Boz Scaggs Shares Neil Young Cover

Singer-songwriter Boz Scaggs will issue a new album Out Of The Blues on July 27 through Concord Records. The collection of originals and covers includes Scaggs’ version of Neil Young’s “On The Beach,” which is available in advance of the record’s official release.

Scaggs self-produced the nine-track Out Of The Blues, which completes a trilogy of sorts along with previous Steve Jordan-produced albums A Fool to Care and Memphis. Recording sessions featured Scaggs joined by a talented group of musicians including renowned session drummer Jim Keltner, guitarists Doyle Bramhall II, Ray Parker Jr. and Charlie Sexton, bassist Willie Weeks and keyboardist Jim Cox. Scaggs’ regular collaborator Jack Walroth added harmonica and wrote the new original songs included on the album.

In addition to covering Young, Scaggs – who contributed guitar, bass and vocoder – also recorded covers of songs made famous by Bobby “Blue” Bland, Jimmy Reed and Magic Sam.

“My son and some friends of his do these music productions, where they invite a number of different players and they do thematic concerts, and they had asked me to do a couple of their shows,” Scaggs said referring to Neil Fest 2017. “They were doing Neil Young, and it had been my son’s and his partners’ suggestion that I do ‘On the Beach.’ In the course of preparing for the show, I tried on some other Neil Young songs, but they really thought that the minor blues idiom of ‘On the Beach’ would work for me, and they were right. The song just captivated me, and while it’s not a traditional blues form, it’s a blues song in spirit, and I thought it belonged on the album.”

Listen to Scaggs’ version of Young’s “On The Beach” below:

Out Of The Blues Tracklist

1. Rock and Stick
2. I’ve Just Got to Forget You
3. I’ve Just Got To Know
4. Radiator 110
5. Little Miss Night and Day
6. On The Beach
7. Down In Virginia
8. Those Lies
9. The Feeling Is Gone