Boston is an American rock band from Boston, Massachusetts that achieved its most notable successes during the 1970s and 1980s. Centered on guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter, and producer Tom Scholz, the band is a staple of classic rock radio playlists. Boston's best-known works include the singles "More than a Feeling", "Peace of Mind", "Long Time", "Don't Look Back" and "Amanda". They have sold over 50 million albums worldwide,[2] including 31 million albums in the United States.
Barry Goudreau and Tom Scholz have significantly different versions of how the band started. The way Goudreau tells it, when he was a student at Boston University, he led a band called "Mother's Milk." One day, a somewhat older musician named Tom Scholz joined after answering an ad in a local weekly newspaper. Scholz was a recent MIT engineering graduate who worked at Polaroid who was primarily a keyboard player, but who rapidly developed as a guitar player after joining Goudreau's band. After years of practice in Scholz's home studio with singer Brad Delp and other local musicians, Mother's Milk evolved into what we know as Boston, and Scholz took over the leadership of the band. In 1976, after years of having their demo tapes rejected, the band got signed to Epic Records after (in Goudreau's words) Scholz "refine[d] the songs and recordings to a point where they could no longer be denied." The first album came out in August 1976 and sold 200,000 copies in just a few weeks. According to Goudreau's story, he was the founder of the band Boston— and he, Delp and Scholz were more or less equal contributors to the band's emergence. [4]
According to Scholz, Goudreau had little or nothing to do with Boston's founding. Scholz's version of the story is that Boston began when he began composing songs and recording demos where he played all of the instruments, except the drums. Scholz does confirm that Goudreau was present on earlier demos, but his two steadiest collaborators were Jim Masdea, who played drums (as well as keyboards), and singer Brad Delp who methodically overdubbed the vocals. This was all done in Scholz’s home studio. Just as in Goudreau's version of the story, the band was originally called "Mother's Milk." Scholz does agree that around 1970 he was in a band by that name with Goudreau: however, he asserts that his later Mother's Milk was an entirely separate band from Goudreau's.
The roots of the first album were created in these early demo sessions with songs such as "More Than a Feeling," "Hitch a Ride"(originally called "San Francisco Day"), "Peace of Mind," "Foreplay/Long Time" and "Rock & Roll Band". Scholz soon became frustrated with the limitations of the technology at the time and his inability to capture the sound he wanted, so he began building and designing his own equipment.
The first tapes Scholz sent out were rejected by the record labels. A subsequent set of tapes drew the attention of record industry vets Charlie McKenzie and Paul Ahern who signed the band to a management contract in late 1975 and brought them to the attention of Epic Records, a division of CBS.
Masdea left in early 1976 about the same time the band finally got signed. In one version of the story, he was asked to leave because the label was displeased with his performance, although according to other sources, he quit voluntarily to pursue other interests. (Some of Masdea's playing did end up on the final version of first album.) Masdea was briefly replaced by David Currier, but Sib Hashian (a long time friend of Delp's) took over when Currier quit in a dispute over money. The label also insisted that Scholz re-record the demo tapes in a professional studio with a full band. According to Scholz, it was only at this point that Hashian, Barry Goudreau and Fran Sheehan joined the band.
With the exception of "Let Me Take You Home Tonight", which was recorded in California under the direction of producer John Boylan, Scholz re-recorded the other seven tracks in his home studio with only Delp & Hashian (with Goudreau making an appearance on "Foreplay/Long Time" and Sheehan playing bass on "Foreplay"). CBS also insisted upon the name change to Boston from Mother's Milk. Originally only Tom Scholz and Brad Delp were signed to the management deal with Ahern & McKenzie and the record contract with CBS/Epic. And it was a few months after that that the other three Boston members were also written in for equal shares in the LP's performance royalties and tour income(according to an article in Musician Magazine 1/1/87 GonnaHitchaRide.com).
Delp said in a 1999 interview that the band was already in existence as far back as 1969. He replaced a lead singer whose name has been forgotten and at the time the band consisted of Goudreau on guitar and vocals, Scholz on Hammond Organ and Masdea on drums.
