Returning to the US in 1967, Scaggs joined the Steve Miller Band in San Francisco, performing on Children of the Future and Sailor before launching his solo career with 1969’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. That last release became a massive commercial breakthrough, reaching No. 2 and remaining on the album charts for 115 weeks. It spawned three Top 40 hit singles: “It’s Over,” “Lido Shuffle,” and the Grammy Award–winning “Lowdown.” Subsequently, “We’re All Alone,” from that same album, became a No. 1 single for Rita Coolidge. Silk Degrees was followed by the albums Down Two Then Left and Middle Man and hit singles “Breakdown Dead Ahead,” “Jo Jo,” and “Look What You’ve Done to Me.”  

After an eight-year hiatus, Scaggs returned to the studio and released Other Roads, Some Change, Dig, the Grammy-nominated Come On Home, the unplugged Fade into Light, and Greatest Hits Live. He also toured with Donald Fagen’s New York Rock and Soul Revue while continuing to maintain a loyal audience in the US 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-and-bluesy A Fool to Care.

“Music has been a constant companion and I’m feeling more free with it than ever,” Scaggs says. “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.”