A casual listen to the Boz Scaggs discography makes one thing obvious: Boz Scaggs is both a musical seeker and a man of sizable talent as a singer, songwriter and guitarist. His explorations in blues and R&B, Rock and Jazz have produced lasting work and a career that has brought with it acclaim, a loyal followin, and an enduring respect among musicians.

With MEMPHIS (429 Records), his first studio album in five years, Scaggs looks back musically and biographically. (His father and grandparents are from Memphis, as is his wife.) “I had been thinking about a record that involved going back into my past and finding songs that match my style and my voice,” Scaggs says. With producer Steve Jordan and a crack band he puts a distinctive touch on classics like “Rainy Night in Georgia,” “Corinna Corinna,” and “Mixed Up, Shook Up Girl,” as well as on a couple of originals. Thirteen tracks were recorded in three days at the city’s landmark Royal Studios, where the late Willie Mitchell produced so many of Al Green’s and Anne Peebles’ legendary albums.

“The project just fell out naturally,” Scaggs says. “It didn’t require working over takes or a lot of revising. Choosing the material came, to some degree, out of the work I’d been doing with the Dukes of September (a band featuring Donald Fagen, Michael McDonald and Boz). We’d considered hundreds of songs over the last three years so a number of these had been spinning around in my head for a while. Then when I sounded Steve Jordan about producing the record, his reaction gelled so completely and instantly with mine. Was it the first or second conversation we had where I thought he was reading my mind: Royal Studios in Memphis? Ace players like Willie Weeks and Ray Parker Jr. and Charles Hodges? YES.”

Raised in small towns in Oklahoma and Texas, Boz Scaggs took up the guitar at age 13. “As a kid in the Fifties I was swept away by music and radio. It seemed there weren’t enough hours in the day to keep up with that first wave of Rock and Roll coming out of (top 40 station) KLIF and (the local R&B station) KNOK. At night I had WLAC Nashville with deeper Blues and R&B out of the greater south, Jazz from Chicago’s WLS and out of Dallas on WRR an amazing show called Cat’s Caravan where the DJ Jim Lowe took us to school on Muddy Waters, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Memphis Slim, TBone Walker and the Delta and Chicago masters. My high school friend Lewis MacAdams later wrote about that program, ‘I embarked on a journey each night into the life I wanted to live.’ That was me, too.”

William Royce “Boz” Scaggs started playing in bands during high school in Dallas in the Sixties. He entered college at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and soon after decided instead to devote himself to journeyman playing around campuses and various clubs and resorts. Scaggs’ guitar and voice provided his self-described “ticket to ride” as he left the States to travel in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He developed a club following in Sweden and began his recording career there in 1965 with a solo album for Polydor. Curiosity along with yearning for a Blues and R&B band brought him to San Francisco in 1967. After a stint with fellow Texan, Steve Miller, on several albums, he signed a recording contract with Atlantic Records and debuted with Boz Scaggs, produced by friend and Rolling Stone founder, Jann Wenner. That record featured the renowned Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, Duane Allman and the slow-burn-to-high-heat track, “Loan Me a Dime.” Critical acclaim followed, as did a long-term relationship with Columbia Records. Boz would make seven records for Columbia including Moments, Boz Scaggs and Band, My Time, and Slow Dancer, and featured songs such as “We Were Always Sweethearts,” “Dinah Flo,” “You Make It So Hard,” and “Slow Dancer.”

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