美国国家公共电台 NPR Boz Scaggs Processes The Past And Rebuilds For The Future

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Boz Scaggs is out with a new album called "Out Of The Blues¹." No surprise - over 50 years of making music, he's wandered into R&B, rock ’n’ roll and even some smooth disco. But always, always, his passion for the blues has shone through the music. He joined us from San Francisco.

BOZ SCAGGS: The blues comes along very quickly and very naturally if you're living in a small town in Texas or Oklahoma and you want to play guitar because it's a very basic and simple form. It comes from a complex emotional place. And as it evolved, it picked up subtleties² from every stop and from every one who used the form. And that nuance³ is very important to someone who listens to the blues.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RADIATOR⁴ 110")

SCAGGS: (Singing) Every time I see you walking, I get a temperature of 110. Every time I see you walking, I get a temperature of 110. When you catch yourself cooling down, you heat right up again. I know you've been to college...

If you're digging into it, the notes have to fall right. There's a authentic⁵ way to do it.

MONTAGNE: When you talk about authenticity⁶ and how the notes have to fall, how does that apply to a different, somewhat more recent passion of yours, which is winemaking?

SCAGGS: Well, I'm not a winemaker. And I'm not a - my wife and I bought a little bare piece of land between Napa and Sonoma. We had no intention of growing grapes or producing wine. But a friend of ours who lived nearby, he says, I happen to have some grape vines here left over from a job. Would you like me to stick them in the ground for you? It was months later, after I was coming home from a tour, and I came down my driveway and it was - there was a full moon. And as I was rounding the corner of the road, I looked out into the field and there were something growing that I hadn't noticed before. And I went out in the field. And it was the grape vines. And they had energy, and bigger and stature⁷ like unlike anything else that we'd planted. And I developed some fascination⁸ for these vines. And then, in time, you taste the grapes and you - one thing leads to another. And the next thing you know, you're wondering what it would be like if you took the grapes and made some wine out of it. And we found that we're not very good at selling the wine. It's essentially⁹ family and friends. And it's a thing that sort of binds¹⁰ us to where we are.

MONTAGNE: Sadly that land was caught up in the deadly wildfires last fall north of San Francisco. And Scaggs' winery was not spared. They lost...

SCAGGS: ...Everything.

MONTAGNE: Consumed by flames.

SCAGGS: Yeah. Everything. It's a mind-blower in any way you turn it. But it's simply, all is gone.

MONTAGNE: And this, in a way, connects to your music - I mean, tapes and various things like that?

SCAGGS: Yeah. The books and the odd pieces of paper where I'd written the lyrics¹¹ to everything I've ever done. And that was in some way especially hard for me to come to terms with.

MONTAGNE: Yeah. Could I ask, do you handwrite? I mean, is that what they are?

SCAGGS: Yeah, I write by hand. I just use legal pads. And cocktail¹² napkins are a very popular place to get some of the best lines. You know, all sorts of things with little notes, and scribbles¹³ and so forth¹⁴.

MONTAGNE: For me, one of the blues songs on this album seemed to speak to a certain amount of pain and disorientation of great loss, such as you've had. It's a Neil Young song. It's called "On The Beach." We're going to play some of it. But is there something to say about that?

SCAGGS: Well, let's take a line from that song.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ON THE BEACH")

SCAGGS: (Singing) Though my problems are meaningless, that don't make them go away.

That's one - it sort of answers a quest that a lot of, let's say, our spiritual seekers are confronted with - the meaningless and the nothingness of it all, really, in an ultimate sense. But it don't make the pain go away, to put it in a vernacular¹⁵.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ON THE BEACH")

MONTAGNE: But you are rebuilding, right? Is that how you process it?

SCAGGS: Mm-hmm. That's one way we do it. We're replanting the vineyards as we speak. It's really a part of the coming-to-terms-with-it-all process.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ON THE BEACH")

MONTAGNE: Boz Scaggs, his new album "Out Of The Blues" is out now. Thank you very much.

SCAGGS: Thanks, Renee, nice being with you.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ON THE BEACH")

SCAGGS: (Singing) When I needed you to stand by my side, all you did was...

MONTAGNE: BJ Leiderman writes our theme music. This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.