40-Year-Old Songs: Jojo

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Throughout this month-long look at songs that are 40 years old this year, Lori has known every one of them (and, of course, all the 50-year-old songs). The streak ends today. Sorry, I’m not leaving this guy off the list! Here’s today’s song. Jojo - Boz Scaggs It’s a good thing that the band Toto got their start as Boz Scaggs’ backing band, or there would be a plagiarism lawsuit over this song. Musically, this is basically Toto’s song “Georgy Porgy.” Of course, David Paich (who wrote the Toto song) and Boz shared a Grammy together for writing “Lowdown,” so..... As I mentioned yesterday about Linda Ronstadt’s follow-up to the monster album, Boz had the post-breakout blues. Down Two Then Left, the follow-up to the Grammy-winning Silk Degrees, had one of the greatest “we’re sorry we have to give this a negative review” opening lines in history from Rolling Stone magazine: “Boz Scaggs is a little like sex and rock and roll. When he’s good, he’s great; when he’s bad, he’s not all that bad.” I think that was a compliment. Anyway, it didn’t matter, because 1980’s Middle Man was everything that Silk Degrees was, and then some. The opening song on the album, “Jojo” is about a gun-toting pimp (or drug dealer....but I tend to think the line, “Say, what do you think of gentlemen wearing mink” lends itself to the stereotype of the 70s pimps). It’s a great song. It was also a good-sized hit (peaking at #17 in the US), even though it wasn’t as big as “Lowdown” (which was a top thee hit). Or as widely remembered/played and replayed today as “Lido Shuffle.” Jojo Written by David Foster, Boz Scaggs, and David Lasley Recorded by Boz Scaggs From Middle Man, 1980 How low can you go: