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Two New Performances Coming to the Kauffman Center

Boz Scaggs with Special Guest The Robert Cray Band
Out of the Blues Tour 2022
and
Wheel of Fortune LIVE!

Kansas City, MO – The Kauffman Center has added two new Kauffman Center Presents shows to the 2022 calendar, highlighting its commitment to bringing extraordinary and diverse artists and genres to the community. Boz Scaggs with Special Guest The Robert Cray Band: Out of The Blues Tour 2022 will perform live on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022 at 7:30 p.m. in Muriel Kauffman Theatre at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Wheel of Fortune LIVE! is coming to the Muriel Kauffman Theatre on Friday, Nov. 25, 2022 at 7:30 p.m. 

ABOUT BOZ SCAGGS

It's appropriate that Boz Scaggs' new album is Out of the Blues, since the blues is what first sparked his five-decade musical career.

Born William Royce Scaggs in Canton, Ohio on June 8, 1944, he grew up in Oklahoma and Texas, where he spent his teenage years immersed in the blues, R&B and early rock 'n' roll. While attending school in Dallas, he played in local combos. After several years as a journeyman musician around Madison, WI and Austin, TX, Scaggs spent time traveling in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, eventually settling in Stockholm where he recorded the album Boz.

Returning to the U.S. in 1967, Scaggs joined the Steve Miller Band in San Francisco, performing on that group's albums Children of the Future and Sailor, before launching his solo career with 1968's seminal Boz Scaggs LP, recorded in Muscle Shoals, AL for Atlantic Records. Scaggs continued to mine a personalized mix of rock, blues and R&B influences, along with a signature style of ballads on such influential '70s albums as Moments, Boz Scaggs & Band, My Time, Slow Dancer and 1976’s Silk Degrees. The latter release became a massive commercial breakthrough, reaching Number Two and remaining on the album charts for 115 weeks. It spawned three Top 40 hit singles: "It's Over," "Lido Shuffle" and the Grammy-winning "Lowdown." Subsequently, "We're All Alone” from that same album, would become a #1 single for Rita Coolidge. Silk Degrees was followed by the albums Down Two Then Left and Middle Man, and such hit singles as "Breakdown Dead Ahead," "Jo Jo" and "Look What You've Done to Me." 

Despite his '70s successes, Scaggs spent much of the 1980s out of the music-biz spotlight, traveling, opening a family business, fathering young children and founding the San Francisco nightclub, Slim's, He returned to the studio after an 8-year hiatus and released, Other Roads, Some Change, Dig, the Grammy-nominated Come on Home, the unplugged Fade Into Light, the in-concert retrospective Greatest Hits Live as well as a stint touring with Donald Fagen’s New York Rock & Soul Review; all while continuing to maintain a loyal audience in the U.S. and overseas, particularly in Japan. A pair of albums of jazz standards, But Beautiful and Speak Low, the latter topping the Billboard Jazz chart, demonstrated Scaggs' stylistic mastery, as did the Southern-flavored Memphis and the rhythm & bluesy A Fool to Care.

Boz stated, "Music has been a constant companion and I'm feeling more free with it than ever," Scaggs comments. "I feel like I've found my voice through all these years, and I've gotten closer to where I want to be with my approach." bozscaggs.com

ABOUT ROBERT CRAY

Over the past four decades, Robert Cray has created a sound that rises from American roots, blues, soul and R&B, with five Grammy wins, 20 acclaimed studio albums and a bundle of live albums that punctuate the Blues Hall of Famer’s career. On his newest album, That’s What I Heard, Cray celebrates the music of Curtis Mayfield, Bobby “Blue” Bland, The Sensational Nightingales and more, alongside four newly written songs. “Funky, cool and bad,” is how Robert Cray describes the new album. “I thought if we could get this thing that Sam Cooke used to have, the kind of sound that early Sam Cooke records had, that we could pull this off,” adds producer Steve Jordan.

Cray and Jordan go way back, having met in 1987 during the making of the Chuck Berry documentary Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’ Roll. They started working together in 1999, when Jordan produced Cray’s Grammy-winning Take Your Shoes Off, and the recent Grammy-nominated LP, Robert Cray & Hi Rhythm. That’s What I Heard is their sixth album together. robertcray.com

ABOUT WHEEL OF FORTUNE LIVE!

America’s Game® is going on tour! “Wheel of Fortune Live!” is traveling across North America and coming to you with a chance to be part of the excitement! Join us and take a spin to solve the puzzles in person! Guests can try out to go ON STAGE and PLAY to WIN BIG at every show. Audience members will be randomly selected to win cash and prizes. One of the greatest game shows of all time wants to make everyone a winner at “Wheel of Fortune Live!” – so bring your family and get ready for some F-U-N!

TICKET INFORMATION

Tickets for Boz Scaggs range in price from $29 to $89 plus applicable fees. Tickets for Wheel of Fortune LIVE! Range from $39 to $69 plus applicable fees. Tickets for both events go on sale to the public at 10 a.m. May 20, 2022. Tickets will be available through the Kauffman Center Ticket Office at (816) 994-7222 or online at tickets.kauffmancenter.org.

For the Kauffman Center's latest COVID-19 policies, please visit kauffmancenter.org/health.

KAUFFMAN CENTER PRESENTS SERIES SCHEDULE*

The Kauffman Center Presents series features extraordinary and diverse artists from a variety of musical genres and performance styles. Upcoming events include:

• Saturday, June 4 – Franki Valli & The Four Seasons – 8 p.m., Muriel Kauffman Theatre
• Thursday, June 9 – Snarky Puppy – 7:30 p.m., Muriel Kauffman Theatre
• Saturday, June 12 – Future Stages Festival : FREE Family Event – 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Kauffman Center
• Tuesday, June 14 – Béla Fleck: My Bluegrass Heart – 7:30 p.m., Muriel Kauffman Theatre
• Friday, August 19 – Boz Scaggs With Special Guest The Robert Cray Band – 7:30 p.m., Muriel Kauffman Theatre
• Sunday, August 21 – Happy Together Tour 2022 – 7 p.m., Muriel Kauffman Theatre
• Friday, Sept. 2 – “Weird Al” Yankovic – 7:30 p.m., Muriel Kauffman Theatre
• Monday, Oct. 3 – Diana Krall ­– 7 p.m., Helzberg Hall
• Friday, Nov. 25 – Wheel of Fortune LIVE!  – 7:30 p.m., Muriel Kauffman Theatre

*Events announced to date. Additional performances will be announced throughout the season. Updates are available at kauffmancenter.org/kcpresents.

ABOUT THE KAUFFMAN CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS

The Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts – a major not-for-profit center for music, opera, theater and dance designed by Moshe Safdie – opened in 2011. Serving as a cultural cornerstone for Kansas City and the region, the Kauffman Center delivers extraordinary and diverse performing arts experiences. Honored as one of the World’s 15 Most Beautiful Concert Halls, the Kauffman Center attracts some of the world’s most renowned performers and entertainers.

Through educational outreach programs and community enrichment, the Kauffman Center supports Kansas City as a cultural destination. More information on the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts is available at kauffmancenter.org.

The Kauffman Center Presents series is made possible by the John N. and Marilyn P. McConnell Foundation. Additional support is provided by: Saint Luke’s Health System, Aristocrat Motors and Mercedes-Benz of Kansas City.

Visit the Kauffman Center’s online press room for media resources, multimedia library, press release archive and more: kauffmancenter.org/about/press-room/

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