Middle Man (album) explained

Middle Man is the ninth studio album by Boz Scaggs, released by Columbia Records in 1980. Scaggs hired members of the band Toto as session musicians (as he did for Down Two Then Left and Silk Degrees) and shared songwriting credits with them, returning to the commercial, soul-influenced rock of the latter. It would take him eight years to release his following album Other Roads, again retaining the personnel of the three preceding it.

The album reached No. 8 in the Billboard 200 album chart, and two singles reached the Billboard Hot 100: "Breakdown Dead Ahead" at No. 15 and "Jojo" at No. 17.^[2]

Reception

Writing for Smash Hits in 1980, David Hepworth described Middle Man as an "impeccably tasteful collection of sophisticated white soul" that was "useful as background music in the more sedate kind of nite spot". Acknowledging that the album was "well done", Hepworth noted that Scaggs' previous albums were "thrilling as well as perfectly formed". Hepworth went on to say that the album sounded as though "they designed the sleeve first and then made the record to go in it". Interestingly, two cuts from the album, "Jojo" and "Breakdown Dead Ahead", landed higher on the Canadian charts than on any other international or US charts, indicating that Canadian audiences had embraced Scaggs' harder rock edge, diverging from slower ballads and hits such as "Look What You've Done To Me", which he deftly wrote in the same year, as a track for the movie Urban Cowboy.

AllMusic's retrospective review commented that the album "caps off the decade with equal nods to [Scaggs's] '70s hitmaking formulas and the newer, shinier production techniques of the coming decade." They made a point of noting the album's repeated imitation of then-popular fads, while at the same time, opining that these imitations were successful.

Track listing

All songs written by David Foster and Boz Scaggs, except where noted.

Personnel

• Boz Scaggs – lead vocals, guitar (1–8)
• David Foster – synthesizers (1, 3, 5, 7–9), acoustic piano (1–5, 7), string arrangements (1, 3–5, 8), electric piano (3, 4, 8), synthesizer programming
• Don Grolnick – electric piano (2), acoustic piano (8)
• David Paich – additional synthesizer (3), organ (6), synthesizers (6)
• James Newton Howard – clavinet (6)
• Michael Boddicker – synthesizer programming
• Larry Fast – synthesizer programming
• Steve Porcaro – synthesizer programming
• Ray Parker Jr. – guitar (1–8), bass (6)
• Steve Lukather – lead guitars (1, 3, 5–8), additional guitars (2), guitar solo (2, 7, 8), all guitars (9)
• Carlos Santana – guitar solo (4)
• John Pierce – bass (1)
• David Hungate – bass (2–5, 7–9)
• Jeff Porcaro – drums (1, 3–5, 7, 9)
• Rick Marotta – drums (2, 8)
• Joe Vitale – drums (6)
• Lenny Castro – percussion
• Adrian Tapia – saxophone solo (1)
• Marty Paich – string arrangements (4)
• Charlotte Crossley – backing vocals (1)
• David Lasley – backing vocals (1, 6)
• Sharon Redd – backing vocals (1)
• Paulette Brown – backing vocals (2, 3, 5, 8, 9)
• Venetta Fields – backing vocals (2, 3, 5, 8, 9)
• Bill Thedford – backing vocals (2, 3, 8)
• Julia Tillman Waters – backing vocals (5, 9)
• Oren Waters – backing vocals (5, 9)
• Bill Champlin – backing vocals (6)
• Chuck "Fingers" Irwin – backing vocals (6)
• Rosemary Butler – backing vocals (7, 8)

Production

• Producer and Engineer – Bill Schnee
• Assistant Engineers – Stephen Marcussen and Gabe Veltri
• Mastered by Doug Sax and Mike Reese at The Mastering Lab (Los Angeles, CA).
• Design – Nancy Donald
• Photography – Guy Bourdin
• Management – Irving Azoff

Charts

Weekly Charts

Chart (1980)	Peak position
Australia (Kent Music Report)[3]	11
U.S. Billboard 200	8
U.S. Billboard R&B Albums	36

Year-end charts

Chart (1980)	Peak position
Australia (Kent Music Report)[4]	21
U.S. Billboard 200	37

Further reading

• Book: Draper, Jason. A Brief History of Album Covers. Flame Tree Publishing. London. 2008. 210–211. 9781847862112. 227198538.

External links

• Middle Man Lyrics

Notes and References

1. Web site: Koda. Cub. Middle Man. AllMusic. 22 March 2018.
2. Boz Scaggs Chart History
3. Book: Kent, David. David Kent (historian). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992. illustrated. Australian Chart Book. St Ives, N.S.W.. 1993. 0-646-11917-6. 266.
4. Book: Kent, David. David Kent (historian). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992. illustrated. Australian Chart Book. St Ives, N.S.W.. 1993. 0-646-11917-6. 432.