I've never really followed Boz' career. Of course, if you listened to pop radio in the '70s, you couldn't miss his string of hits, so I was certainly familiar with him, but I never bought any of his albums, though I did tape "Loan Me A Dime", the blistering l-o-n-g song featuring Duane Allman. Fast forward to 2003, and my wife gets a copy of "But Beautiful", Boz' album of standards like "Sophisticated Lady" and "What's New". Hmmm, very nice. Fast forward again, and in 2013, Boz released "Memphis", recorded in the same studio that Al Green used. Wow! It's subtly great, so subtle that at first listen you might think there wasn't much going on. But the band (studio guys like Willie Weeks and Steve Jordan) is fine, and the album is full of unlikely covers ("Love on a Two Way Street", "Can I Change My Mind", Mink DeVille's "Mixed Up, Shook Up Girl", Steely Dan's "Pearl of the Quarter" -- that was the song the piqued my interest in the album). Boz does a fantastic version of "Rainy Night in Georgia", but you have to be content with a far distant second or third with that song -- Brook Benton OWNS it. I don't know if there are any Boz originals because the library copy has no booklet, so I got zip for songwriting credits, other musicians (had to read info in the library catalog to find out the little I did).
A little more than half-way through, there's a very simple and powerful version of the blues/folk staple "Corrina, Corrina" that's one of the stand-out tracks for me. All-in-all, a very good album by some who proved their talent over 40 years ago -- amazing!
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