Boston

Born on March 10, 1947, in Toledo, Ohio, guitarist and studio wizard Tom Scholz functioned as the driving force behind arena rock outfit Boston, the act responsible for one of the quickest-selling debut albums on record. A devoted rock enthusiast from his teenage years onward, he started composing material while completing a master’s degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Once he graduated, Scholz took a position at Polaroid and simultaneously built a twelve-track home studio in his basement, where he and singer Brad Delp laid down the demo recordings that secured a deal with Epic in 1975. Although additional tracking and overdubs occurred later in Los Angeles, the 1976 album Boston drew almost entirely from those basement tapes. By then the core lineup had settled around Scholz, Delp, guitarist Barry Goudreau, bassist Fran Sheehan, and drummer John “Sib” Hashian. The release yielded three hit singles—“More Than a Feeling,” “Long Time,” and “Peace of Mind”—and rocketed straight to number one, holding the title of best-selling pop debut until Whitney Houston’s first album displaced it in 1986.

Even after the record’s massive commercial triumph, Scholz labored more than two years on the follow-up, 1978’s chart-topping Don’t Look Back, and only allowed its release under heavy pressure from the label. Unhappy with the finished product, he vowed to proceed at his own deliberate speed on future projects; consequently, the number-one album Third Stage did not surface until 1986, by which point Scholz and Delp were the sole remaining members of the original group.

Scholz then devoted the next several years to litigation, ultimately prevailing in a seven-year lawsuit against Epic that accused Boston of breaching its contract through excessive delays between albums. When the band resurfaced in 1994 with Walk On, Scholz stood as the only holdover from earlier editions; Delp and Goudreau had already rejoined forces in 1992 as RTZ and issued the album Return to Zero. In contrast to earlier comebacks, Walk On met with commercial disappointment as radio and MTV declined to support any singles or videos, while the sparse aesthetic favored by the era’s leading alternative acts rendered the pristine production and extended recording schedule distinctly out of step.

After taking another eight years to prepare the subsequent release, Scholz first courted online listeners by issuing a single through www.MP3.com in summer 2002. The track quickly became the site’s top download and helped generate early buzz for the new album, an effort further aided by Delp’s return to the fold. Scholz also aimed pointed lyrical barbs at political and corporate targets, going so far as to name the project Corporate America in order to underscore his critique of the very industry structures he had once helped sustain. Following the album’s autumn release, Boston toured extensively into 2004. Around the same period Scholz resumed work on the next record, still employing the same studio gear the band had used since its earliest days. Progress remained gradual, darkened further by Delp’s suicide in 2007, yet the group’s sixth album, Life, Love & Hope, appeared on Frontiers Records in late 2013. The set incorporated vocals by Delp and marked a return to the classic Boston sound of the 1970s.