Boz Scaggs to make long-awaited album return in October

Singer/guitarist Boz Scaggs will release 'Detour,' which focuses on the Great American Songbook, on October 17 via Concord Records. It is his first new studio album in seven years. The first single is “I’ll Be Long Gone,” a newly arranged take on the fan-favorite track, also on Scaggs' 1969 self-titled debut.

“I had no intention of making a record when I started singing these songs,” Scaggs confesses. “It was all very casual at first, just an opportunity to explore a style of music I’ve always liked, to get together with a friend and play for the sheer joy of it.”

That friend is pianist Seth Asarnow, and their informal sessions together became the heart of Detour. The album started as a series of personal demos for Scaggs to expand his vocal stylings. The result is a mix of the familiar and the obscure that tips its hat to Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Irma Thomas and others. 

“If I look at myself as a musician over the years, I’d have to consider my primary instrument to be my voice,” he says. The veteran musician tackles Allen Toussaint’s “It’s Raining,” “The Very Thought Of You” and he revisited “I’ll Be Long Gone” at the suggestion of pianist Seth Asarnow. “I get a lot of requests for it,” Scaggs explains, “he put together this beautiful arrangement... it ended up falling in perfectly with everything else we did for this album.”

Track listing:

1. It's Raining
2. Angel Eyes
3. Once I Loved
4. The Very Thought of You
5. I'll Be Long Gone
6. Detour Ahead
7. I Could Have Told You
8. The Meaning of the Blues
9. Tomorrow Night
10. Too Late Now
11. We'll Be Together Again