Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Better than ever. Silk Degrees, February 28, 2007
We have been waiting for a long time for this to be re-mastered and re-released. Sometimes I am not thrilled with the sound of the remastered versions. It seems that so much more can be done, like with the recent re-release of ELO's Out of the Blue (which is very good, but could have been better). Silk Degrees comes alive on this version. The songs, of course, are wonderful, as anyone looking at this already knows and probably has owned it in more than one format. The sound is what draws you in and will keep you coming back, I know I will. Hopefully the rest of the wonderful Scaggs releases will get the same treatment. Be sure to buy this one and maybe there will be more.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The sound of the '70s, March 31, 2007
Few albums encapsulate America of the mid-70s as smoothly as Scaggs' 1976 commercial breakthrough. The bluesy-rock roots he sang with Steve Miller and the blue-eyed R&B he recorded since his 1969 solo debut provided a foundation for something more polished and sophisticated. The key was a production sound that took in the elements of disco - strings, horns, synthesizers and danceable beats - but didn't cast Scaggs' soul into slickness. The resulting record grabbed dancers by their velvet lapels and compelled radio listeners to the record store. Scaggs made the urbane turn Robert Palmer would visualize on video in the '80s.
"Silk Degrees" wasn't completely unprecedented, even among Scaggs catalog; he'd already been edging in this direction, bathing in the blues and soul of collaborations with Duane Allman and the Muscle Shoals rhythm section. His preceding LP, 1974's "Slow Dancer," boasted horns, strings and some embryonic disco rhythms, but it didn't have Joe Wissert's sharp production or the L.A. studio rhythm section anchored by drummer Jeff Porcaro and bassist David Hungate. The blend of Porcaro's crisp playing and Hungate's lightly funky low strings creates a propulsive groove throughout the album. Their percussive opening on "Lowdown" is just one of the album's great instrumental moments -- and a popular sample to this day.
Scaggs' songs brimmed with optimism, fitting perfectly into an America that was still re-awakening from the debacles of Vietnam and Richard Nixon, and readying itself for a bicentennial celebration. The horn charts carried the warmth of an L.A. summer, and Scaggs is - for the first time at album length - completely at ease. The album sparkles with the band's intense studio craft, but still feels effortless and organic. Scaggs' tenor fits both the mid-tempo numbers and the soaring ballads with memorable perfection. If you were an American high school student in 1976, you no doubt have fond memories of slow-dancing to the six-minute "Harbor Lights."
Legacy's 30th anniversary reissue includes new notes from Scaggs and an essay by Bud Scoppa. Three bonus tracks provide contemporaneous versions of "What Can I Say" "Jump Street" and "It's Over" from a 1976 concert at the Los Angeles Greek Theater. They're a nice coda to the original album, showing how the songs translated to live performance (good, but not as good as the studio versions), but after ten perfect tracks, the reprise is nearly superfluous. [©2007 hyperbolium dot com]
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Some of the best crafted pop music of the 1970s, March 17, 2007
Boz Scaggs, or this album in particular, is one of the enduring "guitly pleasures" of my misspent youth in the '70s... Now, I didn't own this album back then -- you didn't have to, since just about every track on here got tons of radio airplay, all through the disco era. It's whiteboy soul of the highest order -- slick, modern, immaculately produced but also soulful and sung with great passion. This 2007 reissue/remaster boasts wonderful sound quality as well as a trio of live tunes ("What Can I Say," "Jump Street" and "It's Over") recorded at a show in LA's the Greek Theater that demonstrate that Scaggs and "Silk Degrees" weren't just an in-the-studio phenomenon. One of the classic '70s albums that really stands up well over the decades.
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