Legendary vocalist and guitarist Boz Scaggs has released Detour, his first studio album in seven years. A quietly stunning collection of standards and deep cuts from the American Songbook, Detour is both a celebration of timeless songwriting and a deeply personal chapter in Scaggs' six-decade legacy. A vinyl edition of the album will also be arriving December 5, 2025.
Born from casual, off-the-cuff sessions with pianist Seth Asarnow, Detour began as a private exploration - an exercise in phrasing, intimacy, and the joy of singing just for the sake of it. But what started as a series of demos quickly revealed something undeniable. The voice, arrangements, and emotional clarity demanded to be shared.
"I had no intention of making a record when I started singing these songs," says Scaggs. "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."
The result is a warm, elegant, and emotionally resonant set of performances that includes renditions of Allen Toussaint's "It's Raining" -- whose visualizer is out today -- the sentimental standard "Angel Eyes," and a stunning reinterpretation of "I'll Be Long Gone," a fan favorite from Scaggs' 1969 self-titled debut. The 11-track album moves with quiet confidence through moods of longing, reflection, and grace.
From the smoky tenderness of "The Very Thought of You" to the bossa nova sway of "Once I Loved," Detour is a project that resists category. These aren't covers - they're conversations with the past, delivered with reverence and lived-in wisdom.
"If I look at myself as a musician over the years, I'd have to consider my primary instrument to be my voice," says Scaggs. "And this material gave my voice more room for expression."
Detour marks Scaggs' return to the interpretive tradition he first explored on 2003's But Beautiful (which hit #1 on the Billboard Jazz Chart) and 2008's Speak Low, but it is by far his most personal entry yet. Unlike those previous projects, Detour was built around the specific chemistry between Scaggs and Asarnow, preserving the spontaneity of their earliest recordings and placing the voice front and center.
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