Boston is a best-selling American rock band that achieved its most notable successes during the 1970s and 1980s. The music of Boston is often cited as having been influential in the music industry's move from hard rock in the 1970s to the power ballads that would dominate the 1980s. Centered on guitarist, songwriter, and producer Tom Scholz, the band is best known works include the singles " More Than a Feeling", " Peace of Mind", " Foreplay/Long Time", " Don't Look Back", and " Amanda".
Other notable hit songs that are still a staple of classic rock radio playlists include "Rock & Roll Band", "Smokin'", "Hitch a Ride", "Feelin' Satisfied", "A Man I'll Never Be", "Party", "We're Ready", and "I Need Your Love".
Boston began around 1969 when Scholz, an MIT engineering graduate, joined guitarist Barry Goudreau's band Mother's Milk, as a keyboardist. Although the band did not last, Scholz began to create a series of tape recordings in his home studio in Wayland, Massachusetts. At first he was primarily an engineer and keyboard player, accompanied by Goudreau, singer Brad Delp, and drummer Jim Masdea. The first tapes failed to interest record companies, but a second set of tapes, performed largely by Scholz on guitar, drew the attention of executives at Epic Records, a division of CBS who earlier did not accept their demos. It was only after the label insisted on seeing the band perform that bassist Fran Sheehan was added; the label's unhappiness with Masdea's performance led to his replacement by Sib Hashian for the recording of Boston's eponymous first album in 1975 and 1976.
Despite the lineup change, the first album consisted largely of note-for-note remakes of Scholz's basement tapes. (The song "Rock And Roll Band" tells an apocryphal story of the band's long climb to stardom, "Playing in bars/Sleeping in our cars.") Scholz would later state that the contribution of the new band members to recording was minimal.