ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Rock music will return to Allentown's Miller Symphony Hall with a Grammy Award winner who in the 1970s sold 9 million albums and had two Top 10 hits.
Boz Scaggs, whose 1976 album “Silk Degrees” went five times platinum with the blues-rock hits “Lowdown” and “Lido Shuffle,” will play the hall at 7 p.m. Sunday, May 21.
- Blues-rocker Boz Scaggs will perform at Miller Symphony Hall in Allentown at 7 p.m. Sunday, May 21
- It will be the first rock show at the venue in a year
- The show announcement comes just weeks after plans were revealed for a similar-sized music venue just blocks away in downtown Allentown
Symphony Hall has offered just a handful of rock shows in the past six years — most recently last April, with Led Zeppelin tribute band Get The Led Out.
But the announcement comes just weeks after developers announced plans for a new state-of-the-art, theater-size music hall with a capacity similar to Symphony Hall just blocks away on Hamilton Street.
Tickets for Scaggs, at $49.50-$125, went on sale Friday at the symphony hall website.
Fifty-eight-year solo career
Scaggs, 78, released his most recent album "Out of the Blues" — his 19th disc of new material — in 2018. It went to No. 1 on the Blues chart and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album.
In his 58-year solo career, Scaggs has sold nearly 10 million albums, including 5 million copies of “Silk Degrees,” which peaked at No. 2. His albums “Down Two Then Left” from 1977 and “Middle Man” in 1980 also both went platinum and were Top 10.
Scaggs first gained fame in the 1960s as a guitarist and lead singer with the Steve Miller Band, with which he recorded two albums, including the Top 25 “Sailor” in 1968.
He released his first solo album, “Boz,” in 1965, then four more solo discs before “Slow Dancer” in 1974 went gold.
“Silk Degrees” was his career high-water mark. It got four Grammy nominations — for Album of the Year, Best Male Pop Vocal Performance and Best R&B Vocal Performance for “Lowdown,” and won a Grammy for Best Rhythm and Blues.
It will be the first time in four years Scaggs has played in the Lehigh Valley.
The last time was in 2019 at Easton’s State Theatre. He also played the State Theatre in 2017.
He performed at Sands Bethlehem Event Center, now Wind Creek Event Center, in 2013. He headlined Bethlehem’s Musikfest in 2012 as part of the Dukes of September show with Michael McDonald and Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen, and also played Lehigh University’s Zoellner Arts Center in 2008.
Irregular rock offerings
Miller Symphony Hall hasn't regularly offered rock or popular music shows since 2011, when it had a run of shows booked by promoter BRE Presents, a prominent promoter based in New Jersey.
The Scaggs show also is a BRE Presents promotion.
The 2011 shows included blues legend Buddy Guy, Americana queen Lucinda Williams, pop/jazz trumpeter Chris Botti, R&B band Tower of Power and Motown greats the Temptations.
Symphony Hall since has concentrated on more classical and jazz-related shows, with scattered popular music shows.
Last year, it had new wave singer Joe Jackson and a cappella group Straight No Chaser, which is scheduled to return in July. Former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett played there in 2020 and former Yes keyboard player Rick Wakeman in 2019.
But in years past, the hall had sold-out shows by rockers Bryan Adams and Chris Cornell, the late Soundgarden and Audioslave singer.
There are others who say a venue with a similar capacity to Symphony Hall can be a successful popular music venue.
Last month, developers City Center Investment Corp. got approval from the Allentown Planning Commission for The Archer, which could fit 1,800 patrons for standing-room shows by national acts that it said it will present three or four times a week.
Miller Symphony Hall has a capacity of nearly 1,200.
The Archer is scheduled to open in spring 2024.
City Center says on its website that it "is currently in discussions with four leading national operators to manage Archer Music Hall and book three or four acts per week."
It has declined to identify those operators.
