1974 album Dreamer. The song peaked at #9 in the R&B Charts and #91 in the Billboard 100.

Bland began his career in Memphis, Tennessee, with bluesman B.B. King and ballad singer Johnny Ace (all three were part of a loose aggregation of musicians known as the Beale Streeters). He had some hits in the 50s and early 60s but had some financial troubles in 1968 and had to break up his band.

His record company was then sold to ABC Dunhill and he started up his career again and continued to chart til the 1980s. Of all bands…Whitesnake covered this song in 1978 and it charted in the UK in 1980.

Boz Scaggs: “I made a point of getting to know him over the years, not that I knew him well. But he came down to the studio when we were making the Memphis record a couple of times. He sat in the control room and listened to the playback of some of the songs, and he was treating me very fatherly, where he’d say ‘Here’s where you’re going to go here,’ and he was singing to me as the track was playing back. Then we got a chance to talk.

“It was like a lot of that part of his life, his music, was intact, and he was very vivid about that, vivid in talking about his early influences, it was all there. He was obviously frail, and it was hard for him to get around, but when he settled down, he loved talking about his life and his craft.”

Gregg Allman: “We were doing “Turn On Your Love Light,” because we had heard Bobby “Blue” Bland do it, and, man, you talk about an original talent—there will be, and can be, only one Bobby “Blue” Bland.”

Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City

Ain’t no love in the heart of the city
Ain’t no love in the heart of town
Ain’t no love, and it’s sure ’nuff a pity
Ain’t no love, ’cause you ain’t around

When you were mine
Oh, I was feeling so good
‘Cause your love lit up this old neighborhood
And now that you’re gone
You know the sun don’t shine
From the city hall to the county line
That’s why I said

Ain’t no love in the heart of the city
Ain’t no love in the heart of town
Ain’t no love, and it sure is a pity
Ain’t no love, ’cause you ain’t around

Every place that I go
Oh, it seems so strange
Without you there
Things have changed
The night time calls
There’s a blanket of gloom
Another teardrop falls
In my lonely room

I said ain’t no love
In the heart of the city
Ain’t no love in the heart of town
Ain’t no love, ain’t any pity
Ain’t no love ’cause you ain’t around

And now that you’re gone
Oh, the sun don’t shine
From the city hall to the county line, I said

Ain’t no love in the heart of the city
Ain’t no love in the heart of town
Ain’t no love, it sure is a pity
Ain’t no love ’cause you ain’t around
‘Cause you ain’t around

Ain’t no love in the heart of the city
Ain’t no love in this great big old town
Ain’t no love, and ain’t it a pity
Ain’t no love ’cause you ain’t around

Ain’t no love in the heart of the city
Ain’t no love in the heart of this town

Boz Scaggs – Lowdown

This was his biggest charting hit. It peaked at #3 in the Billboard 100 in 1976. It’s groove song I’ve always liked…very smooth and catchy.

Scaggs wrote this song with the keyboard player David Paich, who would later form the band Toto and write many of their hits. “Lowdown” was the first song that Scaggs and Paich wrote together…it was Silk Degrees producer Joe Wissert who put them together.

Boz Scaggs said: “We took off for a weekend to this getaway outside of LA where there was a piano and stayed up all night banging around ideas. We hit on ‘Lowdown,’ and then we brought it back to the band and recorded it. We were just thrilled with that one. That was the first song that we attempted, and it had a magic to it.”

From Songfacts

This was the second single released from Silk Degrees. The first was “It’s Over,” which charted at a modest #38 in May 1976. Scaggs had little name recognition at the time, and sales were stagnant for the album until an R&B radio station in Cleveland started playing “Lowdown.” Other stations followed suit, and it quickly became clear that the song had crossover appeal and hit potential. Scaggs’ label, CBS, released it as a single and it climbed to #3 on the Hot 100 in October, spurring sales of the album along the way.

The song is about a girl who doesn’t appreciate what her man gives her. The “dirty lowdown” is the honest truth – what Scaggs is encouraging this poor sap to face.

The word “Lowdown” was popular slang meaning a summary of what’s going on for real. The first Hot 100 entry with the term in the title came in 1969 with the instrumental “Lowdown Popcorn” by James Brown (#41, 1969). Next came Chicago’s song “Lowdown” (#35, 1971).

Along with keyboard player David Paich, two other future Toto members also played on this track: drummer Jeff Porcaro and bass player David Hungate. The Silk Degrees marked the first time that Scaggs used these studio pros, and it was also his first album produced by Joe Wissert, who was a staff producer at Columbia Records who had previously worked with Earth, Wind & Fire.

The crew for the album found just the right sound, a Disco-blend that could play in dance clubs and pool halls. Scaggs credits Wissert for giving him and the other musicians plenty of freedom in the studio, resulting in one of the most successful albums of the ’70s – Silk Degrees went on to sell over five million copies.

This won the Grammy for Best R&B Song of 1976, making Scaggs the first white artist to win the award (Leo Sayer was the second, taking the trophy the next year for “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing.”)

The producers of Saturday Night Fever asked to use this in their movie, but Scaggs’ manager turned them down and instead used it in the movie Looking For Mr. Goodbar. Not a good move – Saturday Night Fever became one of the best-selling soundtracks of all time.

Lowdown

Baby’s into running around
Hanging with the crowd
Putting your business in the street
Talking out loud
Saying you bought her this and that
And how much you done spent
I swear she must believe it’s all heaven sent

Hey boy you better bring the chick around
To the sad, sad truth the dirty lowdown

(Ooh I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who)
Taught her how to talk like that
(Ooh I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who)
Gave her that big idea

Nothin’ you can’t handle
Nothin’ you ain’t got
Put your money on the table
And drive it off the lot
Turn on that old love light
And turn a “maybe” to a “yes”
Same old schoolboy game got you into this mess

Hey son, better get back on to town
Face the sad old truth, the dirty lowdown

(Ooh I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who)
Put those ideas in your head
(Ooh I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who)

Yeah

Come on back down, little son
Dig the low, low, low, low, lowdown!

You ain’t got to be so bad, got to be so cold
This dog eat dog existence sure is getting old
Got to have a Jones for this
Jones for that
This runnin’ with the Joneses, boy, just ain’t where it’s at, no, no

You gonna come back around
To the sad, sad truth, the dirty lowdown

(Ooh I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who)
Got you thinking like that, boy
(Ooh I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who)

I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who
Said I wonder, wonder, wonder, I wonder who
Oh, look out for that lowdown (ohh, I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who)
That dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty lowdown

Ooh I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who
Ooh I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who

Got you thinkin’ like that
Got you thinkin’ just like that
(Ooh I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who)
Lookin’ that girl in the face is so sad
I’m ashamed of you

I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who

Boz Scaggs – Lido Shuffle

I have always liked this song. It was forever before I knew the name. Lido Shuffle peaked at #11 in the Billboard 100, #5 Canada, #13 in the UK in 1977.

Boz Scaggs met Steve Miller in 1959 and they played in various bands together. He then traveled to London, Sweden, and San Francisco and hooked back up with Miller again and played in the Steve Miller Band for their first two albums. He signed with Columbia Records in 1972. This song was on his platinum album Silk Degrees released in 1976 which peaked at #2 in the Billboard album charts.

Boz Scaggs wrote this song with David Paich, who was also his co-writer on “Lowdown.” Scaggs said: “‘Lido’ was a song that I’d been banging around. And I kind of stole… well, I didn’t steal anything. I just took the idea of the shuffle. There was a song that Fats Domino did called ‘The Fat Man’ that had a kind of driving shuffle beat that I used to play on the piano, and I just started kind of singing along with it. Then I showed it to Paich and he helped me fill it out. It ended up being ‘Lido Shuffle.'”

From Songfacts

The song is about a drifter looking for a big score. Scaggs and Paich were both very good at crafting songs with intriguing storylines using words and phrases that don’t often show up in a lyric: “A tombstone bar,” “makin’ like a beeline…”

The name Lido is very unusual as well. From the perspective of songcraft, it’s very versatile, allowing the singer to get clear vocal sounds and follow with the “whoa-oh-oh-oh” hook. Kenny Loggins did something similar on his song “Footloose,” writing the character “Milo” into it (“Woah… Milo, come on, come on let’s go”).

The last single from Silk Degrees, this wasn’t released until about a year after the album was issued. The first single, “It’s Over,” peaked in May 1976; “Lido Shuffle” didn’t reach its chart peak until May 1977. The Silk Degrees album was a slow burner, gradually gaining momentum and selling over 5 million copies.

The song’s co-writer David Paich played keyboards on this track. Scaggs played guitar, bass was handled by David Hungate, and Jeff Porcaro played drums. Paich, Hungate and Porcaro would soon form the band Toto.

Lido Shuffle

Lido missed the boat that day he left the shack
But that was all he missed
And he ain’t comin’ back

At a tombstone bar, in a juke joint car he made a stop
Just long enough to grab a handle off the top

Next stop Chi town, Lido put the money down, let ’em roll
He said one more job ought to get it
One last shot ‘fore we quit it
One for the road

Lido
Whoah oh oh oh
He’s for the money, he’s for the show
Lido’s waitin’ for the go, Lido
Whoah oh oh oh oh oh
He said one more job ought to get it
One last shot ‘fore we quit it
One more for the road

Lido will be runnin’, havin’ great big funnin’ till he got the note
Sayin’ toe the line or blow it and that was all she wrote

He’ll be makin’ like a bee line, headin’ for the border line, goin’ for broke
Sayin’ one more hit ought to do it
This joint ain’t nothin’ to it
One more for the road

Lido
Whoah oh oh oh
He’s for the money, he’s for the show
Lido’s waitin’ for the go, Lido
Whoah oh oh oh oh oh
One more job ought to get it
One last shot then we quit it
One more for the road

Lido
Woah oh oh oh
He’s for the money, he’s for the show
Lido’s waitin’ for the go, Lido
Woah oh oh oh oh oh
One more job ought to get it