Songoftheday 2/2/16 - One day you may find true love that will last forever and ever, till then you'll spend a lifetime wishing one together...

"Heart Of Mine" - Boz Scaggs
from the album Other Roads (1988)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #35 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 4

Today's song of the day comes from Boz Scaggs, the Texan singer/guitarist who after a solo albums in the mid 60s, got his big break by hooking back up with guitar king Steve Miller (who he was with in the 50s with the Marksmen). He appeared on the Steve Miller Band's first two albums including the gold record Sailor. Going back on his own in 1969, it wasn't until his third release Moments that he finally scored a minor pop hit in the US with "We Were Always Sweethearts" (#61). Three more modestly-performing albums followed, while his sound evolved from a blues/jam-type sound akin to the old Steve Miller Band stuff to a slicker, soulful production. That climaxed with his 1976 album Silk Degrees, which sold over five million copies in America alone. The first single, "It's Over", nabbed Boz his first pop top-40 hit at #38, but it was the follow-up, "Lowdown", that became his signature song. Going full disco, the single not only climbed to #3 on the pop chart, but made it to #11 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart and #12 on their Dance Club Play list. The song even crossed over to the R&B chart, scaling to #5 and eventually giving Scaggs the Grammy for Best R&B Song. The third single from Silk Degrees, "What Can I Say", brought Boz to the top ten in England. He stumbled a bit with his next album, but then started out the 1980's with four consecutive top-20 pop hits including the #14 pop, #3 AC "Look What You Done To Me" from the John Travolta movie Urban Cowboy. He even landed a second big R&B hit with "JoJo" (#17). However, with this momentum, Boz took an eight-year break before releasing his next studio set, Other Roads in 1988. The first single from the set, "Heart Of Mine", was co-written by fellow soft-rock singer Bobby Caldwell ("What You Won't Do For Love") and Peter Cetera's replacement in Chicago, Jason Scheff (along with Dennis Matkosky). It ventured even farther into lily-white "easy listening" music, without even a hint of the soul from Silk Degrees, masking the lyrics of heartbreak the "soundtrack-style" ballad contains...

"Heart Of Mine" became Boz's eighth and so-far last top-40 pop hit in America in June of 1988. It's biggest success was at Adult Contemporary radio, where it was his biggest hit spending two weeks at #3 and 21 weeks on the chart. The second single from Other Roads, the reggae-tinged "Cool Running", would slip into the AC chart at #39. Although mainstream radio has left him behind with most "soft rock" artists, Boz continues to tour successfully and release albums, with 2013's excellent Memphis record reaching #17 on the American albums chart.

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..and here's Boz performing the song live in concert...

Up tomorrow: an African soul queen finds nirvana.