Headline: rock, soul artist performs Oct. 27 as part of Marshall Artists Series

By DEREK HALSEY
For The Herald-Dispatch (Huntington, W.V.

Boz Scaggs is an acclaimed musician who has recorded songs that have become an enduring part of the American musical landscape.

Scaggs, who performs Tuesday, Oct. 27, at the Keith-Albee Performing Arts Center, has made his mark on the rock music side of the ledger as well as on the pop and soul charts. He began his career in the burgeoning rock 'n' roll scene of late-1960s San Francisco playing with the Steve Miller Band.

He went on to a solo career and, in 1969, recorded an album that would contain a memorable appearance by the late guitarist Duane Allman, who would go on to form the lauded Allman Brothers Band.

Scaggs encountered Allman when he recorded his "Loan Me A Dime" album in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, utilizing the collection of renowned session musicians based there. The 12-minute blues song "Loan Me a Dime," featuring an iconic solo from Allman, and is a tune Scaggs still performs in concert today, four-and-a-half decades later.

"After I made my first record and Duane came over to Muscle Shoals, we spent a week in the studio together," Scaggs said. "Duane, at that time, was living in Macon (Georgia), and the Allman Brothers Band had just come together and they were rehearsing every day around town. ... Duane's manager and I were good friends, and it was a small circle of people, and we would get together. There was a great soul food restaurant there (H & H Restaurant) and I knew all of the guys in the band and we would see each other around town a lot," he said.

Allman made the top 10 on Rolling Stone magazine's 100 Greatest Guitarists list even though he died in 1971 at only 24 years of age. Scaggs' collaboration with Allman was a matter of being at the right place at the right time and capturing lightning in a bottle. Looking back, Scaggs appreciates the time spent with Allman after the recording session was over.

"The closest time we got to spend together was when Duane asked me to take him up to Chattanooga (Tennessee) where there was a traveling guitar salesman who was camped out in a motel," Scaggs said.

"He had one of the greatest collections of original Dobros and National steel guitars, and Duane got word of it."

As the only person around who owned a car, Scaggs was drafted to drive Allman to Chattanooga.

"We spent the day driving up there and looking at guitars and driving back," he said. "Duane was a wonderful and lovely guy - a really focused, solid, hard-working and direct guy. He was a really nice man. And, of course, he was an enormous talent and a real easy and wonderful guy to be around," he said.

Scaggs went on to more soul-based grooves on his 1976 album "Silk Degrees." The recording went to No. 2 on the charts with several charting singles, including "Lowdown," "Lido Shuffle," "What Can I Say?" and "It's Over." The album stayed on the charts for 100 weeks and won a Grammy Award.

Scaggs' latest album is "A Fool To Care" and features the rock and soul singer and guitarist applying his unique touch to classic songs culled from the last 60 years or so, including duets with Bonnie Raitt and Lucinda Williams. The album was recorded in Nashville and features an all-star cast of session musicians including Steve Jordan, Willie Weeks, Ray Parker Jr., Jim Cox, Reggie Young and Paul Franklin.

These days, along with making music, Scaggs and his wife, Dominique, run a small winery in California's Napa Valley called Scaggs Vineyard along with winemaker Ken Bernards. More on the vineyard and Scaggs' latest album can be found at his website, www.bozscaggs.com.

"We only make about 300 cases a year," Scaggs said. "We are very small. My wife and I tried to make a little business out of it about four years ago. She runs it, and we are starting to sell most of our wine out. I'm happy. It is not a real business for me, but it is a chance to keep our vineyards happening. It is a little bit of farming."