Sitting on a folding metal chair in a basement in 1976, I was tweaking the mix of a demo that Brad Delp, Jim Masdea and I had recorded in my home-brew studio. The possibility that anyone would be listening to this song, "More Than A Feeling," thirty years into the future was incomprehensible. In fact, the thought of keeping someone's interest for thirty minutes was a long shot!

After years of knocking on doors with tapes in hand, I had heard "not interested" expressed in every possible combination of words from the English language. Initially, I made these demo tapes in frighteningly expensive studios that cost more per hour than I could save in a week at my day job. Simultaneously there were numerous attempts to play the songs live in hopes of being "discovered." My friends Barry Goudreau and Jim Masdea played lead guitar and drums respectively, and after a long and painful search, Brad Delp finally saved the day as vocalist.

But somehow the music in my mind was not making it onto the demo tapes, and the only thing discovered playing live was that no one was really listening.

So using technology I acquired working at Polaroid, I built a crude multitrack tape machine and sequestered myself in my basement. There I could experiment alone, playing all the instruments myself one track at a time until I was satisfied with the result. The only exception was the drumming, which was all done by Jim since I only played air drums at the time.

Something magical happened when Jim and I got together to work on my songs; the basement walls disappeared and were replaced by a huge arena filled with screaming fans... as long as the headphones were loud enough. Alone later, as I played the bass, organ and guitar parts to the rolling tape with eyes closed, the same vision reappeared, inspiring a far better performance than this lonely space deserved. Then just a fantasy, it proved to be a vision of things to come.

After creating what I thought was a symphony of rock with the instruments, it was Brad's turn with the tape. Methodically he would overdub a one-man-vocal-orchestra that relegated my first chair musical efforts to the second row! Listening from the back seat, Brad's voice clearly brought the music to life.

This six-song demo and subsequent album turned the disco-crazed music industry on its head, and broke all the known rules for succeeding in the world of rock and roll. Boston's perceived "instant" stardom obscured six years of abject failure, and irritated critics whose customary involvement was rendered moot. Simultaneously the style was abducted and imitated by marketing executives to mass produce what became known as radio-friendly "corporate rock."

Guilty only of stumbling onto the secret formula of pop music success while performing musical experiments in the basement, we would eventually be smeared with that same label. It was ironically vindicating when I was sued shortly after for being creatively "uncooperative" with the corporation. Such a rebel.

Nothing about Boston was done by the book. The strangest twist was caused by the label's refusal to allow the original six-song demo to be used as the actual album; the material had to be recorded over again in a "professional" studio exactly the same way!

But I had completely adapted to playing and engineering alone in my basement; I knew I couldn't duplicate those performances without the solitude which had become both a blessing and a curse.

In a gutsy move, Epic producer John Boylan made me an offer: I record the multitrack masters in my basement myself, while he decoys the company recording a couple of Brad's songs in L.A. with Barry, Sib and Fran. Then I join him in L.A. for vocal overdubs and mixing. Oh, and we split the producer's royalty! You mean I even get paid? Deal.

So after laying down Sib and Jim's drum tracks, I settled in for the lengthy ordeal of reproducing a band's worth of bass, guitar and organ performances on the new, nearly identical, recording. Barry joined me to play the awesome lead guitar on "Long Time," and Fran to play the bass track for "Foreplay." In L.A., Brad's "Let Me Take You Home Tonight" was recorded in its entirety, and its the only song to embody performances of all five musicians that eventually ended up on stage for the first ever "Boston" concert in 1976.

This morning Tommy lost his fight with cancer. Everyone who has heard Tommy sing on stage, or on BOSTON albums, knows what a gifted artist he was, but few know how hard he worked to fill that role of BOSTON’s lead vocalist, and to turn himself into a top-tier live performer – or more importantly, what a dedicated father he was to his children. Tommy was a competitive athlete, and yet a gentle soul who is remembered by by his son and many others as a sweet man who did not deserve to be cut down at such a young age. It’s not surprising that one of his favorite BOSTON songs to sing was “To Be a Man.”

While many people will remember Tommy giving his audience amazing live performances, I will remember him as the incredible singer who appeared out of nowhere to rescue BOSTON in 2007, and gave all of us with the band 10 additional years of performing our most memorable live shows. Rest in peace Tommy, you did know what it took to be a man.

Tom Scholz, for BOSTON

photo: Jon Viscott